GOURDS AND BOTTLES. 319 



to have formed the earliest natural objects employed as vessels by 

 primitive humanity. But of all these the gourd, by its singular 

 variety of shape, best lent itself to the gr(?atest and most varied 

 uses. Besides the common double-bulging form, constricted in 

 the middle, with the little bulb above and the big one below, so 

 frequent as a water-bottle, you can get gourds in an immense 

 number of other types, globular, compressed,. bowl-like, or flask- 

 shaped. A Corsican model, which lies before me this moment 

 as I write, has a flattened circular form from back to front, the 

 back being the side next the stalk, and the front the side where the 

 corolla has fallen off, leaving a little umbilicus or knob to mark 

 its place in the very center. This form is ingeniously turned by 

 the Corsicans into a very neat sort of flask or bottle for the girdle 

 by cutting holes in the narrow side and fastening two handles for 

 suspension at a graceful point half-way between the mouth and 

 the middle line of the circle. The pretty vessel thus obtained is 

 the model on which thousands of exquisite vases have long been 

 turned out in ancient Etruria and at modern Vallauris. 



The commonest shape of all, however, is the Syrian gourd with 

 a round bulb, ending toward the stalk in a long neck, and capable, 

 when filled with wine or water, of standing securely on its own 

 basis by means of the slight depression at the umbilicus. This is, 

 indeed, the original parent from which almost all bottles, carafes, 

 and decanters, all the world over, have ultimately descended. 

 The terra-cotta forms used as water-bottles, with a round bulb 

 and long neck, most closely resemble their original to the present 

 day, as the Japanese vases of two or three bulbs, successively con- 

 stricted and growing larger from top to bottom, most closely 

 resemble the double-bulging variety. 



The reason why gourds are so manifold in shape is twofold. It 

 is partly because they are a naturally plastic species, constantly 

 giving rise to various divergent forms, like their neighbors the 

 cucumbers ; which divergent forms have, of course, been seized 

 upon and still further developed for his own use by gourd-using 

 man. But it is partly, also, because gourds, while growing, can 

 be made to assume almost any desired shape or curve by tying 

 string or wire round their rind. Primitive man early discovered 

 this simple method of manufacture. I have seen gourds which in 

 this manner have been twisted into the semblance of powder- 

 horns or wallets, and others which have been induced to ring 

 themselves round half a dozen times over till they look almost 

 like beads on a necklace. 



Early man, no doubt, used his gourd as a gourd alone. But as 

 time went on he began at last, apparently, to employ it as a model 

 for pottery also. In all probability his earliest lessons in the fictile 

 art were purely accidental. It is a common trick with savages to 



