LOVE APPLE. 



381 



in private gardens. It is used as an ingredient 

 in soups. 



Solar.um Sodomeum is a purple egg plant, of 

 which tha fruit is large and handsome. A spe- 

 cies of ct/nips often attacks and punctures the 

 rind ; upon which tlie whole fniit gangrenes, 

 and is converted into a substance like ashes, 

 while the outside is fair and beautiful. It is 

 found on the borders of the Dead sea, and is that 

 apple, the external beauty and the internal de- 

 ception of which have been so celebrated in fabu- 

 lous, and so perplexing in true history. 



" Dead sea fruits, that tempt the eye, 

 But turn to ashes on the lips." 



The dreadful judgment of the cities of the 

 plain, recorded in sacred history — the desolation 

 around the Dead sea — the extreme saltness of its 

 waters, the bitumen, and, as is reported, the ! 

 smoke that sometimes issued from its surface — ! 

 were all calculated for making it a fit locality for 

 superstitious terrors ; and among the rest were 

 the celebrated apples which are mentioned by 

 Josephus, the historian of the Jews, not as fabu- 

 lous matters of which he had been told, but as 

 real substances which he had seen with his own 

 eyes. He says, they " have a fair colour, as if 

 they were fit to be eaten ; but if you pluck them 

 with j'our hand, they vanish into smoke and 

 ashes." 



Jlilton, who collected all of history or fable 

 that could heighten the effect of his poem, refers 

 to those apples as adding new anguish to the 

 fallen angels, after they had been transformed 

 into serpents, upon satan's return from the 

 temptation of man. 



— " Tliere stood 



A grove hard bj', 



• ■ laden witli fair fiuit, like that 



Wliich grew in Paradise, tlie bait of Eve, 

 Us'd by the Tempter : on that prospect strange 

 Their earnest eyes they fix'd, imagining, 

 For one forbidden tree, a multitude." 



• • * * • 



" They parched with scalding thirst, and hunger fierce, 



could not abstain ; 



But on they rolled in heaps, and up the trees 

 Climbing, sat thicker than the snaky locks 

 That curl'd Meg.'era : Greedily they pluck'd 

 The fmitage fair to sight, like that which grew 

 Near tliat bituminous lake where Sodom placed; 

 This more delusive, not the touch hut taste 

 Deceives; they fondly thinking to allay 

 Their tliirst with gust, instead of fruit 

 Chew'd hitter ashes, which the offended taste 

 With sputtering noise rejected." 



Henry Teonge, a chaplain in the English fleet, 

 whose Diary was, a few years since, published 

 from the original manuscript, so well describes 

 the real condition of the decayed solanum sodo- 

 meum, which he states that he saw in December, 

 1676, that no one can doubt that his notice was 



founded upon pereonal examination. " This 

 country (that about the Dead sea) is altogether 

 unfruitfull, says he, " being all over full of stones, 

 which looke just like burnt syndurs. And on 

 some low shriMs there grow small round things, 

 which are called apples, but no witt like them. 

 They are somewhat fayre to look at ; but touch 

 them and they moulder all to black ashes, like 

 soote, boath for looks and smell." Though 

 these are only the remarks of a popular observer, 

 who told what he saw, without any view to a 

 scientific purpose, the single addition of the at- 

 tack of the plant by tire insect, and the subse- 

 quent mortification and internal drying, would 

 have made it just as perfect as the descriptions 

 of the present day. 



Pocock, who travelled more than fifty years 

 after Teonge, did not see the apples ; and though 

 he did mention them, he pointed to a plant very 

 different from the real one : " As for the fniits 

 of Sodom, fair without and full of ashes within," 

 says he, " I saw nothing of them; but from the 

 testimony we have, something of the kind has 

 been produced. But I imagine they may be 

 pomegranates, which, having a tough hard rind, 

 and being left on the trees for two or three years, 

 the inside may be dried to dust, and the outside 

 remain firm." Mariti, who visited those regions 

 thirty years after Pocock, mentions, that " No 

 person could point out to me in the neighbour- 

 hood that species of fruit called the apples of 

 Sodom, which, being fresh and of a beautiful 

 colour in appearance, fall to dust as soon as they 

 are touched." Hasselquist, however, not only 

 found the apples, but the plant, referred it to 

 the Linniean species of solanum melongena, and 

 pointed out the cause of the disease; and though, 

 in the more recent and accurate division of the 

 genus solanum, to which allusion has been made, 

 the name of Sodomeum has been substituted for 

 that of melongena, the fruit and the disease have 

 been proved to be as Hasselquist stated. 



Solanum melongena is more common in the 

 markets of Constantinople than either of the 

 former sorts, being almost as abundant as the 

 gourd and the melon, and used for nearly the 

 same purposes. There are several varieties of 

 this solanum. The first appearance of the plant, 

 it is said, is always attended with a north-east 

 wind of some continuance ; and, therefore, the 

 ships for the Black sea sail before this harbinger, 

 or rather companion, of bad weather comes forth. 

 This is probably one of the superstitions which 

 in all countries attach to matters so uncertain as 

 the weather. 



In this country the seeds must be sown in rich 

 mould, and raised in a hot-bed, from about the 

 vernal equinox till May. About the middle ot 

 the month they may be transplanted to a warm 

 sunny border, where, if duly watered and tended, 

 the fruit will be ripened in August. 



