ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 335 



from Cuba ; at Pacaha, on the Mississippi, the northernmost 

 point he reached (1541), he found again " many pumpkins 

 and much maize and beans " ; and, still westward, at Coligoa, 

 " beans and pumpkins were in great plenty ; both were larger 

 and better than those of Spain ; the pumpkins when roasted 

 had nearly the taste of chestnuts " (Oviedo, lib. xvii. cc. 24, 

 28; True Relation, etc., by a Fidalgo of Elvas; translated 

 by Buckingham Smith, pp. 45, 47, 122, 285). Oviedo writes 

 " calaba9as," but the author of the Portuguese " Rela^am 

 Verdadeira " (1557) has, in one or more of the places cited, 

 " aboboras." 



In 1535, Jacques Cartier, the first explorer of the St. Law- 

 rence, found among the Indians of Canada " grand quantitd 

 de gros melons, concombres and courges " (Bref Recit de la 

 Navigation, etc., 1545 ; reimpr. Tross, 1863, fP. 24, 31). 



Sagard, whose " Grand Voyage du Pays des Hurons " was 

 made in 1642, makes repeated mention of the native squashes 

 (" citrouilles du pays") which the Hurons raised in abun- 

 dance, and which he found very good, boiled or baked (pp. 85, 

 105, 140, 331). In his " Histoire du Canada " (283) he 

 describes the method by which the Indians hastened the ger- 

 mination of the seeds of these " citrouilles du pays," and 

 "raise them with great ease." 



Lahontan (Nouv. Voyages, 1703, ii. 61) describes the 

 " Citrouilles " of (southern) Canada — " sweet, and of a dif- 

 ferent kind from those of Europe, where," as several persons 

 assured him, these would not grow. " They are of the size 

 of our melons; the flesh yellow as saffron. They usually 

 bake them in the oven, but they are better roasted under the 

 embers, Indian fashion," etc. Lahontan had as little doubt as 

 Sagard had, that these " citrouilles " (cultivated by the Indians 

 of Canada from the time of Cartier, at least) were genuinely 

 " du pays." 



As to the Oucurhitacece of Virginia, M. De CandoUe admits, 

 " only, that the natives, a century after the discovery of Vir- 

 ginia, twenty to forty years after the colonization by W. 

 Raleisfh, made use of certain fruits of Cucurhitaceoi " 

 (p. 201). Let us reexamine the evidence. Captains Amidas 



