38 RIO DE JANEIRO CHAP, n 



large and very juicy ; we thought them good, doubtless better 

 than any we had tasted at home, but probably Italy and 

 Portugal produce as good, had we been there in the time of 

 their being in perfection. Lemons and limes are like ours ; 

 sweet lemons are sweetish and without flavour. Citrons 

 have a faint sickly taste, otherwise we liked them. Mangoes 

 were not in perfection, but promised to be a very fine fruit ; 

 they are about the size of a peach, full of a yellow melting 

 pulp, not unlike that of a summer peach, with a very grateful 

 flavour; but the one we had was spoilt by a taste of turpentine, 

 which I am told does not occur in the ripe fruit. Bananas 

 are in shape and size like a small thick sausage, covered 

 with a thick yellow rind, which is peeled off, and the fruit 

 within is of a consistence which might be expected of a 

 mixture of butter and flour, but a little slimy ; its taste is 

 sweet with a little perfume. Acajou or casshew is shaped 

 like an apple, but larger ; the taste is very disagreeable, 

 sourish and bitter : the nut grows at the top of it. Plan- 

 tains differ [from bananas] in being longer and thinner and 

 less luscious in taste. Both these fruits were disagreeable 

 to most of our people, but after some use I became tolerably 

 fond of them. Mamme-apples are bigger than an English 

 codlin, and are covered with a deep yellow skin : the pulp 

 is very insipid, or rather disagreeable, and full of small 

 round seeds covered with a thick mucilage, which continually 

 clogs the mouth. Jambosa, is the same as I saw at 

 Madeira, a fruit calculated more to please the smell than 

 the taste ; the other kind is small and black, and resembles 

 much our English bilberries in taste. Cocoanuts are so 

 well known in England that I need only say I have tasted 

 as good there as any I met with here. Palm nuts are of 

 two sorts, one long and shaped like dates, the other round ; 

 both are roasted before their kernels are eatable, and even 

 then they are not so good as cocoanuts. Palm berries 

 appear much like black grapes ; they are the fruit of Bactris 

 minor, but have scarcely any pulp covering a very large stone, 

 and what there is has nothing but a light acid to recommend 

 it. There are also the fruits of several species of prickly 



