Ball — On the Colloquies of Garcia De Orta — II. 
653 
Inferior pearls were obtained in China and Borneo. He refers to 
those brought from America as wanting in roundness and having dead 
waters. The largest pearl from Cape Comorin which he had seen 
weighed 100 grains of wheat, or 25 quilates (carats) ; it was valued at 
1500 cruzados (= £212). Pearls were cleaned and polished with 
pounded rice and salt. 
[Eeferences. — Linschoten, ii., pp. 133-136 ; Ainslie, i., pp. 
292-297.] 
COLLOQUY XXXYI. 
Do MujjGO, MelIo da India, a que cA chamamos Pateca. 
1. \_Munga^ green gram, seeds of Phaseolus mungo, Linn.] 
It is called mexe by Avicena, cap. 489, and mes by Belumense ; 
but it should be pronounced mex. 
The Colloquy contains very little on this subject save that it is said 
that the munga, as is well-known to be the case still, is given to horses : 
and that the Gujarati and Deccani physicians give fever patients, 
after ten or fifteen days' fasting, the water of boiled munga, and after- 
wards the husked seed itself cooked like rice, on which diet a patient 
accustomed to generous food is liable to starve. It occurs, he says, in 
Palestine. 
2. \_Pateca^ the Indian Melon, perhaps the water melon, Citrullus 
vulgar is. ~\ 
Called pateca by the Portuguese ; hatiec indi {hdttikh) by the Persians 
and Arabs, and by Avicena. 
The term pateca is generally understood to be the water melon, but 
Garcia' s description of the plant as being tall and not spreading over 
the ground, and that the leaves are unlike those of melons, makes me 
incline to the supposition that he means the Carica papaya., L., 
which was introduced from the Y^est Indies. However, the black 
seeds agree best with those of the water melon, as the seeds 
of the papaya are grey, and Delavalle^ says that Garcia does not 
mention the papaya because it had not then been introduced from the 
West Indies. Garcia commends the pateca in choleraic fevers, and as 
a diuretic. Euano expresses great approval of it as a fruit. 
[Eeferences. — Linschoten, ii., p. 35; Ainslie, i., p. 216. The 
papaya is figured by Bontius and Piso, lib. vi., cap. vi., p. 96.] 
i 
1 English Translation, London, 1665, p. 69. 
