He describes the tree as 'a noble ornament, from fifty to sixty feet in height, and often as straight as a scaffold- pole.

The taste of the fruit may be compared to a mixture of chestnuts and cheese.

Vultures devour it greedily, and come in quarrelsome flocks to the trees when it is ripe.

Dogs will also eat it.

I do not recollect seeing cats do the same, though they will go into the woods to eat Tucuma, another kind of palm fruit.' 'It is only the more advanced tribes,' says Mr.Bates, 'who have kept up the cultivation.