The calabash, is a kind of gourd, and belongs to that family of twining plants which were called among the Hebrews, "wild vines," but by the botanists of modern times, the cucurbitaceæ, or cucurbitaceous plants. […] That playful variety of form and magnitude, so remarkable in the calabash, renders it fit for all kinds of uses. Sometimes we have a globular base, terminating in a long neck, and then it answers the purpose of a bottle, and the American fastens it to his girdle, or the pommel of his saddle, when about to pass through regions which abound not in water.