The _palmito_ tree is high and straight, its bark being knotty, and the wood of a soft substance, having no boughs except at the top, and these also seem rather reeds than boughs, being all pith within, inclosed by a hard rind. The leaf is long and slender, like that of a sword lilly, or flag. The boughs stand out from the top of the tree on all sides, rather more than a yard long, beset on both sides with strong sharp prickles, like saw-teeth, but longer. It bears a fruit like a small cocoa-nut, the size of a chesnut, inclosed in a hard shell, streaked with threads on the outside, and containing a kernel of a hard horny substance, quite tasteless; yet they are eaten roasted. The tree is called _tobell_, and the fruit _bell_. For procuring the palmito wine, they cut off one of the branches within a span of the head, to which they fasten a gourd shell by the mouth, which in twenty-four hours is filled by a clear whitish sap, of a good and strong relish, with which the natives get drunk. The oysters formerly mentioned grow on trees resembling willows in form, but having broader leaves, which are thick like leather, and bearing small knobs like those of the cypress. From these trees hang down many branches into the water, each about the thickness of a walking-stick, smooth, limber, and pithy within, which are overflowed by every tide, and hang as thick as they can stick of oysters, being the only fruit of this tree. They have many kinds of ordinary fishes, and some which seemed to us extraordinary; as mullets, rays, thornbacks, old-wives with prominent brows, fishes like pikes, gar-fish, _cavallios_ like mackerel, swordfishes, having snouts a yard long, toothed on each side like a saw, sharks, dogfish, _sharkers_, resembling sharks, but having a broad flat snout like a shovel, shoe-makers, having pendents at each side of their mouths like barbels, and which grunt like hogs, with many others. We once caught in an hour 6000 fishes like bleaks. Of birds, there are pelicans as large as swans, of a white colour, with long and large bills. Herons, curlews, boobies, ox-eyes, and various other kinds of waterfowl. On land, great numbers of grey parrots, and abundance of pintados or Guinea fowls, which are very hurtful to their rice crops. There are many other kinds of strange birds in the woods, of which I knew not the names; and I saw among the negroes many porcupine quills. There are also great numbers of monkeys leaping about the trees, and on the mountains there are lions, tigers, and ounces. There are but few elephants, of which we only saw three, but they abound farther inland. The negroes told us of a strange beast, which our interpreter called a carbuncle, which is said to be often seen, but only in the night. This animal is said to carry a stone in his forehead, wonderfully luminous, giving him light by which to feed in the night; and on hearing the slightest noise he presently conceals it with a skin or film naturally provided for the purpose.