[67] The two kinds of potatoes here mentioned by the author do not probably belong to the real species of the potatoe, _solanum_, but to some other vegetable production of the like kind, such as the _Dioscorea alata L._, the exterior skin of which is black, but the internal pulpy part, when roasted in the ashes, is white, or of a purple colour. The round potatoes may be a kind of the Spanish potatoes, _Convolvulus Batatas_, or the gold-coloured root of the _Convolvulus Chrysorrhizus_, which is not only cultivated, but grows wild also in the islands of the South Sea, and which has been described by my son George in his Treatise _De Plantis Esculentis Insularum Maris Pacifici_. The _Convolvulus Batatas_ was carried from America by the Spaniards to the Philippines and neighbouring islands; and on that account the plant there is called _Castile_, because it was first introduced by the Castilians or Spaniards. _F._ [68] That in the impenetrable forests of the Gauts there are wild elephants, is well known; but the people on the sea-coast content themselves with those of Ceylon, which are more docile, and easier to be tamed.--It may be readily seen by the wild buffaloes that this is the original country of these animals, which were first brought from India ta Italy in the time of Agilulph king of Lombardy, between the years 591 and 616.--The deer mentioned by the author form probably more than one kind. India produces, 1st, the _Cervus Axis L._ or the spotted deer, which is somewhat larger than our fallow deer. 2d, The porcine deer, _Cervus Porcinus L._ brown with round white spots, and from two feet four inches to three feet and a half in height. 3d, The elk, _Cervus Alce L._ Professor Zimmerman, however, in his _Zoological Geography_, does not allow the elk, or rein-deer, to be an inhabitant beyond the 50th degree of north latitude; but the former has been bold enough to overstep the boundaries which he has drawn on his chart, and has penetrated to the woody, marshy, solitary valleys of India. See _Essais philosophiques sur les Moeurs de divers Animaux étrangers_, par Foucher D’Obsonville, p. 115. In the same work much information may be obtained respecting the black and white kinds of apes, which inhabit the Indian forests in flocks of thousands.--The real Indian striped (not spotted) tyger, which is from nine to ten feet in length,