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XXX. — A brief Account of the Naras Fruit, and of the 

 attempts that have been made to cultivate it. By the Vice- 

 Secretary. 



When Captain Sir James Alexander visited the country near 

 Wahvich Bay, on the south-west coast of Africa, he found in 

 that excessively dry, hot, and barren region, a fruit called 

 the Naras, of which he speaks thus : — " I wandered about the 

 broad bed of the river for an hour or two, looking earnestly into 

 every patch of reeds or long grass for moisture, and digging 

 with our hands in the clay and sand at the most likely places for 

 finding this indispensable element ; but no water could we find. 

 With our mouths as dry as a dusty road, and hardly able to speak, 

 we looked about for some green gi'ass to chew, and to our most 

 agreeable surprise we found the new fruit Naras, of which I had 

 first heard from the Boschmen of Ababies." 



" The Naras was growing on little knolls of sand ; the bushes 

 were about 4 or 5 feet high, without leaves, and with opposite 

 thorns on the light and dark-green striped branches. The fruit 

 has a coriaceous rind, rough with prickles, is twice the size of 

 an orange, or 15 or 18 inches in circumference, and inside it 

 resembles a melon, as to seed and pulp. I seized a half ripe one 

 and sucked it eagerly for the moisture it contained ; but it burned 

 my tongue and palate exceedingly, which does not happen when 

 this most valuable fruit is ripe ; it has then a luscious sub-acid 

 taste." — Alexander's Expedition of Discovery, vol. ii , p. 68. 

 A rude figure of the plant accompanies this account (p. 52), and 

 Sir James Alexander adds, that the thermometer stood at 90° in 

 the shade. 



On his return from his expedition, Captain Alexander gave me 

 some seeds of this Naras, which were sown in the garden of the 

 Horticultural Society and presented to several of the Fellows. 

 They were in appearance entirely those of a gourd ; they germi- 

 nated readily, and produced a stiff, spiny, angular-stemmed shrub, 

 which, after growing for a few weeks with all the appearance of 

 rude health, suddenly became sickly and died — not only in the 

 Society's Garden, but with every one else who attempted to cul- 

 tivate it. In these attempts moisture and heat, and dryness and 

 heat, were tried and varied, all with uniform bad success. 



The loss was so total, and so little was seen of the plant, that 

 it had become almost forgotten, when a fi-esh supply of seeds was 

 received from John Turner, Esq., of 73 A, Theobald's Road, 

 London, who, in reply to the inquiries that were addressed to 

 him, favoured the Society with the follow ing memorandum : — 



" In reply to your inquiry respecting the climate of Walwich 

 Bay, I can give you very little information ; my stay at the Bay 



