184. VOYAGE TO THE 



poultry on the islands, and without vegetable pro- 

 ductions the natives have only the sea to depend 

 upon for their subsistence. The wild productions 

 are a coarse grass {Saccharumfatuum), which covers 

 such parts of the mountains as are neglected or are 

 too steep for cultivation. Lower down we noticed 

 the capparidia, a procumbent pentandrous shrub, the 

 nasturtium, sesuvium of Pitcairn Island, the euge- 

 nia, and scaevola kcenigii ; and close down to the 

 shore a convolvulus covering the brown rock with 

 its clusters of leaves and pink blossoms. The porou 

 and miroe {Thespesi a popnlaria) were more abundant, 

 the nono not common. They must also have the 

 auti and amai, as their weapons are made of it, 

 though we did not see it. The timber of which 

 their rafts are constructed is a red wood, somewhat 

 porous, and of softer grain than the amai. Some of 

 these trunks are so large as at first to excite a sus- 

 picion of their having been drifted from a more 

 extensive shore ; but the quantity which they pos- 

 sess, several logs of which were newly shaped out, 

 affords every reason for believing that it is the pro- 

 duce of their own valleys. They are not deficient in 

 variety of edible fruits and roots, nor in those kinds 

 which are most productive and nutritious. Besides 

 the tee-plant, sweet potatoe, appe, sugar-cane, water- 

 melon, cocoa-nut, plantain, and banana, they possess 

 the bread-fruit, which in Otaheite is the staff of life, 

 and the taro, a root which in utility corresponds 

 with it in the Sandwich Islands. Were they to pay 

 but a due regard to the cultivation of the two last 

 of these valuable productions, an abundance of 

 wholesome food might be substituted for the nau- 

 seous mixture mahie, which, though it may, as in- 



