The Pomegranate. 285 



sistent, and form a crown to it, at first bent down and 

 almost flattened, but eventually erect. The tough and 

 leathery rind encloses an immense quantity of seeds 

 resembling wheat-grains, embedded each in a little trans- 

 parent bag of rose-coloured juice. The cells containing 

 the seeds are built together in a manner so remarkable 

 that, botanically considered, as a form of fruit, the pome- 

 granate stands alone. There are two rows of carpels, one 

 placed above the other, the lower series consisting of 

 three or four, the upper one of five to ten. Chiefly by 

 reason of this singularity, the place of the pomegranate 

 as to family was long unsettled. Some put it with the 

 myrtles, though unlike in essentials ; others made it the 

 type of an independent order, consisting of only its own 

 genus. Hooker and Bentham regard it as an anomalous 

 member of the Lythraceae. 



Many varieties of flavour occur. Some pomegranates 

 are sweet, with soft and pleasant acidity, others are 

 decidedly sour, others are bitter and astringent. The 

 juice of the sweet ones, which alone are imported, 

 pressed out in quantity and sweetened, assuages thirst in 

 the most delightful manner. Scarcely anything is more 

 suitable to the feverish. Scented with rose-water, it is 

 the true and original " sherbet." In classical mythology, 

 when it was desired to express the utmost possible suffer- 

 ing produced in the nether world by thirst, the imagery 

 was a pomegranate just out of reach. 



The places of the aboriginal growth of the pome- 

 granate appear to be north-west India and the countries 



