hand: in the mean time one of his attendants has prepared a young cocoa-nut, by peeling off the outer rind with his teeth, an operation which to an European appears very furprising; but it depends fo much upon flight, that many of us were able to do it before we left the island, and fome that could fcarcely crack a filbert: the mafter, when he chufes to drink, takes the cocoa-nut thus prepared, and boring a hole through the shell with his finger, or breaking it with a ftone, he fucks out the liquor. When he has eaten his bread-fruit and fish, he begins with his plantains, one of which makes but a mouthful, though it be as big as a black-pudding; if instead of plantains he has apples, he never tastes them till they have been pared; to do this a fhell is picked up from the ground, where they are always in plenty, and toffed to him by an attendant: he immediately begins to cut or scrape off the rind, but so awkwardly that great part of the fruit is wafted. If, instead of fish, he has Aefh, he must have fome fuccedaneum for a knife to divide it; and for this purpose a piece of bamboo is toffed to him, of which he makes the neceffary implement by splitting it tranfverfely with his nail. While all this has been doing, fome of his attendants have been employed in beating bread-fruit with a stone pestle upon a block of wood; by being beaten in this manner, and fprinkled from time to time with wa 1 1769. ter, 1769. ter, it is reduced to the consistence of a soft The quantity of food which these people eat at a meal is prodigious: I have seen one man devour two or three fifhes as big as a perch; three bread-fruits, each bigger than two fifts; fourteen or fifteen plantains or bananas, each of them fix or seven inches long, and four or five round; and near a quart of the pounded breadfruit, which is as fubftantial as the thickeft unbaked cuftard. This is fo extraordinary that I fcarcely expect to be believed; and I would not have related it upon my own fingle testimony, but Mr. Banks, Dr. Solander, and most of the other Gentlemen, have had ocular demonstration of its truth, and know that I mention them upon the occafion. It し It is very wonderful, that these people, who 1769. are remarkably fond of fociety, and particularly that of their women, fhould exclude its pleafures from the table, where among all other nations, whether civil or favage, they have been principally enjoyed. How a meal, which every where elfe brings families and friends together, came to feparate them here, we often inquired, but could never learn. They eat alone, they faid, because it was right; but why it was right to eat alone, they never attempted to tell us: fuch, however, was the force of habit, that they expreffed the strongest dislike, and even disgust, at our eating in fociety, especially with our women, and of the fame victuals. At firft, we thought this ftrange fingularity arose from fome fuperftitious opinion; but they constantly affirmed the contrary. We obferved also fome caprices in the cuftom, for which we could as little account as for the cuftom itself. We could never prevail with any of the women to partake of the victuals at our table when we were dining in company; yet they would go, five or fix together, into the fervants apartments, and there eat very heartily of whatever they could find, of which I have before given a particular instance; nor were they in the leaft difconcerted if we came in while they were doing it. When any of us have been alone with a woman, fhe has fometimes eaten in our company; but then she has 1769. has expreffed the greatest unwillingness that it should be known, and always extorted the ftrongest promifes of fecrecy. Among themselves, even two brothers and two fifters have each their feparate baskets, with provifion and the apparatus of their meal. When they first vifited us at our tents, each brought his basket with him; and when we fat down to table, they would go out, fit down upon the ground, at two or three yards distance from each other, and turning their faces different ways, take their repast without interchang. ing a fingle word. The wonten not only abstain from eating with the men, and of the fame victuals, but even have their victuals feparately prepared by boys kept for that purpose, who depofit it in a separate fhed, and attend them with it at their meals. But though they would not eat with us or with each other, they have often asked us to eat with them, when we have vifited thofe with whom we were particularly acquainted at their houses; and we have often upon fuch occasions eaten out of the fame basket, and drunk out of the fame cup. The elder women, however, always appeared to be offended at this liberty; and if we happened to touch their victuals, or even the basket that contained it, would throw it away. After musements. After meals, and in the heat of the day, the 1769. middle-aged people of the better fort generally Domeftic fleep; they are indeed extremely indolent, and life and afleeping and eating is almost all that they do. Those that are older are lefs drowzy, and the boys and girls are kept awake by the natural activity and sprightliness of their age. Their amusements have occafionally been mentioned in my account of the incidents that happened during our refidence in this island, particularly mufic, dancing, wrestling, and fhooting with the bow; they also fometimes vie with each other in throwing a lance. As fhooting is not at a mark, but for distance; throwing the lance is not for distance, but at a mark: the weapon is about nine feet long, the mark is the bole of a plantain, and the distance about twenty yards. Their only mufical inftruments are flutes and drums; the flutes are made of a hollow bamboo about a foot long, and, as has been observed before, have only two ftops, and consequently but four notes, out of which they seem hitherto to have formed but one tune; to these stops they apply the fore-finger of the left hand and the middle finger of the right. The drum is made of a hollow block of wood, of a cylindrical form, folid at one end, and covered at the other with fhark's fkin: these they beat not with fticks, but their hands; and they |