220 



refreshing juice, assuages thirst, mitigates feverish disorders, and 

 compensates thereby, in no small degree, for the excessive heats 

 of those climates." Melons of every kind abound in their season 

 in most parts of India, and the best musk-melons are often sent 

 as presents from a great distance. Chardin mentions having eat 

 melons at Surat which grew in Agra, a journey exceeding thirty 

 days; they were carried by a man on foot in baskets, hung 

 on a pole, one at each end, the pole being laid over one of his 

 shoulders, from whence, for ease, he shifted it to the other from 

 lime to time, and travelled seven leagues a day with his load". 



The Indian pomegranates, although sometimes tolerable, are 

 by no means equal lo those brought from Arabia by the Muscat 

 Dingeys: these are a very fine fruit; large, and full of juice, highly 

 flavoured; some are red, others white. The most luxurious method 

 of eating them is to have the juice expressed from the seeds and 

 interior film, by which means the harsh seeds and bitter flavour 

 are avoided. It is a delicate beverage, and one of those pome- 

 granates will sometimes fill a small bason. They make a pleasant 

 wine from this fruit in Persia and Arabia, to which there is pro- 

 bably some allusion in the Song of Solomon, where they are men- 

 tioned as growing in orchards. " I will cause thee to drink of 

 spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranates." I have never 

 tasted this, nor any other Persian wine, except that of Schiraz, 

 which, although much extolled by poets, I think inferior lo many 

 wines in Europe. 



Wine is so little publicly drunk in India by any of the castes, 

 that I can say nothing of it, whether spiced, or iced. But there 

 are various methods of cooling sherbet and water-melons: in that 



