1777* THE pacific OCEAN. 137 



Erreoes, or unmarried men of some consequence, to 

 undergo a kind of physical operation to render them 

 fair. This is done by remaining a month or two in 

 the house ; during which time they wear a great 

 quantity of clothes, eat nothing but bread-fruit, to 

 which they ascribe a remarkable property in whiten- 

 ing them. They also speak as if their corpulence 

 and colour, at other times, depended upon their food ; 

 as they are obliged, from the change of seasons, to 

 use different sorts at different times. 



Their common diet is made up of at least nine- 

 tenths of vegetable food ; and, I believe, more par- 

 ticularly, the mahee, or fermented bread-fruit, which 

 enters almost every meal, has a remarkable effect 

 upon them, preventing a costive habit, and producing 

 a very sensible coolness about them, which could not 

 be perceived in us who fed on animal food. And it 

 is, perhaps, owing to this temperate course of life 

 that they have so few diseases among them. 



They only reckon five or six, which might be called 

 chronic, or national disorders ; amongst which are 

 the dropsy, and the Jefai, or indolent swellings be- 

 fore mentioned, as frequent at Tongataboo. But 

 this was before the arrival of the Europeans ; for we 

 have added to this short catalogue a disease which 

 abundantly supplies the place of all others ; and is 

 now almost universal. For this they seem to have no 

 effectual remedy. The priests, indeed, sometimes 

 give them a medley of simples ; but they own that it 

 never cures them. And yet they allow that, in a 

 few cases, nature, without the assistance of a phy- 

 sician, exterminates the poison of this fatal disease, 

 and a perfect recovery is produced. They say, that 

 if a man is infected with it, he will often communi- 

 cate it to others in the same house, by feeding out of 

 the same utensils, or handling them ; and that in this 

 case, they frequently die, while he. recovers ; though 

 we see no reason why this should happen. 



Their behaviour, on all occasions, seems to indi- 



