158 Notes on the Congo River. 
crocodile, and various siluridse, some of gigantic 
size, haunt the lakes and rivers. The nymphaea, 
lotus or water-lily, forms rafts of verdure ; and the 
stream-banks bear the calabash, the palmyra, the 
oil-palm, and the papyrus. Until late years it was 
supposed that the water-lily, sacred to Isis, had 
been introduced into Egypt from India, where it 
is also a venerated vegetable, and that it had died 
out with the form of Fetishism which fostered it. 
It has simply disappeared like the crocodile from 
the Lower Nile. Finally, to conclude this rapidly 
outlined sketch, all at the present moment happily 
share the same fate; they are being robbed of 
their last mysteries ; the veil of Isis is fast yielding 
to the white man’s grasp. 
We can hardly as yet answer the question 
whether the Congo was known to the ancients. 
Our acquaintance with the oldest explorations is 
at present fragmentary, and we are apt to assume 
that the little told us in our school-books is the 
sum-total of former exploits. But possibly in¬ 
scriptions in the New World, as well as in the 
Old, may confirm the “ first circumnavigation ” so 
simply recounted by Herodotus, especially that of 
the Phoenicians, who set out from the Red Sea, 
and in three years returned to the Mediterranean. 
The expression, “ they had the sun to the right,” 
is variously explained. In the southern hemi¬ 
sphere the sailors facing west during our winter 
