PACIFIC AND BEERING'S STRAIT. 119 



were not confined to hours, and always consisted of CI Jy P " 

 baked pig, yams, and taro, and more rarely of sweet ^-^v-* 

 potatoes. i 8 e 2 c 5 '. 



The productions of the island being very limited, 

 and intercourse with the rest of the world much re- 

 stricted, it may be readily supposed their meals can- 

 not be greatly varied. However, they do their best 

 with what they have, and cook it in different ways, 

 the pig excepted, which is always baked. There are 

 several goats upon the island, but they dislike their 

 flesh, as well as their milk. Yams constitute their 

 principal food; these are boiled, baked, or made into 

 pillihey (cakes), by being mixed with cocoa nuts ; 

 or bruised and formed into a soup. Bananas are 

 mashed, and made into pancakes, or, like the yam, 

 united with the milk of the cocoa-nut, into pillihey, 

 and eaten with molasses, extracted from the tee- 

 root. The taro- root, by being rubbed, makes a 

 very good substitute for bread, as well as the bana- 

 nas, plantains, and appai. Their common beverage 

 is pure water, but they made for us a tea, extract- 

 ed from the tee-plant, flavoured with ginger, and 

 sweetened with the juice of the sugar-cane. When 

 alone, this beverage and fowl soup are used only 

 for such as are ill. They seldom kill a pig, but live 

 mostly upon fruit and vegetables. The duty of 

 saying grace was performed by John Buffet, a re- 

 cent settler among them, and their clergyman ; but 

 if he was not present, it fell upon the eldest of the 

 company. They have all a great dislike to spirits, 

 in consequence of M'Coy having killed himself by 

 too free an indulgence in it ; but wine in modera- 

 tion is never refused. With this simple diet, and 

 being in the daily habit of rising early, and taking a 



