Pinose is said to be the chief town, and to have 2
churches: St. John's the next, and the third Lagoa. The houses are very
mean: small, low things. They build with figtree, here being, as I was
told, no other trees fit to build with. The rafters are a sort of wild
cane. The fruits of this isle are chiefly figs and watermelons. They have
also callavances (a sort of pulse like French beans) and pumpkins for
ordinary food. The fowls are flamingos, great curlews, and guinea-hens,
which the natives of those islands call galena pintata, or the painted
hen; but in Jamaica, where I have seen also those birds in the dry
savannahs and woods (for they love to run about in such places) they are
called guinea-hens. They seem to be much of the nature of partridges.
They are bigger than our hens, have long legs, and will run apace. They
can fly too but not far, having large heavy bodies and but short wings
and short tails: as I have generally observed that birds have seldom long
tails unless such as fly much; in which their tails are usually
serviceable to their turning about as a rudder to a ship or boat.
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