GOURDS AND PUMPKINS. 121 



A curious Gourd with the thin end curved is 

 specially grown here for the manufacture of Pipes 

 (Fig. 47). These you may see in the window of any 

 tobacconist's shop. They appear to colour like a 

 meerschaum, but as I have never smoked one of them 

 I may be mistaken. I suppose that this fruit, with its 

 hard and durable shell, belongs to the genus Lagenaria. 

 The ornamental Gourds just mentioned, on the 

 contrary, have thin shells which cannot be preserved. 



The great yellow corol- 

 ^** 3 las of the Gourd are 

 j stuffed with something 

 h eatable and made into 

 (\ a dish ; but I have not 

 1 seen Gourd seeds for sale 

 ' here as a sweetmeat. In 



rig. 47. PIPE BOWL MADE FROM Naples they are to be 



had at the corner of 



every street ; they are dipped in something that 

 gives them a peculiar flavour. Forty years ago I used 

 to spend spare centesimi on this luxury. What 

 can be better adapted to a schoolboy's slender income 

 than a handful of bonbons for the tenth part of a 

 penny ? I think that if these same salt-tasting Gourd 

 seeds were offered now, however cheap, they would 

 hardly be regarded as a treat. There are many other 

 things besides Pumpkin seeds that one ceases to 

 appreciate after the lapse of forty years. 



To ascertain the time at night the Apache Indians 

 employ a gourd on which the stars of the heavens are 

 marked. As the constellations rise in the sky the 

 Indian refers to his gourd and finds out the hour. 

 By turning the gourd round he can tell the order in 

 which the constellations may be expected to appear. 



