213 



brought into these countries at the expedition 

 to the boundaries. The Indians are a little 

 more civilized here than in the rest of the mis- 

 sions ; and we found to our surprise a black- 

 smith of the native race. 



What struck us most in the mission of San 

 Fernando, and gives a peculiar physiognomy to 

 the landscape, is the pihiguao or pirijao palm. 

 It's trunk, armed with thorns, is more than 

 sixty feet high ; it's leaves are pinnated, very 

 thin, undulated, and frizled toward the points. 

 Nothing is more extraordinary than the fruits 

 of this tree ; every cluster contains from fifty to 

 eighty ; they are yellow like apples, grow pur- 

 ple in proportion as they ripen, two or three 

 inches thick, and generally, from abortion, with- 

 out a kernel. Among the eighty or ninety spe- 

 cies of palm trees that are peculiar to the New 

 Continent, which I have enumerated in the 

 Nova Genera Plantarum cequinoctialium* , there 

 are none in which the sarcocarp is developed in 

 a manner so extraordinary. The fruit of the 

 pirijao furnishes a farinaceous substance, as 

 yellow as the yelk of an egg, slightly saccharine, 

 and extremely nutritious. It is eaten like plan- 

 tains or potatoes, boiled, or roasted in the ashes, 

 and affords an aliment as wholesome as it is 

 agreeable. The Indians and the missionaries 



* Vol. i, p. 316. 



