I saw also cocoa-nuts, but quite out of my reach; and even if I could have got them, I did not know how to open them.

The tree under whose branches we had found protection was, I conjectured, an American fig-tree; it bore a quantity of fruit, very small and red, and like the European fig.

I ventured to taste them, and found them inferior to ours,--insipid and soft,--but, I thought, quite harmless.

I remarked that the little green monkeys ate them greedily, so I had no more fear, and allowed my children to regale themselves.

I was much more afraid of wild beasts during the night; however, I had seen nothing worse than some little quadrupeds resembling the rabbit or squirrel, which came in numbers to shelter themselves during the night under our tree.