184 BIRDS AND ANIMALS. [1839. 



bread and roasted chestnuts. Sometimes it is beaten up with 

 cocoa-nut and milk. It is highly nutritive, but must be 

 eaten new, as it becomes harsh and unpalatable in twenty- 

 four hours after being cooked. As it is impossible to keep 

 this fruit in a crude state, it is often buried in pits, when it 

 ferments, and forms a substance called mahi, that may be 

 preserved for a long time, and is resorted to out of the bearing 

 season. 



Since the abolition of the custom of taboo, it is usual for 

 the owner of a private grove, if he wishes to protect it from 

 strangers, to tie girdles of leaves about the trees. This sig- 

 nal is always respected, and the most tempting fruits remain 

 unmolested, without any other guard or protection. The 

 people of other countries, who boast of their intellectual ad- 

 vancement, and moral perfectness, might well profit by this 

 example. 



Having such an abundance, and so great a variety, of the 

 finest and most luscious fruits, the people of these islands aro 

 bounteously provided for in respect to food. They live prin- 

 cipally on vegetables ; though pigs, fowls, and fish, are con- 

 siderably eaten. Bread-fruit, taro, and pig, is the standing 

 dish. All are fond of poe, particularly the children. They 

 prepare a delicious hotchpot, of taro, cocoa-nut, and bread- 

 fruit, called poe-poe, and another, equally good, called poe- 

 maia, of feis, taro, bread-fruit, and cocoa-nut. They eat no 

 salt, but, instead thereof, use a sop, or compound, made of 

 sea- water, cocoa-nut milk, and the nut of the ti ; taro or 

 bread-fruit is dipped in this, and sucked, before being eaten. 



(8.) The albatross, tropic bird, petrel, heron, wild duck, 

 woodpecker, and turtle dove, are the principal birds found in 

 the islands. Pigeons and swallows are common, as is, also, 

 the trichoclossus, a species of parroquet. Horses, asses, cat- 

 tle, hogs, goats and sheep, have been introduced, and thrive 

 well. The horses are quite numerous ; they are never shod, 

 as they are used exclusively for the saddle. The cattle roam 

 at pleasure through the fine pasture grounds, and the leaves 

 of the bread-fruit form excellent fodder for them. L 



a rge 



