38 RIO DE JANEIRO CHAP. II 
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 
