At an Egyptian funeral each guest was presented with one of the flowers. It was the custom, too, to have the blossoms sculptured upon the tombs.
The lotus has had a very marked influence upon architecture. We find its leaves and buds appearing in the classic columns. In every phase of antique carving we find its flower most frequently chosen to embellish the work.
The lotus has been imported into Japan, and the people seem to have been more inspired in their art work by it than by anything else to be found in the field of nature.
When the petals of the lotus blossom fall, they leave behind a seed cup three inches in diameter. These seed cups contain immense seeds, of such shape that the ancient Greek and Latin writers used to speak of them as "Egyptian beans." They were eaten in large quantities by the people of the valley of the Nile. The Egyptians sometimes made a kind of bread of these seeds.
The question may come to our minds why the problem of the source of the Nile, which had busied the thoughts of students for centuries, should have been so recently solved. Indeed, it does seem remarkable that the source of a river, at whose mouth one of the earliest and most civilized nations of the globe had established a home, should have remained veiled in darkness.
The great want of success in discovering the sources of the Nile was due, no doubt, to the great length of the river and the difficulty of access to the regions through which it took its course. The peculiarities of climate, too, and the danger from the ignorance, barbarism, and superstition of the native tribes, no doubt had their influence in retarding the exploration of the Nile.
Then, it has been discovered, during the course of the exploration, that a river may bear as many names as there are different tribes in the country which it drains.
Each tribe speaks a different dialect. Often these tribes are hostile in their relations with one another. Sometimes tribes, if not hostile, hold no intercourse, or have no means of communication with others.
Each tribe, in its own tongue, gives to the principal stream a name signifying the river. These differently sounding names were for a long time very misleading and very puzzling to the explorers, as they endeavored to trace a river in its wanderings.