I take no notice of the Lotus, a very common plant, and in great request among the Egyptians, of whose berries, in former times, they made bread. There was another Lotus in Africa, which gave its name to the Lotophagi or Lotus-eaters; because they lived upon the fruit of this tree, which had so delicious a taste, if Homer may be credited, that it made those who ate it forget all the sweets of their native country,(391) as Ulysses found to his cost in his return from Troy. In general, it may be said, that the Egyptian pulse and fruits were excellent; and might, as Pliny observes,(392) have sufficed singly for the nourishment of the inhabitants, such was their excellent quality, and so great their plenty. And, indeed, working men lived then almost upon nothing else, as appears from those who were employed in building the pyramids. Besides these rural riches, the Nile, from its fish, and the fatness it gave to the soil for the feeding of cattle, furnished the tables of the Egyptians with the most exquisite fish of every kind, and the most succulent flesh. This it was which made the Israelites so deeply regret the loss of Egypt, when they found themselves in the wilderness: “Who,” say they, in a plaintive, and at the same time, seditious tone, “shall give us flesh to eat? We remember the flesh which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers and melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick.(393) We sat by the flesh-pots, and we did eat bread to the full.”(394) But the great and matchless wealth of Egypt arose from its corn, which, even in an almost universal famine, enabled it to support all the neighbouring nations, as it particularly did under Joseph’s administration. In later ages, it was the resource and most certain granary of Rome and Constantinople. It is a well-known story, how a calumny raised against St. Athanasius, _viz._ of his having threatened to prevent in future the importation of corn into Constantinople from Alexandria, incensed the emperor Constantine against that holy bishop, because he knew that his capital city could not subsist without the corn which was brought to it from Egypt. The same reason induced all the emperors of Rome to take so great a care of Egypt, which they considered as the nursing mother of the world’s metropolis.