228 THE PLANT WORLD 



comes to be like the head of a boy, whose colour, when ripe, is a clear 

 green, and extremely green when unripe ; the outside appears with cross 

 rays, like the pineapple ; the figure is not quite round, it is somewhat 

 narrower at the point than at the foot ; * from hence grows a core, which 

 reaches to the middle, and from this core a web. It has no stone or 

 kernel, not anything useless, except the outside, and it is thin, the rest 

 is one mass, with little juice when ripe, and less when green. Much 

 were eaten in every way. It is so delicious that they called it blanc 

 manger. It was found to be wholesome and very nourishing. The 

 leaves of its trees are large and very jagged, in the manner of papays." 



A search through the later literature of Spanish travel would no doubt 

 bring to light many interesting historical references, but with the begin- 

 nings of English naval supremacy in the Elizabethan era her navigators 

 began to play a more important part in the work of exploring the Pacific, 

 and to them the later developments in the history of the breadfruit can 

 largely be ti'aced. The first Englishman to report the fruit was Captain 

 Wm. Dampier, who in 1686 visited Guam during the fruiting season. 

 Dampier describes the fruit and the native methods of preparing it for 

 food and remarks that it is about the size of " a penny loaf when wheat 

 is at five shillings the bushel. ' ' Nearly fifty years later Lord Anson visited 

 the same island and reported that the fruit was about the size of a two-penny 

 loaf, from which statement Hooker reasons that wheat had risen consider- 

 ably in price since Dampier's time. Both of these explorers were highly 

 pleased with its quality and commented upon its usefulness as a food 

 staple to the islanders. 



Geographical knowledge made great strides during the 17th and 18th 

 centuries through the work of the explorers who were looking for gold, 

 spices, and other marketable tropical products, and who incidentally made 

 known to the world many an unknown group of islands. 



The work of Captain James Cook in charting the then ' ' Unknown 

 Ocean " between 1768 and 1779, the last the date of his untimely death 

 on the Sandwich Islands, is phenomenal when viewed merely from a 

 geographical point of view, but his services become even more valuable 

 when his influence on subsequent voyages and general work in the Pacific 

 is considered. Cook fully appreciated the possibilities inherent in the 

 breadfruit and lost no time in advertising its virtues to the English nation 

 and in suggesting its introduction into the West Indies. During his 

 second voyage (1772-1775) the two Forsters, father and son, accompanied 

 the expedition as naturalists, and as a result of their collections gave the 

 scientific name Artocarpus communis to the breadfruit. The published 



*This peculiar ob-pyriform fruit is figured by Captain David Porter, of naval fame, who visited 

 these islands in 1814, during our war with England, in the ship Essex, afterwards lost in Valparaiso 

 Harbor. The coincidence of resemblance in form is striking and goes far toward proving the accuracy 

 of the old chronicler. 



