PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS. 203 



very general cultivation in this region. It was not 

 known in a wild state. At length it was found indi- 

 genous in tropical Africa, on both sides of the equator, 

 which settles the question. 1 Livingstone 2 saw districts 

 literally covered with it, and the savages and several 

 kinds of wild animals eagerly devoured the wild fruit. 

 They are sometimes, but not always, bitter, and this 

 cannot be detected from the appearance of the fruit. The 

 negroes strike it with an axe, and taste the juice to see 

 whether it is good or bad. This diversity in the wild 

 plant, growing in the same climate and in the same soil, 

 is calculated to show the small value of such a character 

 in cultivated Cucurbitacece. For the rest, .the frequent 

 bitterness of the water-melon is not at all extraordinary, 

 as the most nearly allied species is Citrullus Colocynthis. 

 Naudin obtained fertile hybrids from crossing the 

 bitter water-melon, wild at the Cape, with a cultivated 

 species which confirms the specific unity suggested by 

 the outward appearance. 



The species has not been found wild in Asia. 



The ancient Egyptians cultivated the water-melon, 

 which is represented in their paintings. 3 This is one 

 reason for believing that the Israelites knew the species, 

 and called it abbatitchim, as is said; but besides the 

 Arabic name, battich, batteca, evidently derived from the 

 Hebrew, is the modern name for the water-melon. The 

 French n&me,pasteque, comes through the Arabic from the 

 Hebrew. A proof of the antiquity of the plant in the 

 north of Africa is found in the Berber name, tadeladt* 

 which differs too widely from the Arabic name not to have 

 existed before the Conquest. The Spanish names zan- 

 dria, cindria, and the Sardinian sindria, 5 which I cannot 

 connect with any others, show also an ancient culture 

 in the eastern part of the Mediterranean basin. Its 



1 Naudin, Ann. sc. Nat., 4th series, vol. xii. p. 101 ; Sir J. Hooker, in 

 Oliver, Flora of Trop. Afr., ii. p. 549. 



2 French trans., p. 56. 



8 Unger has copied the figures from Lepsius' work in his memoir, 

 Die Pflanzen des Alien jEgyptens, figs. 30, 31, 32. 



* Diationtfiaire Franqais-Berber, at the word pasteque. 

 5 Moris, Flora Sardoa. 



