1770. ROUND THE WORLD. 47 



ing. They bake nearly in the same manner as the 

 inhabitants of the South Seas, and to the account 

 that lias been already given of their roasting, nothing 

 need be added, but that the long skewer or spit 

 to which the flesh is fastened is placed sloping to- 

 wards the fire, by setting one stone against the 

 bottom of it, and supporting it near the middle with 

 another, by the moving of which, to a greater or less 

 distance from the end, the degree of obliquity is in- 

 creased or diminished at pleasure. 



To the northward, as I have observed, there are 

 plantations of yams, sweet potatoes, and coccos, but 

 we saw no such to the southward ; the inhabitants, 

 therefore, of that part of the country must subsist 

 wholly upon fern root and fish, except the scanty and 

 accidental resource which they may find in sea-fowl 

 and dogs ; and that fern and fish are not to be pro- 

 cured at all seasons of the year, even at the sea-side, 

 and upon the neighbouring hills, is manifest from 

 the stores of both that we saw laid up dry, and the 

 reluctance which some of them expressed at selling 

 any part of them to us when we offered to purchase 

 them, at least the fish, for sea stores. And this par- 

 ticular seems to confirm my opinion, that this country 

 scarcely sustains the present number of its inha- 

 bitants, who are urged to perpetual hostilities by 

 hunger, which naturally prompted them to eat the 

 dead bodies of those who were slain in the contest. 



Water is their universal and only liquor, as far as 

 we could discover, and if they have really no means 

 of intoxication, they are, in this particular, happy 

 beyond any other people that we have yet seen or 

 heard of. 



As there is, perhaps, no source of disease, either 

 critical or chronic, but intemperance and inactivity, 

 it cannot be thought strange that these people enjoy 

 perfect and uninterrupted health. In all our visits 

 to their towns, where young and old, men and 

 women, crowded about us, prompted by the same 



