Note 2 — Chapter VII

The trees which have been mentioned as being in the open space before the village yield a fruit which reaches to the size of a boy’s head. Its colour, when it is ripe, is a clear green, and when unripe it is very green. The rind has crossed scales like a pineapple, its shape not quite round, being rather more narrow at the end than near the stem. From the stem grows a leaf-stalk reaching to the middle of the fruit, with a covering sheath. It has no core nor pips, nor anything uneatable except the skin, and that is thin. All the rest is a mass of pulp when ripe, not so much when green. They feed much upon it in all sorts of ways, and it is so wholesome that they call it white food. It is a good fruit and of much substance. The leaves of the tree are large, and much serrated, like those of the papay.2