Page 263
An. 1686
The Penguin Fruit, yellow and red.
into the Sea. Thefe Ifles are of an indifferent heighth: Some of them have a few fhrubby bufhes; the reft are bare of any fort of Wood. They are rocky round by the Sea: only one or two of them have fandy Bays on the North fide. There is a fort of Fruit growing on thefe Iflands called Penguins; and 'tis all the Fruit they have.
The Penguin Fruit is of two forts, the yellow and the red. The yellow Penguin grows on a green ftem, as big as a Man's Arm, above a foot high from the ground: The leaves of this ftalk are half a foot long, and an inch broad; the edges full of fharp prickles. The Fruit grows at the head of the ftalk, in 2 or 3 great clufters, 16 or 20 in a clufter. The Fruit is as big as a Pullets Egg, of a round form, and in colour yellow. It has a thick skin or rind, and the infide is full of fmall black feeds, mixt among the Fruit. It is a fharp pleafant Fruit. The red Penguin is of the bignefs and colour of a fmall dry Onion, and is in fhape much like a Nine-pin; for it grows, not on a ftalk, or ftem, as the other, but one end on the ground, the other ftanding up- right. 60 or 70 grow thus together as clofe as they can ftand one by another, and all from the fame root, or clufter of roots. Thefe Penguins are en- compaft or fenced with long leaves, about a foot and an half, or 2 foot long, and prickly like the former; and the Fruit too is much alike. They are both wholfom, and never offend the ftomach: but thofe that eat many will find a heat or tickling in their Fundament. They grow fo plentifully in the Bay of Campeachy, that there is no paffing for their high prickly leaves.
There are fome Guanoes on thefe Iflands, but no other fort of Land Animal. The Bays about the Iflands are fometimes vifited with Seal, and this was the firft place where I had feen any of thefe Animals on the North fide of the Equator, in thefe Seas.