Page:Face to Face With the Mexicans.djvu/566

560 most delicious. Along the Gulf coast there are miles of forest of the chico zapote. It is a very large and valuable tree, having dark, rich foliage, and for timber growth is almost unequaled. Pieces of the wood have been taken out of the ruins of constructions that were already ruins when the Spaniards came, and they were still as solid as though in use only a year. The mango is a large and lovely tree and is indigenous; the fruit is a reddish yellow, kidney-shaped, with fibrous flesh, and a large stone much the same shape. The flavor is at first objectionable to strangers, because of the strong turpentine taste, but this is finally overlooked. As it hangs on the trees in the hot lands nothing can be more beautiful than these great bright bunches of twenty-five or thirty hanging from the boughs.



The mamey is another attractive looking fruit of oblong shape, meat of salmon-red color, but a little education is also necessary for its enjoyment. When taken from the tree the fruit is warm throughout. The xicama, another curious fruit, looks exactly like a turnip, but with none of the flavor of the latter. The granadita is delicious, and bears a striking resemblance in appearance and flavor to our "May-apple." There are about forty varieties of oranges,