The Water-Melon 441 



with a juice which is very cold. Hun Hao, when he went out as envoy, 

 brought the fruit back to China. At present it is found both in the 

 imperial orchards and in village gardens. It can be kept for several 

 months, aside from the fact that there is nothing to prevent it from 

 assuming a yellow hue in course of time. In P'o-yah 3K fi§ 1 there lived 

 a man who for a long time was afflicted with a disease of the eyes. 

 Dried pieces of water-melon were applied to them and caused him relief, 

 for the reason that cold is a property of this fruit." Accordingly the 

 water-melon was transplanted into China proper only in the latter 

 part of the twelfth century. Also the Si wu ki yiian ^ # ^ i^, 2 which 

 says that in the beginning there were no water-melons in China, 

 attributes their introduction to Hun Hao. The Kin or Jurci, a nation 

 of Tungusian origin, appear to have learned the cultivation from the 

 Kitan. From a JurSi-Chinese glossary we know also the JurcH designa- 

 tion of the water-melon, which ^is xeko, corresponding to Manchu 

 xengke, a general term for cucurbitaceous plants. In Golde, xinke 

 (in other Tungusian dialects kemke, kenke) denotes the cucumber, and 

 seho or sego the water-melon. The proper Manchu word for the water- 

 melon is dungga or dunggan. The Tungusian tribes, accordingly, did 

 not adopt the Persian-Turkish word karpuz (see below) from the Uigur, 

 but applied to the water-melon an indigenous word, that originally 

 denoted another cucurbitaceous species. 



Following is the information given on the subject in the Pen ts'ao 

 kan mu. 



Wu 2ui zik 2Si, a physician from the province of Ce-kiah in the 

 thirteenth century, author of the 7A yun pen ts'ao ffi ^ ^, is cited 

 in this work as follows: "When the Kitan had destroyed the Uigur, 

 they obtained this cultivation. They planted this melon by covering 

 the seeds with cattle-manure. The formation of this fruit is like the 

 peck tou ^1*; it is large and round like a gourd, and in color like green 

 jade. The seeds have a color like gold, but some like black hemp. In 

 the northern part of our country the fruit is plentiful." Li Si-cen ob- 

 serves, "According to the Hien lu ki by Hu Kiao (see p. 438), this 

 cultivation was obtained after the subjugation of the Uigur. It is styled 

 'western melon' (si kwa). Accordingly it is from the time of the Wu-tai 

 (a.d. 907-960) that it was first introduced into China. 3 At present it 

 occurs both in the south and north of the country, though the southern 



1 In the prefecture of 2ao-cou, Kian-si. 



2 The work of Kao C'eh jti ZJSc of the Sung dynasty. 



3 The same opinion is expressed by Yan Sen (1 488-1 559) in his Tan k'ien tsun 

 lu (above, p. 331). 



