SECTION II. 



THE CUCUMBER. 



THIS is very common fruit amongst us, but is much more so in 

 Egypt, where it is also more agreeable to the taste, and more easy 

 of digestion. Hasselquist supposes the cucumber mentioned in 

 Numb. xi. 5, to be the 'queen of cucumbers,' which he thus 

 describes: 'It grows in the fertile earth round Cairo, after the 

 inundation of the Nile, and not in any other place in Egypt, nor in 

 any other soil. It ripens with water-melons ; its flesh is almost of 

 the same substance, but is not near so cool. The grandees eat it 

 as the most pleasant food they find, and that from which they have 

 least to apprehend. It is the most excellent of this tribe of any yet 

 known.' 



Mr. Jowett has the following passage in his * Christian Research- 

 es.' ' Extensive fields of ripe melons and cucumbers adorned the 

 sides of the river [Nile] ; they grew in such abundance, that the 

 sailors freely helped themselves. Some guard, however, is placed 

 upon them. Occasionally, but at long and desolate intervals, we 

 may observe a little hut, made of reeds, just capable of containing 

 one man ; being, in fact, little more than a fence against a north 

 wind. In these I have observed, sometimes, a poor old man, per- 

 haps lame, feebly protecting the property. It exactly illustrates 

 Isaiah i. 8: 'And the daughter of Zion is left, as a lodge in a 

 garden of cucumbers.' The numbers of these most necessary 

 vegetables bring to mind the murmurs of the Israelites: ,'We 

 remember the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the 

 onions, and the garlic: but now our soul is dried away.' 



THE MELON. 



MELONS are in the Hebrew scriptures named from the verb 

 which signifies to hang close, cling, &c. ; and they are no doubt so 

 named from the manner in which their tendrils cling to whatever 

 they can lay hold on, in order to support themselves. Hasselquist 

 says, the melon is cultivated on the banks of the Nile, in the rich 

 clayey earth, which subsides during the inundation* and in the Isl- 

 and Delta, especially at Burlos, whence the largest and best are 



