taste; and they catch plenty of excellent fish, by means of wears and other devices.  They also feed on herbs and roots, cultivating about their dwellings many plantains, gourds, pumpkins, potatoes, and guinea pepper.  Tobacco likewise is planted by every one, and seems to constitute half their food.  The hole of their tobacco pipe is very large, and made of clay well burnt into the lower end of which they thrust a small hollow cane eighteen inches long, through which they suck the smoke, both men and women swallowing most of it.  Every man carries a small bag called a tuffio, in his knapsack, in which is his pipe and tobacco, and the women have their tuffio in their wrappers, carrying their pipes in their hands.  They prepare their tobacco for smoking by straining out its juice while quite green, and they informed us by signs that it would otherwise make them drunk.  They afterwards shred it very small, and dry it on an earthen dish over the embers.  On an island in the bay we saw about half a dozen goats, and no where else in this country.

They have innumerable kinds of fruits growing wild in the woods, in which are whole groves of lemon trees, especially near the town and watering-place, and some few orange trees.  Their drink is mostly water, yet the men use great quantities of palmito wine, which they call moy, giving little or none to the women.  It is strange to see their manner of climbing the palmito trees, which are of great size and height, having neither boughs nor branches except near the top.  Surrounding the tree and his own, body by means of a withe, or band of twisted twigs, on which he leans his back, and jerking up his withe before him, he foots it up with wonderful speed and certainty, and comes down again in the same manner, bringing his gourd full of liquor on his arm.  Among their fruits are many kinds of plumbs; one like a wheaten plumb is wholesome and savoury; likewise a black one, as large as a horse plumb, which is much esteemed, and has an aromatic flavour.  A kind called mansamilbas, resembling a wheaten plumb, is very dangerous, as is likewise the sap of the boughs, which is perilous for the sight, if it should chance to get into the eyes.[209] Among their fruits is one called beninganion, about the size of a lemon, with a reddish rind, and very wholesome; also another called bequill, as large as an apple, with a rough knotty skin, which is pared off, when the pulp below eats like a strawberry, which likewise it resembles in colour and grain, and of which we eat many.  There are abundance of wild grapes in the woods, but having a woody and bitterish taste.  The nuts of the palmito are eaten roasted.  They use but little pepper and grains, the one in surgery and the other in cooking.  There is a singular fruit, growing six or eight together in a bunch, each as long and thick as one’s finger, the skin being of a brownish yellow colour, and somewhat downy, and within the rind is a pulp of a pleasant taste; but I know not if it be wholesome.