The stalk is of a vivid green, thickest at the bottom, and tapering up to the top[21]; it is of a triangular form. In the Jordan, the single side, or apex of the triangle, stood opposed to the stream as the cut-water of a boat or ship, or the sharp angle of a buttress of a bridge, by which the pressure of the stream upon the stalk would be greatly diminished. I do not precisely remember how it stood in the lakes in Ethiopia and Egypt, and only have this remark in the notes I made at the Jordan. This construction of the stalk of the papyrus seems to reproach Aristotle with want of observation. He says that no plant had either triangular or quadrangular stalks. Here we see an instance of the contrary in the papyrus, whose stalk is certainly and universally triangular; and we learn from Dioscorides that many more have quadrangular stalks, or stems of four angles. It has but one root, which is large and strong[22], Pliny says, as thick as a man’s arm: So it was, probably, when the plant was fifteen feet high, but it is now diminished in proportion, the whole length of the stalk, comprehending the head, being a little above ten, but the root is still hard and solid near the heart, and works with the turning loom tolerably well, as it did formerly when they made cups of it. In the middle of this long root arises the stalk at right angles, so when inverted it has the figure of a T, and on each side of the large root there are smaller elastic ones, which are of a direction perpendicular to it, and which, like the strings of a tent, steady it and fix it to the earth at the bottom. About two feet, or little more, of the lower part of the stalk is cloathed with long, hollow, sword-shaped leaves, which cover each other like scales, and fortify the foot of the plant. They are of a dusky brown, or yellow colour. I suppose the stalk was cut off below, at about where these leaves end. The drawing represents the papyrus as growing. The head is not upright, but is inclined, as from its size it always must be in hot countries, in which alone it grows. In all such climates, there is some particular wind that reigns longer than others, and this being always the most violent, as well as the most constant, gives to heavy-headed trees, or plants, an inclination contrary to that from which it blows. This plant is called el Berdi in Egypt, which signifies nothing in Arabic, and I suppose is old Egyptian. I have been told by a learned gentleman[23], that in Syria it is known by the name of Babeer, which approaches more to the sound of papyrus, and paper; this I never heard myself, but leave it entirely upon his authority. BALESSAN, BALM, OR BALSAM.