86 OUE COMMON EETJITS. 



whom they owe it, the peach having been introduced in 

 1822 by the enlightened and beneficent traveller Burchell. 

 In this gentleman's interesting account of S. Africa, he 

 mentions having distributed peach-stones on several occa- 

 sions, and particularly when taking leave of the chief of 

 the Bachepins, to whom he presented a quart bag full, 

 advising him to send a few to each of his subordinate 

 chieftains ; assuring him that they had been brought for 

 no other purpose than to benefit the Bachepin nation, by 

 introducing into their country a fruit superior to any- 

 thing they had ever yet known, a few berries being their 

 only spontaneous growths, and gourds or melons the only 

 cultivated ones ; and impressing on him their value by 

 telling him that when once grown, they would continue 

 year after year, without further trouble, to produce abun- 

 dance of large fruit of very fine flavour. Judging that 

 it would be the best pleader of its own cause, the kind- 

 hearted traveller endeavoured, as a further inducement 

 to his savage friend to take care of the future trees, to 

 give him a foretaste of their fruit, and accordingly, having 

 a few dried peaches among the stores of his waggon, pre- 

 pared them to the best of his ability, by softening them 

 in water and adding a little sugar and salt of lemons, to 

 revive somewhat of the faded flavour, and then set this 

 " dainty dish " before the chief, whose appreciation of the 

 foreign novelty was soon shown not only in the strong 

 approval he expressed, but also in the fact that, contrary 

 to his usual custom when in public, of offering some por- 

 tion of what he partook of to those who sat by him, on 

 this occasion the wild potentate consumed the whole him- 

 self, except one small piece which he gave to his uncle 

 a picture which affords a strange reflex, in ruder colours, 

 of our Charles II. handing to Evelyn a morsel of the first 

 king-pine brought to England. 



But of all the countries of the Old World, it is in China, 

 according to Downing, that this fruit reaches the highest 

 perfection in open orchards ; * and the peaches of Pekin, 



* The eminent botanical traveller, Mr. Fortune, does not endorse this Ame- 

 rican accoui t of the perfection of Chinese peaches, but, on the contrary, in 

 his Wanderings speaks of them as being curious but of very poor quality. 



