6 APPENDIX. 



refembled withered grafs or hay, and made a bad contrail 

 with the richnefs and beauty of the rofe, he had faid well. 

 But notwithstanding what Pliny has written, the head of the 

 papyrus was employed, not only to make crowns for ftatues 

 of the gods, but alfo to make cables for fhips. We are told 

 that Antigonus made ufe of nothing elfe for ropes and cables 

 to his fleets, before the ufe of fpartum, or bent- grafs, was 

 known, which, though very little better, ftill ferves that pur* 

 pofe in fmall fhips on the coaft of Provence to this day. 

 The top of the papyrus was like wife ufed for fewing and 

 caulking the veflels, by forcing it into the feams, and after- 

 wards covering it with pitch. 



Pliny * tells us, that the whole plant together was ufed 

 for making boats, apiece of the acacia- tree being put in the 

 bottom to ferve as the keel, to which plants were joined, being 

 firit fewed together, then gathered up at flem and flern, and 

 the ends of the plant tied fall there, " Conferitur bibula 

 Memphitis cymba papyro ;" and this is the only boat they 

 ftill have in Abyflinia, which they call Tancoa, and from 

 the ufe of thefe it is that Ifaiah defcribes the nations, pro- 

 bably the Egyptians, upon whom the vengeance of God was 

 fpeedily to fall. I imagine alfo that the junks of the Red 

 Sea, faid to be of leather, were firft built with papyrus and 

 covered with fkins. In thefe the Homerites trafficked 

 with their friends the Sabeans acrofs the mouth of the Red 

 Sea, but they can never perfuade me, however generally 

 and confidently it has. been averted, that vefTels of this 

 kind could have lived an hour upon the Indian ocean. 



The 



* Plin. Nat. Hill. lib. xiil. caj\ n, 



