git-svn-id: https://crawl-ref.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/crawl-ref/trunk@4039 c06c8d41-db1a-0410-9941-cceddc491573
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"When the forces stood in array Edmund proposed to decide their claims
by single combat; but Canute saying that he, a man of small stature,
would have little chance against the tall athletic Edmund, proposed, on
the contrary, for them to divide the realm as their fathers had done."
-Thomas Keightley, _The History of England_. 1839.
"I ought not to omit naming a vegetable which Mr Yates placed on
our table, and to which he directed our attention. It was the
Tchu-tchu (Sechium edule) called also by the people _pepinella_.
It is a small gourd, very much like vegetable marrow; one seed
covers a wall with its ramifications "
-John Overton Choules, _The Cruise of the Steam Yacht
North Star: A Narrative of the Excursion of Mr. Vanderbilt's
Party to England, Russia, Denmark, France, Spain, Malta, Turkey,
Madeira, Etc. 1854.
"The Litchi is the most celebrated native fruit of China. It is
nearly round, about an inch and a half in diameter, the shell is
tough, becoming brittle, of a chocolate brown colour covered all
over with wart-like protuberances. When fresh it is filled with a
white almost transparent, sweet, jelly-like pulp in which lies a
rather large, shining, brown seed; the pulp is of a delicious sub-acid
flavour when fresh. The Chinese dry it when it becomes black like
a prune and thus preserve it for use throughout the year; in this state
it is frequently to be seen in the London fruit shops."
-John Smith, _A Dictionary of Popular Names of the Plants
which Furnish the Natural and Acquired Wants of Man, in
All Matters of Domestic and General Economy: Their History,
Products, & Uses. 1882.
"The rambutan (_nephelium lappaceum_) is a beautiful fruit to which
I have already alluded, as resembling the mammoth arbutus; and you suppose
them at first, when at a little distance from you, a delicious dish of
some tropical strawberry. But you find on inquiring into the 'particulars
within' the outer coat, that there is concealed beneath the red and hairy
covering a semi-transparent pulp of a pleasant acid taste, enveloping a
single oval and oblong seed. I know not but I am peculiar in my memory
of the beautiful fruits of the straits, but none lingers in my recollection
so sweetly in its clustered beauties of the fruit-dish as the bearded
and rosy rambutan.
-Fitch Waterman Taylor, _A Voyage Round the World And Visits
to Various Foreign Countries, in the United States Frigate
Columbia. 1847.