410 FREAKS OF PLANT LIFE. 



our own white water lily, which is further strengthened 

 by what is recorded of the fruit. " The size of the 

 seed-vessel is equal to that of the largest poppy head, 

 and it is divided by separations in the same manner 

 as the seed-vessel of the poppy, but the seed, which 

 is like millet, is more condensed. The Egyptians 

 lay these seed-vessels in heaps to perish, and when 

 they are rotten, the mass is washed in the river, and 

 the seed taken out and dried, and is afterwards made 

 into loaves, baked, and used for food." 1 In the prin- 

 cipal features, all the other authorities agree. The 

 fruit, therefore, corresponds with that of a water lily, 

 and, moreover, it is said to possess a farinaceous root, 

 which was eaten. From these descriptions it is evident, 

 as more fully discussed elsewhere, 2 that the sacred 

 lotos of the Nile was a species of Nymphcea, or water 

 lily, common in the waters of that river. When 

 Savigny returned from Egypt after the French in- 

 vasion of 1798, he brought home a blue Nymphcea, 

 which corresponds closely in habit to the conven- 

 tional lotos so common on Egyptian monuments. 



It seems very probable that the lotos-flower, which 

 is represented in the hands of guests at Egyptian 

 banquets (fig. 85), and those presented as offerings to 



1 Theophrastus. 



2 M. C. Cooke on the " Lotus of the Ancients," in " Popular 

 Science Review," vol. x. (1871), p. 260. 



