The papaw too is found in all these countries, though I have not hitherto
described it. It is a fruit about the bigness of a musk-melon, hollow as
that is, and much resembling it in shape and colour, both outside and
inside: only in the middle, instead of flat kernels, which the melons
have, these have a handful of small blackish seeds about the bigness of
peppercorns; whose taste is also hot on the tongue somewhat like pepper.
The fruit itself is sweet, soft and luscious, when ripe; but while green
it is hard and unsavoury: though even then being boiled and eaten with
salt-pork or beef, it serves instead of turnips and is as much esteemed.
The papaw-tree is about 10 or 12 foot high. The body near the ground may
be a foot and a half or 2 foot diameter; and it grows up tapering to the
top. It has no branches at all, but only large leaves growing immediately
upon stalks from the body. The leaves are of a roundish form and jagged
about the edges, having their stalks or stumps longer or shorter as they
grow near to or further from the top. They begin to spring from out of
the body of the tree at about 6 or 7 foot height from the ground, the
trunk being bare below: but above that the leaves grow thicker and larger
still towards its top, where they are close and broad.
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