names of that plant. At others they call her, she who dwells in the Lotos, and also she who sprung from the Lotos." But the Lotos here spoken of must not be confounded with the Rhamnus Lotos of Lybia, on the coast of what was anciently called the Syrtis Minor, and which gave name to the people, called, by the Greeks, Lotophaga. The Rhamnus Lotos is a shrub about four or five feet high, producing numerous berries; which, being variously prepared, furnished an article of excellent food to the inhabitants of the country. Homer ascribes to it the quality of producing forgetfulness; but this must be considered as a poetical figure, to express the happiness of a people, furnished with a delicious aliment, without the necessity of labour, and which inclined those who visited the country to remain there, and forget their own.* Xenophon mentions it in his harangues to the Ten thousand;+ and Pliny * See Odyssey, lib. ix. v. 94 & seq. says, it furnished subsistence to the Roman armies when traversing that part of Africa.* A late celebrated traveller,+ speaking of this plant, says: "These (its berries), called Tomberongs, are small farinaceous berries, of a yellow colour and delicious taste, which I know to be the fruit of the Rhamnus Lotos of Linnæus. The negroes shewed us two large baskets full, which they had collected in the course of the day. These berries are much esteemed by the natives; who convert them into a sort of bread, by exposing them for some days to the sun, and afterwards pounding them gently in a wooden mortar, until the farinaceous part of the berry is separated from the stone. This meal is then mixed with a little water, and formed into cakes; which, when dried in the sun, resemble in colour and flavour the sweetest gingerbread. The stones are afterwards put into a vessel of water, and * Pliny, lib. v. c. 4.-and lib. xiii. c. 17 and 18. + See Travels in the Interior of Africa, by Mungo Park, 8vo. edit. p. 147 & seq. shaken about, so as to separate the meal which may still adhere to them: this communicates a sweet and agreeable taste to the water; and with the addition of a little pounded millet, forms a pleasant gruel called fondi, which is the common breakfast in many parts of Ludamar, during the months of February and March. This fruit is collected by spreading a cloth upon the ground, and beating the branches with a stick."* The Lotos, venerated by the Hindūs, and formerly by the Egyptians, is an aquatic plant. Sir William Jones, in the argument to two Hymns to Pracriti, says: "It may here be observed, that Nymphæa, not Lotos, is the generic name in Europe * See also Herodotus, lib. iv. c. 177 and 178.— Athenæus, Deipnoso. lib. xiv. c. 18, who quotes the 12th Book of Polybius, which is lost.-Theophrastus's Hist. Plant. lib. iv. c. 4.-Shaw's Travels, vol. i. p. 262 et seq.-Article by M. des Fontaines, Mémoires de l'Academie des Sciences, 1788, p. 443.-Rennell's Geographical System of Herodotus, examined and explained, p. 625 & seq. of the flower consecrated to Isis: the Persians know by the name of Nilufer, that species of it which botanists ridiculously call Nelumbo, which is remarkable for its curious pericarpium, where each of the seeds contains in miniature the leaves of a perfect vegetable. The Lotos of Linnæus is a papilionaceous plant, but he gives the same name to another species of Nymphæa, and the word Lotos is so constantly applied among us to the Nilufer, that any other would be hardly intelligible.”* 66 The true Lotos of Egypt is the Nymphæa Nilufer, and which in Sanscrit has all the following names: Padma, Nalina, Aravinda, Maholpala, Camala, Cuseshaya, Sahasrapatra, Sarasa, Panceruha, Tamarasa, Sarasiruha, Rajiva, Visaprasuna, Pushcara, Ambharuka, and Satapra. The new blown flowers of the rose-coloured Padma, have a most agreeable fragrance; the white and yellow have less odour; the blue 1 * Jones, vol. xiii. p. 246. am told is a native of Cashmir and Persia."* In Egypt it grew in the canals that conducted the water of the Nile to the neighbouring plains, and in recesses on the borders of the river itself: its tubular roots, black without, white within, sprang from the muddy soil below; the flower and leaves displayed themselves above the surface of the water. In India it has also its existence in the water. "The seeds are very numerous, minute and round. The flowers of the blue, beautifully azure; but when full blown, more diluted, less fragrant than the red, or rose-coloured, but still with a delicate scent. The leaves are radical, subtargeted, hearted, deeply scollop-toothed. On one side dark purple, reticulated; on the other, dull green, smooth. smooth. Petals very smooth, long and tubular." Sir William Jones observes, that there is a variety * Jones, vol. v. p. 128. |