The city of _St. Jago_ hath fourscore houses, which are great and well contrived. The most part have their walls made of boards, and are covered with thatch; it hath some houses built with lime and stones, and covered with tiles. It hath great orchards and many trees in them, differing from those of Spain: there be fig trees which bear figs as big as one's fist, yellow within, and of small taste; and other trees which bear a fruit which they call Ananes, in making and bigness like to a small pineapple: it is a fruit very sweet in taste: the shell being taken away, the kernel is like a piece of fresh cheese. In the granges abroad in the country there are other great pineapples, which grow on low trees, and are like the Aloe tree: they are of a very good smell and exceeding good taste. Other trees do bear a fruit which they call Mameis, of the bigness of peaches. This the islanders do hold for the best fruit of the country. There is another fruit which they call Guayabas, like filberts, as big as figs. There are other trees as high as a javelin, having one only stock without any bough, and the leaves as long as a casting dart; and the fruit is of the bigness and fashion of a cucumber; one bunch beareth twenty or thirty, and as they ripen the tree bendeth downward with them: they are called in this country Plantanos, and are of a good taste, and ripen after they be gathered; but those are the better which ripen upon the tree itself; they bear fruit but once, and the tree being cut down, there spring up others out of the but, which bear fruit the next year. There is another fruit, whereby many people are sustained, and chiefly the slaves, which are called Batatas. These grow now in the Isle of _Tercera_, belonging to the kingdom of _Portugal_, and they grow within the earth, and are like a fruit called Iname; they have almost the taste of a chestnut. The bread of this country is also made of roots which are like the Batatas.[C] And the stock whereon those roots do grow is like an elder tree: they make their ground in little hillocks, and in each of them they thrust four or five stakes; and they gather the roots a year and a half after they set them. If any one, thinking it is a batata or potato root, chance to eat of it never so little, he is in great danger of death: which was seen by experience in a soldier, which as soon as he had eaten a very little of one of those roots, he died quickly. They pare these roots and stamp them, and squeeze them in a thing like a press: the juice that cometh from them is of an evil smell. The bread is of little taste and less substance. Of the fruits of _Spain_, there are figs and oranges, and they bear fruit all the year, because the soil is very rank and fruitful. In this country are many good horses, and there is green grass all the year. There be many wild oxen and hogs, whereby the people of the island are well furnished with flesh. Without the towns abroad in the country are many fruits.