Romans, after long trial,
preferred it to parchment. The lotus was a large white water-lily of
exquisite beauty. Kings offered it to the gods; guests wore it at
banquets; architectural forms were modelled upon it; it was employed in
the ornamentation of thrones. Whether its root had the effect on men
ascribed to it by Homer may be doubted; but no one ever saw it without
recognizing it instantly as "a thing of beauty," and therefore as "a joy
for ever."

[Illustration: DOM AND DATE PALMS.]

Nor can Egypt have afforded in ancient times any very exciting amusement
to sportsmen. At the present day gazelles are chased with hawk and hound
during the dry season on the broad expanse of the Delta; but anciently
the thick population scared off the whole antelope tribe, which was
only to be found in the desert region beyond the limits of the alluvium.
Nor can Egypt, in the proper sense of the word, have ever been the home
of red-deer, roes, or fallow-deer, of lions, bears, hyaenas, lynxes, or
rabbits. Animals of these classes may occasionally have appeared in the
alluvial plain, but they would only be rare visitants driven by hunger
from their true habitat in the Libyan or the Arabian uplands. The
crocodile, however, and the hippopotamus were actually hunted by the
ancient Egyptians; and they further indulged their love of sport in the
pursuits of fowling and fishing. All kinds of waterfowl are at all
seasons abundant in the Nile waters, and especially frequent the pools
left by the retiring river--pelicans, geese, ducks, ibises, cranes,
storks, herons, dotterels, kingfishers, and sea-swallows. Quails also
arrive in great numbers in the month of March, though there are no
pheasants, snipe, wood-cocks, nor partridges. Fish are very plentiful in
the Nile and the canals derived from it; but there are not many kinds
which afford much sport to the fisherman.

Altogether, Egypt is a land of tranquil monotony. The eye commonly
travels either over a waste of waters, or over a green plain unbroken by
elevations. The hills which inclose the Nile valley have level tops, and
sides that are bare of trees, or shrubs, or flowers, or even mosses. The
sky is generally cloudless. No fog or mist enwraps the distance in
mystery; no rainstorm sweeps across the scene; no rainbow spans the
empyrean; no shadows chase each other over the landscape. There is an
entire absence of picturesque scenery. A single broad river, unbroken
within the limits of Eg