Even many of those that the necessities of particular times have brought thither to supply wants with which they could not dispense, and those which curious hands have brought from foreign countries are not planted at random; for they would not grow in Egypt, but in chosen places formerly artificially raised above level, for gardens, and pleasure ground, where they are at this day watered by machinery; or upon banks above the calishes, which though near the water, are yet above the level of its annual inundation. Such is the garden of Mattareah, sometimes filled with exotic plants from all the countries around, from the veneration or superstition, pilgrims and dervishies, the only travellers of the east, have for that spot, the supposed abode of the Virgin Mary when she fled into Egypt, sometimes, as at present, so neglected as to have scarce one foreign or curious plant in it. The first kind of these adventitious productions, and the oldest inhabitant of Egypt brought there for use, is the sycamore, called Giumez[1] by the Arabs, which from its size, the facility with which it is sawn into the thinnest planks, and the largeness of these planks corresponding to the immense size of the tree, was most usefully adapted to the great demand they then had for mummy-chests, or coffins, which are made of this tree only: in order to add to its value, we may mention another supposed quality, its _incorruptibility_, very capable of giving it a preference, as coinciding with the ideas which led the Egyptians to those fantastic attempts of making the _body eternal_.