prepare a very fine flour from the
yucca, and it is used for making fine kinds of bread, and especially a
kind of biscuits called _biscochuelos_. The yucca roots are not good
after they have been more than three days out of the earth, and even
during that time they must be placed in water, otherwise green or black
stripes appear on them, which in the cooking assume a pale red color.
Their taste is then disagreeable, and they quickly become rotten.

To propagate the yucca the stalk is cut, particularly under the thick
part, into span-long pieces, which are stuck obliquely into the earth.
In five or six months the roots are fit for use, but they are usually
allowed to remain some time longer in the earth. The stalks are
sometimes cut off, and the roots left in the earth. They then put forth
new leaves and flowers, and after sixteen or eighteen months they become
slightly woody. The Indians in the Montana de Vitoc sent as a present to
their officiating priest a yucca, which weighed thirty pounds, but yet
was very tender. On the western declivity of the Cordillera, the
boundary elevation for the growth of the yucca is about 3000 feet above
the level of the sea.

Among the pulse there are different kinds of peas (_garbanzos_) on the
coast; beans (_frijoles_), on the contrary, occupy the hilly grounds.
All vegetables of the cabbage and salad kinds cultivated in Europe will
grow in Peru. The climate, both of the coast and the hills, suits them
perfectly; but the hot, damp temperature of the eastern declivity of the
Andes is adverse to them. Numerous varieties of the genus _Cucurbita_
are cultivated in the _chacras_, or Indian villages, on the coast. They
are chiefly consumed by the colored population. I did not find them very
agreeable to the taste. They are all sweetish and fibrous.

Among the edible plants which serve for seasoning or spicery, I must
mention the love-apple (_Tomate_), which thrives well in all the warm
districts of Peru; and the Spanish pepper (_Aji_), which is found only
on the coast and in the mild woody regions. There are many species of
the pepper (_Capsicum annuum, baccatum, frutescens, &c._), which are
sometimes eaten green, and sometimes dried and pounded. In Peru the
consumption of aji is greater than that of salt; for with two-thirds of
the dishes brought to table, more of the former than of the latter is
used. It is worthy of remark that salt diminishes, in a very striking
degree, the pungency of