The ancient Egyptians, though they worshipped onions and garlic, for which they were handsomely ridiculed by Juvenal, seem to have paid little respect to trees, probably because, besides the palm, so few were known to them. There is, however, according to that wonderful book, Sir James Fraser’s “Golden Bough,” some evidence to show that they believed that spirits haunted trees; at any rate, the tamarisk was sacred to Osiris—the god and ruler who represented the principle of good, as his brother Typho did that of evil. The story of the death of Osiris is curious as a contradiction of the idea of immortality with which deity is usually endowed. The god, having become King of Egypt, devoted himself to the civilization of his people, and to further that end, set out to travel over the world, leaving his wife Isis to reign in his place. When he came back, Typho, with other conspirators, among whom was an Ethiopian queen, named Aso, plotted to kill his brother. So, having procured the exact measurement of Osiris, he caused a box to be made to fit him, and having invited Osiris to a feast, he caused the box, which was of rare workmanship, to be brought in, saying he would give it to any one present whom it would fit. All the guests tried it in vain; at last Osiris laid himself down in it, and the conspirators, rushing forward, fastened down the lid with nails and molten lead. Then the box was carried to the riverside. It floated down the stream and was carried by the waves of the sea to the coast of Byblos, and lodged in the branches of a tamarisk bush. There is much more of this fable in Sir Gardner Wilkinson’s great book—not all of it very edifying reading; but that is how the tamarisk became a sacred tree.