Malte Brun, three or four of them form as heavy a load as a man can carry; but though their dimensions here are far more moderate,—the sweet melon of Ispahan, which is one of the largest varieties, seldom exceeding ten pounds in weight,—their skin is so much thinner than that of other kinds, that they afford nearly twice as much flesh as those do, even when no larger in size, besides being peculiarly sweet and rich in flavour. Not needing such powerful sunshine as is required to penetrate the thick hides of their pachyderm brethren, they can be ripened much later than the latter.
The plant which produces the Water Melon is of a different species (Melos citrullus), and may be easily distinguished from the varieties of Melos cucurbita by its deeply cut leaves, while the fruit itself shows an equally marked distinction in its smooth green surface. Roundish or oval in form, it is usually rather large sized, sometimes measuring a foot and a half in length; the flesh is white shading into red or yellow towards the centre, and the seeds are very dark brown, or black. As it could not be raised in this country except artificially by the aid of glass, and Parkinson, who wrote in 1629, is the first English writer on such subjects who gives directions for its culture by means of hot-beds and bell-glasses, it is not supposed to have been introduced very long before that time; and in a climate where heat rarely becomes very oppressive, its watery insipidity has never been very highly appreciated; but though far inferior to other melons in richness of flavour, it is yet more prized in very sultry climates on account of its abundant flow of deliciously cool juice, the central pulp being, when ripe, almost in a fluid state. Identified with the “melons” mentioned in Scripture, water melons are said to have originated in the Levant, but are found abundantly (and are probably indigenous) in India and China; and, requiring very little care or attention, immense fields of them are raised annually in the warmer States of America; in Southern Europe they are both common and popular, and in Africa, in the words of Husselquest, “This fruit serves the Egyptians for meat, drink, and physic. It is eaten in abundance during the season even by the richer sort of people; but the common people, on whom Providence has bestowed nothing but poverty and patience, scarcely eat anything but these during their season, and are obliged to put up with worse fare at other times.” It is one particular and rather rarer kind, the juice of which, when the fruit is full or almost over-ripe, that is administered in fevers as the only medicine the poorer Egyptian has within his power.
Later travellers give similar accounts of their great abundance and utility in Egypt, one recent writer in particular stating that “water melons hold the first rank among Egyptian fruits,” and that, though constituting a chief item in the diet of the poorest classes, they are also usually seen at the table of people of rank, it being the custom to eat slices of water melon at dinner in the intervals between each different dish. He adds that “they certainly come to great perfection in this country, and, as I myself experienced, may be eaten freely in any quantities without danger.” This, however, is by no means the case in cooler climates, for they are said to cause worms if indulged in constantly, and more serious consequences have occasionally ensued from eating them to excess, sudden death having even been known to follow an imprudence of this kind. The whole melon tribe indeed are scarcely to be reckoned perfectly wholesome, some constitutions being quite unable even to taste them with impunity, though on the majority of people they produce no bad effect when partaken of with moderation. As a general rule, it has been found that the hotter the weather the better are melons, and the less danger is there in indulging in them freely. In Paris, where they rarely appear at the dessert, being mostly eaten as a hors d’œuvre with salt, which facilitates their digestion, as the temperature of the season becomes lower towards the 20th of September, the sale of them is forbidden by the police. They are less used than perhaps any other fruit in any culinary process, but in the south of France preserves, more or less good, are sometimes made of them, the best being that known as Ecorce verte de citron. The seeds—reckoned cooling, diuretic and anodyne—were formerly used in medicine for purposes for which sweet almonds are now preferred; and, pierced and strung on wire or thread, they may be formed into pretty bracelets and other ornaments.
A near, but very humble relative of the aristocratic melon is our common pumpkin (Cucurbita pepo), more familiar to many as the fairy chariot of Cinderella than as an article of consumption, and, as it sometimes attains the size of four feet in circumference, it may, on the memorable occasion of having been thus appropriated, have needed at least very little enlargement to fit it for the accommodation of so slender a sylph. A far hardier plant than the melon, in a rich soil and warm situation, the pumpkin, or, as it was formerly, and we are told still ought to be called, the pompion, grows luxuriantly and ripens its fruit perfectly in the open air in England; and in its favourite situation, trailing over a manure heap, it is not only useful in assisting to decompose crude material, but veiling the unsightly mass with its large handsome leaves, can turn an eyesore into almost an ornament. Remarkably rapid in its growth, when well supplied with water, it will form shoots forty or fifty feet long, so that a single plant is capable of extending, in the course of a season, over an eighth of an acre of ground. The fruit occupied, says Soyer, “a prominent place in the precious catalogue of Roman dainties, being stewed or boiled in oil or water, and served with various seasonings;” and growing abundantly in the warmer parts of each quarter of the globe, it is still much used as food in many countries, though mostly as furnishing an article of sustenance to the poor, rather than of pleasure for the luxuriant. It seems to have been earlier introduced into this country than either of its allies, the cucumber or the melon, and it is indeed credibly supposed that it was the “melon” of early English writers, to whom the true fruit of that name was unknown, or who were accustomed to distinguish it as the “musk melon.”
