In visiting national collections of pictures in this country and on the Continent we are almost sure to come across one of Murillo's charming Spanish boys, sitting, ragged and dirty, munching a huge slice of melon - the very picture of contented enjoyment. In hot weather the mouth fairly waters at the luscious-looking morsel, deeply indented with the teeth of the ragged urchin, and we wonder why this delicious, cool fruit has so long been beyond the reach of the little dirty boys of London, when for centuries their representatives in sunny Spain and all over the south of Europe, as well as in the Eastern Bible lands of Asia, almost live upon it and its congeners - the water-melon, the cucumber, and the pumpkin; whilst, if perchance this watery diet should disagree, a hair of the same dog' may perhaps be administered in the shape of a dose of colocynth, or bitter cucumber.

The most remarkable point in the history of this family of fruits is their power of absorbing and retaining moisture. Growing abundantly in the hottest and most arid countries, they are eagerly sought as a means of assuaging thirst as well as hunger. Humboldt says of the water-melon, that in the Peninsula of Araya, where rain does not fall sometimes for fifteen months, water-melons weighing from 15 to 70 lbs. are not uncommon. Many a traveller's life has been saved by finding a patch of these water-reservoirs in the thirsty desert. It is said to be a native of the south of Europe, the Levant, Egypt, and South America; but several species abound in South Africa, and of one of them Dr. Livingstone writes: -

'The most surprising plant of the Kalahari Desert is the water-melon - kengwe or keme. When more than the usual quantity of rain falls, vast tracts of the country are literally covered with these melons. Then animals of every sort and name, including man, rejoice in the rich supply. The elephant - true lord of the forest - and the different species of rhinoceros revel in the fruit, although naturally so diverse in their choice of pasture. The various kinds of antelopes feed on them with avidity, and lions, hyaenas, jackals, and mice, all seem to appreciate the common blessing. These melons are not, however, all eatable, some being sweet and others bitter. The natives select them by striking them with a hatchet and applying the tongue to the gashes.'

In the East and in Egypt, melons serve also as food for man and beast. Niebuhr, speaking of Arabia, says: - 'Of pumpkins and melons several sorts grow naturally in the woods, and serve for feeding camels, but the proper melons are planted in the fields, where a great variety of them is to be found, and in such abundance that the Arabians of all ranks use them for some part of the year as their principal article of food. They afford a very agreeable liquor. When the fruit is nearly ripe, a hole is pierced into the pulp; this hole is then stopped with wax, and the melon left upon the stalk. Within a few days the pulp is, in consequence of this process, converted into a delicious liquor.'

We wonder whether this practice is still continued. It sounds so simple that people in those favoured lands where melons grow so abundantly might try it advantageously.

Here, although melons have been grown successfully on hot-beds for some centuries, they are still articles of luxury, and the crop cannot be depended upon, for one day's neglect will often cause the loss of a promising bed of melons. Nevertheless, at our flower shows may always be seen numbers of varieties, reared with great care, and brought to the highest perfection, from seed obtained from all parts of the world. The chief varieties are the red fleshed and the green, each of which has its vehement admirers. They also vary considerably in size, some of the very small kinds being greatly esteemed for their fineness of flavour.

Pliny and Columella speak of the fondness of the Emperor Tiberius for melons, and of the contrivances by which they were provided for him at all seasons; whilst of another Emperor, Frederick the Great, it is related that his physician, finding him suffering greatly from indigestion during his last illness, learned that he had eaten three or four melons (small ones, we may suppose) daily for breakfast, and his only reply to the physician's remonstrance was, that he would send him some to taste, thinking the excellence of the fruit would show the doctor the difficulty of abstaining from so favourite a dish.

Many people besides Frederick of Prussia have found melons indigestible in our colder climes. In truth, they are best suited to hot climates and hot weather, and will be sure to disagree in cold seasons; and so well was this understood formerly, that melons were never sent to table without an accompaniment of ground ginger. Nowadays people risk indigestion, and eat them with sugar only, or sometimes with pepper and salt. Melons of some kind have of late become almost as abundant in our streets as in those of the sunny South, for they are imported by thousands from Spain - great green-looking things called water-melons, but not really so, and of very good flavour when ripe - slices being now sold in the streets at a halfpenny, or even less, so that it is no longer an uncommon sight to see our ragged urchins munching their slice of melon, like Murillo's little Spanish boys.

It is not easy to say whether the cucumber should be classed as a fruit or a vegetable; it stands upon the borderland, and may be eaten as either, but whether fresh, stewed, or pickled, is a very delicious accompaniment to many savoury dishes, and especially salads; and what would those pleasant cooling summer beverages, claret and champagne cup, be, without a slice or two of cucumber floating on the top? Cucumbers, like melons, have become so much more plentiful of late, that they may be purchased all the year round for a few pence, being cultivated largely in greenhouses, and, in the summer, in the open air. 'A lodge in a garden of cucumbers' will come to the mind in writing of them. Here we have not to put up sheds to safeguard them from foxes and jackals, as in Syria, but the market gardener has to watch against human prowlers, ever on the alert to fill their own pockets at the expense of their neighbours; for a crop of cucumbers - the plants trained under glass in greenhouses like vines, the fruit hanging from them by hundreds, straight, and often half a yard in length - if they can be brought forward early enough in the spring, is worth a very large sum, but they diminish rapidly in value as the season advances.