1770 FRUITS 393 
Water melons (Cucurbita citrullus) are plentiful and good, as 
are also (11) pumpkins (Cucurbita pepo), which are certainly 
almost or quite the most useful fruit which can be carried 
to sea, keeping without any care for several months, and 
making, with sugar and lemon-juice, a pie hardly to be dis- 
tinguished from apple-pie, or with pepper and salt, a substi- 
tute for turnips not to be despised. (12) Papaws (Carica 
papaia): this fruit when ripe is full of seeds, and almost with- 
out flavour; but while green, if pared, the core taken out, and 
boiled, is also as good or better than turnips. (13) Guava 
(Psidium pomiferum) is a fruit praised much by the inhabit- 
ants of our West Indies, who, I suppose, have a better sort 
than we met with here, where the smell of them alone was 
so abominably strong, that Dr. Solander, whose stomach is 
very delicate, could not bear them even in the room, nor did 
their taste make amends, partaking much of the goatish 
rankness of their smell. Baked in pies, however, they lost 
much of this rankness, and we, less nice, ate them very well. 
(14) Sweet sop (Annona squamosa), also a West Indian fruit, 
is nothing but a vast quantity of large kernels, from which 
a small proportion of very sweet pulp, almost totally devoid 
of flavour, may be sucked. (15) Custard apple (Annona 
reticulata) is likewise common to our West Indies, where it 
has got its name, which well enough expresses its qualities ; 
for certainly it is as like a custard, and a good one too, as 
can be imagined, (16) Casshew apple (Anacardium ocet- 
dentale) is seldom or never eaten on account of its astrin- 
gency; the nut which grows on the top of it is well known 
in Europe, where it is brought from the West Indies. (17) 
Cocoanut (Cocos nucifera) is well known everywhere between 
the tropics; of it are infinite different sorts: the best we 
met with for drinking is called calappa edjou, and easily 
known by the redness of the flesh between the skin and the 
shell. 
(18) Mangostan (Garcinia mangostana). As this, and some 
more, are fruits peculiar to the East Indies, I shall give short 
descriptions of them. This is about the size of a crab apple, 
and of a deep red wine colour: at the top of it is a mark 
