s and melons were
picked twenty-eight days after the seeds were sown. The slips and
sprouts, and such of our trees as we plant out in nurseries or
trenches, as well as the graftings of trees similar to those in Spain,
bore fruit as quickly as in Hispaniola.

The inhabitants of Darien have different kinds of fruit trees, whose
varied taste and good quality answer to their needs. I would like to
describe the more remarkable ones.

The _guaiana_ produces a lemon-like fruit similar to those commonly
called limes. Their flavour is sharp, but they are pleasant to the
taste. Nut-bearing pines are common, as are likewise various sorts of
palms bearing dates larger than ours but too sour to be eaten. The
cabbage palm grows everywhere, spontaneously, and is used both for
food and making brooms. There is a tree called _guaranana_, larger
than orange trees, and bearing a fruit about the size of a lemon; and
there is another closely resembling the chestnut. The fruit of
the latter is larger than a fig, and is pleasant to the taste and
wholesome. The _mamei_ bears a fruit about the size of an orange which
is as succulent as the best melon. The _guaranala_ bears a smaller
fruit than the foregoing, but of an aromatic scent and exquisite
taste. The _hovos_ bears a fruit resembling in its form and flavour
our plum, though it is somewhat larger, and appears really to be the
mirobolan, which grows so abundantly in Hispaniola that the pigs are
fed on its fruit. When it is ripe it is in vain the swineherd seeks to
keep his pigs, for they evade him and rush to the forest where these
trees grow; and it is for this reason that wild swine are so numerous
in Hispaniola. It is also claimed that the pork of Hispaniola has a
superior taste and is more wholesome than ours; and, indeed, nobody is
ignorant of the fact that diversity of foodstuffs produces firmer and
more savoury meat.

The most invincible King Ferdinand relates that he has eaten another
fruit brought from those countries. It is like a pine-nut in form and
colour, covered with scales, and firmer than a melon. Its flavour
excels all other fruits.[1] This fruit, which the King prefers to all
others, does not grow upon a tree but upon a plant, similar to an
artichoke or an acanthus. I myself have not tasted it, for it was the
only one which had arrived unspoiled, the others having rotted during
the long voyage. Spaniards who have eaten them fresh plucked where
they grow, speak with the