Note 227 — TALE OF KING OMAR BIN AL-NU'UMAN AND HIS SONS SHARRKAN AND ZAU AL-MAKAN, AND WHAT BEFEL THEM OF THINGS SELD-SEEN AND PEREGRINE.[138] (continued 2)

Arab. Sadda'l-Aktár, a term picturesque enough to be preserved in English. "Sadd," I have said, is a wall or dyke, the term applied to the great dam of water-plants which obstructs the navigation of the Upper Nile, the lilies and other growths floating with the current from the (Victoria) Nyanza Lake. I may note that we need no longer derive from India the lotus-lily so extensively used by the Ancient Egyptians and so neglected by the moderns that it has well nigh disappeared. All the Central African basins abound in the Nymphæa and thence it found its way down the Nile-Valley.