■40 APPENDIX. 



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We fee in fome of the Egyptian antique dames the 

 .iigure of Ifis fitting between fome branches of the banana 

 tree, as it is fuppofed, and; fome ha. id mis of ears of 

 wheat; you, fee likewife the hippopotamus ravaging a 

 quantity of banana tree. Yet the banana is merely adven- 

 titious in Eg)pt, it is a native of Syria ; it does not even exift 

 in the low hot country of Arabia Felix, bat cnoofes iome 

 elevation in the mountains where the air is temperate, and 

 is not found in Syria, farther to the fouth ward man lat 34 . 



After all, I do not doubt that it might have grown in 

 Mattareah, or in the gardens of Egypt or Rofetto ; but it is 

 not a plant of the country, and could never have enter- 

 ed into the lift of their hieroglyphics ; for this reafon, 

 it could not figure any thing permanent or regular in 

 •the hiftory of Egypt or its climate, I therefore imagine 

 that this hieroglyphic was wholly Ethiopian, and that the 

 fuppofed banana, which, as an adventitious plant, fignified 

 nothing in Kgypt, was only a reprefentation of the En- 

 fere, and that the record in the hieroglyphic of Ills and 

 tli ».; fete-tree was fomething that happened between har- 

 veil, which was about Auguft, and the time the Enfete- 

 tree became to be in ufe, which is in October. 



^he hippopotamus is generally thought to reprefent a 

 NUe [hat has been lb abundant as to be deftrucHve. When 

 therefore we fee upon the obelifks the hippopotamus def- 

 troying the banana, we may fuppofe it meant that the ex- 

 traordinary inundation ha.d gone fo far as not only to def- 

 troy 1 he wheat, but alio to retard or hurt the growth of the 

 EiifetCj which was to fupply its place. I do likewife conjec- 



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