ns an inch long. The third, called _quenda_, has short leaves like
the former, and much bigger fruit, growing on a strong thick woody
stalk, indented on the sides, nine inches long and five broad, within
which are five long beans, which are also said to be dangerous. I
likewise saw trees resembling willows, bearing fruit like pease-cods.

There is a fruit called _Gola_, which grows in the interior. This fruit,
which is inclosed in a shell, is hard, reddish, bitter, and about the
size of a walnut, with many angles and corners. The negroes are much
given to chew this fruit along with the bark of a certain tree. After
one person has chewed it a while, he gives it to his neighbour, and so
from one to another, chewing it long before they cast it away; but
swallowing none of its substance. They attribute great virtues to this
for the teeth and gums; and indeed the negroes have usually excellent
teeth. This fruit passes also among them for money.[210] Higher within
the land they cultivate cotton, which they call _innumma_, and of which
they spin very good yarn with spindles, and afterwards very ingeniously
weave into cloths, three quarters of a yard broad, to make their girdles
or clouts formerly mentioned; and when sewed together it is made into
jackets and breeches for their great men. By means of a wood called
_cambe_, they dye their purses and mats of a red colour.

[Footnote 210: In a side-note; Purchas calls this the fruit of the
_carob tree_.--E.]

The tree on which the _plantains_ grow is of considerable height, its
body being about the thickness of a man's thigh. It seems to be an
annual plant, and, in my opinion, ought rather to be reckoned among
reeds than trees; for the stem is not of a woody substance, but is
compacted of many leaves wrapped close upon each other, adorned with
leaves from the very ground instead of boughs, which are mostly two
yards long and a yard broad, having a very large rib in the middle. The
fruit is a bunch of ten or twelve plantains, each a span long, and as
thick as a man's wrist, somewhat crooked or bending inwards. These grow
on a leafy stalk on the middle of the plant, being at first green, but
grow yellow and tender as they ripen. When the rind is stripped off, the
inner pulp is also yellowish and pleasant to the taste. Beneath the
fruit hangs down, from the same stalk, a leafy sharp-pointed tuft, which
seems to have been the flower. This fruit they call _bannana_, which
they have i