[Note 2: This is the first mention in literature of the potato.]

Having discoursed of trees, vegetables, and fruits, let us now come to
living creatures. Besides the lions and tigers[3] and other animals
which we already know, or which have been described by illustrious
writers, the native forests of these countries harbour many monsters.
One animal in particular has Nature created in prodigious form. It is
as large as a bull, and has a trunk like an elephant; and yet it is
not an elephant. Its hide is like a bull's, and yet it is not a bull.
Its hoofs resemble those of a horse, but it is not a horse. It has
ears like an elephant's, though smaller and drooping, yet they are
larger than those of any other animal.[4] There is also an animal
which lives in the trees, feeds upon fruits, and carries its young in
a pouch in the belly; no writer as far as I know has seen it, but I
have already sufficiently described it in the Decade which has already
reached Your Holiness before your elevation, as it was then stolen
from me to be printed.

[Note 3: It is hardly necessary to say that there were no lions or
tigers in America. Jaguars, panthers, leopards, and ocelots were the
most formidable beasts of prey found in the virgin forests of the New
World.]

[Note 4: This puzzling animal was the tapir.]

It now remains for me to speak of the rivers of Uraba. The Darien,
which is almost too narrow for the native canoes, flows into the Gulf
of Uraba, and on its banks stands a village built by the Spaniards.
Vasco Nuñez explored the extremity of the gulf and discovered a river