238 CALABASHES. 



LIB. iv. Chile, where I have seene them. They set it vpon plants 

 and branches, and it growes like any other shrubbe. 

 Those which they call cherries, are verily the fruites of trees, 

 and have more resemblance then the rest to our cherries. 

 There are divers sorts, whereof they call some cherries of 

 Nicaragua, the which are very red and small, and have 

 little meat vpon the stone, but that little is of an exquisite 

 taste, and of a sharpenes as good, or rather better, then 

 cherries. They hold this fruite to be very wholesome, and 

 therefore they give it to sicke folkes especially to pro 

 voke an appetite. There are others that be great and of 

 a dark colour, they have much meat, but it is grosse and of 

 no taste, like to the Cliavacanas, which have every one two 

 or three small stones. But to returne to pot-hearbs, I 

 finde not that the Indians had any gardens of divers hearbs 

 and plants, but did onely till the land in some partes for 

 pulses, which they vse, as those which they call Frisoles 

 and Pallares, which serve them as our lentils, beanes, or 

 tares : neither have I knowne that these pulses, or any 

 other kinds that be in Europe, were there befove the 

 Spaniards entred, who carried plants and pulses from 

 Spaine thither, where they now grow and increase wonder 

 fully, and in some places exceede greatly the herbs of 

 these partes. As, if we speake of melons which grow in 

 the vallie of Yea, in Peru, whose roote becomes a stalke 

 that continues many yeeres, bearing melons yeerely, and 

 they trim me it like vnto a tree : a thing which I do not 

 know to be in any part of Spaine. But that is more mon 

 strous of the Calibasses or Indian Pompions, and the greatnes 

 they have as they grow, especially those which are proper 

 to the Countrie, which they call Capallos ; the which they 

 eate most commonly in Lent, boiled and trimmed with 

 some other sauce. There are a thousand kindes of Cali 

 basses : some are so deformed in their bignes, that of the 

 rinde cut in the middest and clensed, they make, as it were, 



