46 cook's first voyage march, 



yard, the walls of which are constructed of poles 

 and hay, and are about ten or twelve feet high. 



When we were on shore in the district called 

 Tolaga, we saw the ruins, or rather the frame of a 

 house, for it had never been finished, much superior 

 in size to any that we saw elsewhere : it was thirty 

 feet in length, about fifteen in breadth, and twelve 

 high : the sides of it were adorned with many carved 

 planks, of a workmanship much superior to any other 

 that we had met with in the country ; but for what 

 purpose it was built, or why it was deserted, we 

 could never learn. 



But these people, though in their houses they are 

 so well defended from the inclemency of the weather, 

 seem to be quite indifferent whether they have any 

 shelter at all during their excursions in search of 

 fern-roots and fish, sometimes setting up a small 

 shade to windward, and sometimes altogether ne- 

 glecting even that precaution, sleeping with their 

 women and children under bushes, with their 

 weapons ranged round them, in the manner that 

 has already been described. The party, consisting 

 of forty or fifty, whom we saw at Mercury Bay, in 

 a district which the natives call Opoorage, never 

 erected the least shelter while we staid there, though 

 it sometimes rained incessantly for four-and-twenty 

 hours together. 



The articles of their food have been enumerated 

 already ; the principal, which to them is what bread 

 is to the inhabitants of Europe, is the roots of the 

 fern which grows upon the hills, and is nearly the 

 same with what grows upon our high commons in 

 England, and is called indifferently fern, bracken, or 

 brakes. The birds, which sometimes serve them for 

 a feast, are chiefly penguins and albatrosses, with a 

 few other species that have been occasionally men- 

 tioned in this narrative. 



Having no vessel in which water can be boiled, 

 their cookery consists wholly of baking and roast- 



