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From Egypt the Lotus was carried to Assyria, and Layard found it among fir-cones and honeysuckles on the later sculptures of Nineveh. The Greeks dedicated it to the nymphs, whence the name Nymphaea. Nor did the Romans disregard it, though the Lotus to which Ovid's nymph Lotis was changed, servato nomine, was a tree, and not a flower.
We made a long herborization in a thick forest, extending beyond the Hato, and abounding in cedrelas, browneas, and fig-trees with nymphaea leaves. The trunks of these last are covered with very odoriferous plants of vanilla, which in general flower only in the month of April.
The immediate river banks were clad with sedge, and the broad leaves of the nymphaea, a plant like the calamus of Asia, but here used only as a toothpick, began to oust the rushy and flaggy growth of the lower bed. The pink balls of the spinous mimosa, and bright flowers, especially the convolvulus and ipomaea, illuminated the dull green.
Following a gully, we descended into the valley of a creek flowing to the southward, and which probably joined the creek I had left below the place of our last encampment. In the lower part of the gully, we came upon some fine Nymphaea ponds and springs surrounded by ferns. The whole valley, though narrow, was beautifully grassed.
We travelled about ten miles N. 50 degrees W., through a succession of tea-tree and Cypress pine thickets of the worst description, interrupted by three creeks, the first dry, the second with pools of brackish water, and the third with chains of Nymphaea ponds within and parallel to its bed.
Reeds, similar to those of Europe, and Polygonums almost identical as to species, surround the water, the surface of which is covered with the broad leaves of Villarsia, exactly resembling those of Nymphaea alba, and with several species of Potomogeton.
The creek wound between baked sandstone hills, and was alternately enlarging into Nymphaea ponds, and running in a small stream over a pebbly or sandy bed. Pandanus, drooping tea-trees, Terminalias, Acacias, and Sarcocephalus gave it a rich green appearance. The apple-gum and Eugenia, with ribbed scarlet fruit, grew on the flats.
In this short time every tint of every petal is transformed; it is gorgeous in beauty, but it is "Hebe turned to Magdalen." But our rustic water-lily, our innocent Nymphaea, never claiming such a hot-house glory, never drooping into such a blush, blooms on placidly in the quiet waters, till she modestly folds her leaves for the last time, and bows her head beneath the surface forever.
But the true Egyptian flower was Nymphaea Lotus, though Nymphaea caerulea, Moore's "blue water-lilies," can be traced on the sculptures also.
There is a large reservoir and also a natural lake near the place, both containing aquatic plants, whose leaves rest on the surface like our water lilies, but they are not so elegant as our nymphaea, either in leaf or flower. On the banks of these pools grow quantities of a species of fan-leaved palm tree, the Carana, whose stems are surrounded by whorls of strong spines.
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