The abhorrence of the old Egyptians for the bean is well known, and many silly reasons have been assigned for it; but that which has most met the approbation of the most learned men is, in my humble opinion, the weakest of them all. They say, the aversion to the bean arose from its resembling the phallus; but the crux ansata, or the cross with the handle to it, which is put in the hand of every Egyptian hieroglyphic of Isis, Osiris, or whatever the priests have called them, is likewise agreed by the learned to represent the phallus; and the figure of these nudities, without vail or concealment, is plain in all their statues. Now, I would ask, What is the reason why they abhor a bean because it represents these parts which, at the same time, by their own option or choice, are exposed in the hand or person of every figure which they exhibit to public view? The bean, however, is not cultivated in Abyssinia, neither is it in Egypt; lupines grow up in both, and lupines in both are eradicated like a weed, and lupines were what is called _faba Ægyptiaca_. Though I cannot pretend to know the true reason of this, yet I will venture to give a guess:--The origin of great part of religious observances of Egypt began with the worship of the Nile, and probably at the head of it. The country of the Agows, as well where the Nile rises as in parts more distant, is all a honey country; not only their whole sustenance, but their trade, their tribute to the king, and the maintenance of a great part of the capital, depends upon honey and butter, the common food of the better sort of people when they do not eat flesh; it composes their drink also in mead or hydromel. Now, this country, when uncultivated, naturally produces lupines, and the blossoms of these becoming food for the bees, gives the honey such a bitterness that no person will eat it, or use it any way in food or for drink.--After the king had bestowed the village of Geesh upon me, though with the consent of Fasil its governor, that egregious shuffler, to make the present of no use to me, sent me, indeed, the tribute of the honey in very large jars, but it all tasted so much of the lupines that it was of no earthly use whatever. Their constant attention is to weed out this bitter plant; and, when any of those countries are desolated by war, we may expect a large crop of lupines immediately to follow, and, for a time, plenty of bad honey in consequence. It is, then, this destructive bean that Pythagoras, who, it is said, ate no flesh, regarded as an object of detestation; it was equally so among the Abyssinians and Egyptians for the same reason. Both nations, moreover, have an aversion to hogs flesh, and both avoid the touch of dogs.