'Authors tell strange stories about the immense size to which this fruit grows in some countries which are favourable to it. Rumphius says that they are sometimes so large that a man cannot easily lift one of them: the Malays told me that at Madura they were so large that two men could but carry one of them; at Batavia, however, they never exceed the size of a large melon, which in shape they resemble, but are coated over with angular spines like the shootings of some crystals: they are, however, soft, and do not at all prick any one who handles them.'