196 cook's first voyage I769. 



every thing is mentioned without any restraint 

 or emotion, and in the most direct terms, by both 

 sexes. 



Of the food eaten here the greater part is vegeta- 

 ble. Here are no tame animals except hogs, dogs, 

 and poultry, as I have observed before, and these 

 are by no means plenty. When a chief kills a hog, 

 it is almost equally divided among his dependants ; 

 and, as they are very numerous, the share of each 

 individual at these feasts, which are not frequent, 

 must necessarily be small. Dogs and fowls fall some- 

 what more frequently to the share of the common 

 people. I cannot much commend the flavour of 

 their fowls ; but we all agreed, that a South-sea dog 

 was little inferior to an English lamb : their excel- 

 lence is probably owing to their being kept up, and 

 fed wholly upon vegetables. The sea affords them a 

 great variety of fish. The smaller fish, when they 

 catch any, are generally eaten raw, as we eat oysters ; 

 and nothing that the sea produces comes amiss to 

 them : they are fond of lobsters, crabs, and other 

 shell-fish, which are found upon the coast ; and they 

 will eat not only sea-insects, but what the seamen 

 call Blubbers^ though some of them are so tough, 

 that they are obliged to suffer them to become putrid 

 before they can be chewed. Of the many vegetables 

 that have been mentioned already as serving them 

 for food, the principal is the bread-fruit, to procure 

 which costs them no trouble or labour but climbing 

 a tree : the tree which produces it does not indeed 

 shoot up spontaneously : but if a man plants ten of 

 them in his lifetime, which he may do in about an 

 hour, he will as completely fulfil his duty to his own 

 and future generations as the natives of our less tem- 

 perate climate can do by ploughing in the cold of 

 wintei, and reaping in the summer's heat, as often 

 as these seasons return ; even if, after he has pro- 

 cured bread for his present household, he should 



