There is a great abundance of a fruit which grows on tall trees, with large serrated leaves. They are the size of ordinary melons, their shape nearly round, the skin delicate, the surface crossed into four parts, the pulp between yellow and white, with seven or eight pips. When ripe it is very sweet, when green, it is eaten boiled or roasted. It is much eaten, and is found wholesome. The natives use it as ordinary food. There are two kinds of almonds: one with as much kernel as four nuts lengthways, the other in the shape of a triangle; its kernel is larger than three large ones of ours, and of an excellent taste.
There is a kind of nut, hard outside, and the inside in one piece without a division, almost like a chestnut; the taste nearly the same as the nuts of Europe.
Oranges grow without being planted. With some the rind is very thick, with others delicate. The natives do not eat them. Some of our people said there were lemons.
There are many, and very large, sweet canes; red and green, very long, with jointed parts. Sugar might be made from them.
Many and large trees, bearing a kind of nut, grew on the forest-covered slopes near the port. They brought these nuts on board as green as they were on the branches. Their leaves are not all green on one side, and on the other they turn to a yellowish grey. Their length is a geme,* more or less, and in the widest part three fingers. The nut contains two skins, between which grows what they call mace, like a small nut. Its colour is orange. The nut is rather large, and there are those who say that this is the best kind. The natives make no use of it, and our people used to eat it green, and put it into the pots, and used the mace for saffron.
[* The space between the end of the thumb and the end of the forefinger, both stretched out.]
On the beach a fruit was found like a pine apple. There were other fruits, like figs, filberts, and albaricoques,* which were eaten. Others were seen, but it was not known what fruits they were, nor what others grew in that land. To give a. complete account of them and other things, it is necessary to be a year in the country, and to travel over much ground.
[* Apricots.]
As regards vegetables, I* only knew amaranth, purslane, and calabashes.
[* It is Belmonte, Queiroz's secretary, who is describing the bay and its products.--G. C.]