Sonnini de Manoncourt, Charles Nicolas Sigisbert: Travels in upper and lower Egypt (Band 1) (London, 1807)

AND LOWER. EGYPT. 3 I 7

ployed it, for the most part, in making cases for
mummies: its fruit does not hang, like that of
other trees, along the houghs and branches, and
at their extremity; it is fastened to the trunk
itself and to the larger stems. It is a species of
fig very like the common one, but more insipid.
The natives eat it with pleasure; it is considered
as refreshing, and calculated to quench thirst.

The schhlime is a scarcer shrub, and one which
is only cultivated as a curiosity in some of the
gardens of Rossetta, It bears leguminous flowers
of a deep yellow, and oblong leaves terminating
in a point. Long pods, bent in the form of a
scythe, succeed the flowers; these contain flat-
tened seeds, shaped like a heart, the middle of
which is gray, and surrounded with a large border,
jutting out and of a brown colour. The Egyp-
tians consider these seeds as a specific against
ophthalmy, a disease so prevalent in their coun-
try. They pound them, and reduce them to a
yellow powder, which is blown into the eyes
either pure or mixed with pulverised sugar. Al-
though the schishme thrives very well in the cool
and shaded places of the fields of Rossetta, the
seed which it produces there is not esteemed;
that is preferred which is brought from Nubia,
where probably this shrub is indigenous.

I saw