GOURD. 173 



The bottle-gourd (lagenarid) is called by the Arabians 

 Charrah. The poor people eat it boiled with vinegar, or 

 fill the shell with rice and meat, and thus make a kind of 

 pudding of it. It grows in all parts of Egypt, and in 

 Arabia, wherever the mountains are covered with rich 

 soil : in many parts of the world it grows to near six feet 

 long, and two feet thick. The rinds or shells are used by 

 the negroes in the West-India islands as bottles, holding 

 from one pint to many gallons. Barham speaks of one 

 that held nine gallons ; and the Rev. Mr. Griffith Hughes 

 mentions them, in his History of Barbadoes, as holding 

 twenty-two gallons. The shells are cleared of the pulp 

 and seeds by the negroes in the following manner : they 

 make a hole at one end, into which they pour hot water, 

 in order to dissolve the pulp, which afterwards is ex- 

 tracted with a stick, and the inside rinsed with sand and 

 water, to loosen and clear away the fibres that remain ; 

 they are then dried and become fit for use, and will con- 

 tain water or other liquids for a length of time. 



Sloane mentions one of these gourds as large as the 

 human body. Brown says, " the decoction of the leaves 

 is recommended much in purging clysters, and the pulp 

 of the fruit is often employed in resolutive poultices." 

 He adds, that "it is bitter and purgative, and may be 

 used instead of the common coloquintida." Sloane and 

 Barham describe a sweet gourd, which, the latter says, 

 " grows two or three feet long, as big as a man's thigh, is 

 full of sweet pulp that makes a pleasant sort of sweet- 

 meat or preserve." He says, " the distilled water is good 

 in fevers, and the pulp applied to the eyes abates their 

 inflammation." Sloane says, " the seeds are diuretic, and, 

 made into emulsions, temper and take off the acrimony 

 of urine." 



Lunan describes the squash (melopeps), a small gourd, 

 not exceeding the size of a moderate fist, and which, he 



