This continues for six days journey, and then you enter a desert of forty or fifty miles without water; after which you come to the city of Sassurgan, where there are plenty of provisions, and particularly the best melons in the world, which are as sweet as honey.

These included the best qualities of Yellow Nansemond sweet potatoes, mammoth melons of all varieties, eggplant, sorghum and syrup cane, broom-corn, tobacco, grapes, cotton, peanuts, and many other things, some of which do not attain to so high a degree of excellence elsewhere farther north than the Carolinas.

"Mr. Brayley says he will sell his melons for fifteen cents each.

He hangs in shades the orange bright Like golden lamps in a green night, And does in the pomegranates close Jewels more rich than Ormus shows: He makes the figs our mouths to meet, And throws the melons at our feet; But apples plants of such a price, No tree could ever bear them twice!

This boat was an excellent sailer, but too sharp, and not of burden enough for my business; and I soon exchanged her for half a little sloop, in which I carried a load of water-melons to Baltimore.

For drink we had tea, and Crimean wine, and Kazan beer; for meat we had mutton cutlets and excellent preserves; for dessert a melon with pears and grapes of the best quality.

Do not cool the melon by placing ice upon the flesh, as the moisture injures the delicate flavor.

Still, those figs and that water- melon on a broiling July afternoon had tasted uncommonly good!