Fruits of Cuba. 217 
common to say of a spani bypotabica person, that 
he is * as hollow as a papaw.” 
When ripe; the fruit is yellow, or yellow striped with 
green, and smooth on the outside. ‘The flesh is also 
yellow, like a muskmelon, , and tastes like a poor speci- 
men of that fruit, or like a ripe cucumber. The interior 
contains a large quantity of oval seeds, of the shape of 
pepper corns, rough, black, and tasting like pepper- 
grass, or the seeds of the Nasturtium. The male and 
female flowers grow on separate trees, and it is therefore 
only on the female trees that fruit is to be found. 
The papaw flourishes in both the Indies. St. Pierre 
gives it à conspicuous place in his tale of Paul and Vir- 
ginia; causing. his heroine to plant some of its seeds, 
one of which produces fruit in three Years. Grainger 
characterises it in hia poem, as 
* —— quick papaw, whose top is necklaced round _ 
With numerous rows of Dobis fruit." m 
But the most remarkable cireumstance teris c ih 
this tree, is the property ascribed to its juices of acting 
 powerfully on animal matter, so as to make tough or 
newly killed: meat perfectly tender. It is asserted on 
good authority, that this singular effect is produced by 
washing the meat with the milky juice, or by mixing a 
portion of the juice with the water in which the meat is 
to be boiled, or even by hanging the meat on the tree, 
and thus exposing it to its exhalations. Living animals, 
moreover, are intenerated by eating the spoils of this 
persuasive and affecting plant. ‘Even old hogs and 
patriarchal cocks and hens, if fed upon the leaves and 
are made in a few hours as tender as young pigs 
ae 
