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With respect to the Egyptians themselves, it is to be remarked that
those who live in the corn country, devoting themselves, as they do,
far more than any other people in the world, to the preservation of the
memory of past actions, are the best skilled in history of any men that
I have ever met. The following is the mode of life habitual to them:
For three successive days in each month they purge the body by means of
emetics and clysters, which is done out of a regard for their health,
since they have a persuasion that every disease to which men are liable
is occasioned by the substances whereon they feed. Apart from any such
precautions, they are, I believe, next to the Libyans, the
healthiest people in the world - an effect of their climate, in my
opinion, which has no sudden changes. Diseases almost always attack
men when they are exposed to a change, and never more than during
changes of the weather. They live on bread made of spelt, which they
form into loaves called in their own tongue cyllestis. Their drink is
a wine which they obtain from barley, as they have no vines in their
country. Many kinds of fish they eat raw, either salted or dried in
the sun. Quails also, and ducks and small birds, they eat uncooked,
merely first salting them. All other birds and fishes, excepting
those which are set apart as sacred, are eaten either roasted or boiled.
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