XII. by the fea-fide for quails, vol. 2. p. 206, 207; though they are not used, if Maillet fpeaks truth, in their fishing. OBSERVATION XIV. [There seems to be a good deal of reason to queftion the accuracy of our translation of Numb. xi. 5: "We remember the fish " which we did eat in Ægypt freely; the "cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, " and the onions, and the garlick. I am not the first that has called the juftness of this tranflation into question; the learned and celebrated Ludolphus was not fatisfied with thofe verfions, which, like our's, represent the children of Ifrael as complaining for want of the leeks they were wont to eat in Ægypt: yet these translations are conformable to that of the Seventy, an Ægyptian work. Ludolphus, from the Arabic, has proposed to tranflate the third word lettuce, or falads in general', inftead of leeks. To enable us to judge of this in the faireft manner, it is requifite to confider what are the most common things that are at this time eaten in Ægypt, and which are more efpecially grateful on account of their cooling qualities, or least disgustful in very hot weather. It appears from a preceding Ob See Bishop Patrick on the place. The Bishop, however, has been guilty of a little overfight, when he supposes the word Chatzir (the third word) is translated onions, that is the word that is tranflated leeks, fervation, fervation, that fish was eagerly defired by the Egyptians in hot weather; and thefe vegetables without doubt were fuch as were wont to be eaten at fuch times, or at least were found to be cooling, and on that account pleasureable.] Maillet then, in defcribing the vegetables that the Ægyptians ufe for food, tells us, that melons, cucumbers, and onions, are fome of the most common; and concerning the last of these, he says, they are fweeter than in any other place in the world; that an hundred pounds weight of them may be fometimes purchased for eight or ten fols' and that there is fuch an abundance of them, that they fill all the ftreets of Cairo, where they fell them ready prepared for eating. He obferves, that there grows wild in the fields of Egypt a fuccory, or endive, a thousand times fweeter than that of our gardens; that it comes up naturally in the meadows, without any art for its improvement, but is found much more plentifully on the fide of Matarée, than in any other part of the country: none but Franks, he farther tells us, take any pains to have it blanched; as to the common people, they take it just as they find it, and half of them fcarce eat any thing elfe. He tells us alfo that purflane is very common here; that the Roman lettuces begin in November, and continue to April. 2 Lett. 3 9. halfpenny. A fol is not worth much more than an Thefe lettuces are all very good, but those that are sown laft are much preferable to the others. They have a fugar-like taste, fo agreeable, that they eat them without falt, without oil, without vinegar. "I myself,”. Maillet fays, "do the fame, without being "able to say whether I am led to it by ex ample, or the nature of the thing itself." Thefe, with radishes, carrots, beans, and the leaves of the vine, are all the things of this kind, I think, which he speaks of as eaten in Ægypt, excepting a plant that grows near the mountains of that country, the pith of which the Arabs, who are shepherds, as the Ifraelites were, he was told, were wont to dry for food. To which we are to add, I prefume, the ancient lotus: whether we are to understand by it the colocaffia, which Maillet fays is common in that country, and its root very good to eat when properly dreffed, and which, according to Monf. Belon, the Ægyptians actually boil with most of their meat; or whether we understand it of a plant more nearly refembling the nymphæa, or water-lily, and which perhaps is described by du Halde in his History of Chna. Be it the one or the other, or a vegetable 5 See Ray's Collect. of Tra 6 4 Lett. 9. p. 18. vels, part 2. p. 92. ages and Travels gives this account of it from du Halde, In artificial fish-ponds, and often in the marshes, there "grows a flower called lyen-wha, in much efteem with "the Chinese. By the leaves, the fruit, and stalk, it ap • Aftley's Collection of Voy 66 pears vegetable different from both, it appears in the Præneftine table, rifing up every where in the waters of Egypt, in the time of the inundation of that country', and confequently we may believe, grew wild in Ægypt in the time the Ifraelites fojourned there, as it did at the time of making that table. Let us now confider what are thofe vegetables they were most likely to wish for in a time of great heat, when they were wont particularly to defire fish. Cucumbers, every body knows, are extremely cooling and re "pears to be the nenuphar, nymphæa, or water-lily; " which is but little valued in Europe." Upon which this collector obferves in a note, that du Halde elsewhere fays, it differs much from the water-lily, as well in the fruit, as the bloffom and root. Then after having faid in the text, from du Halde, that whole lakes are covered with its flowers, and that it shoots up above the top of the water, a yard, or yard and half, &c, he fays, "Its colour is either "violet, or white, or partly red, and partly white: the "fmell is very agreeable: its fruit is of the fize of an hazle nut, the kernel whereof is white, and well-tafted. The " phyficians prescribe it to nourish and ftrengthen people "weakened by long fickness: it is also very cooling in fum mer. The leaves are long, and float on the water. . . . "The root is knotty, like that of reeds; its pith and sub"ftance is very white. This plant is esteemed all over "the empire, every part of it being of ufe; they even "make meal of it, which ferves for feveral occafions." Vol. 4. p. 304, 305. If modern defcribers of this Chinese plant contradict themselves, in their accounts of it, fhall we wonder at fome inaccuracies in the ancient defcriptions of the lotus? The curious would do well in publishing an exact account of this Chinese plant, and in determining whether the fame does not grow in Ægypt. table in Shaw. 4 See the freshing freshing to the Eastern people in hot wea ther. Melons are the fame. We We may then pay that deference, I think, to the Ægyptian tranflation of the Seventy, as to fuppose they were two of the things the Ifraelites longed for in the wilderness. Maillet makes no mention of leeks in his catalogue of the edible vegetables of Ægypt; they then could hardly be meant. Nor are leeks, I think, reckoned to be of a cooling nature. But what seems to put it out of all reasonable doubt is, the fame word is used to express the food of horses and mules, 1 Kings xviii. 5, which can hardly therefore be allowed to mean leeks, but may very well stand for fuch vegetables as grew promiscuously with grafs, which the fuccory or endive, it feems, doth; for Maillet tells us it comes up naturally in the meadows. The fame word then that denotes grafs, may very well be supposed to include the herbs that grew among the grass, and particularly this fuccory or endive, which are mentioned by the writers on the Materia Medica as very cooling plants. Whether the word means lettuce too, and all falads in general, as Ludolphus supposes, is not fo certain. If half the ancient Egyptians eat the fuccory or endive, and scarce any thing elfe, as Maillet obferves of thofe of modern times, this vegetable muft, without doubt, be included in fome of the words here made use of, most probably in the third, we remember the cucumbers, the |