SOO cook's first voyage 1769. 



of leaves, either of the bread-fruit or banana, are 

 neatly spread before him upon the ground as a table- 

 cloth ; a basket is then set by him that contains his 

 provision, which, if fish or flesh, is ready dressed, 

 and wrapped up in leaves, and two cocoa-nut shells, 

 one full of salt water, and the other of fresh : his at- 

 tendants, which are not few, seat themselves round 

 him, and when all is ready, he begins by washing 

 his hands and his mouth thoroughly with the fresh 

 water, and this he repeats almost continually through- 

 out the whole meal ; he then takes part of his pro- 

 vision out of the basket, which generally consists of 

 a small fish or two, tv/o or three bread-fruits, four- 

 teen or fifteen ripe bananas, or six or seven apples ; 

 he first takes half a bread-fruit, peels off the rind, 

 and takes out tlie core with his nails ; of this he puts 

 as much into his mouth as it can hold, and while he 

 chews it, takes the fish out of the leaves, and breaks 

 one of them into the salt water, placing the other, 

 and what remains of the bread-fruit, upon the leaves 

 that have been spread before him. When this is 

 done, he takes up a small piece of the fish that has 

 been broken into the salt water, with all the fingers 

 of one hand, and sucks it into his month, so as to get 

 with it as much of the salt water as possible : in the 

 same manner he takes the rest by different morsels, 

 and between each, at least very frequently, takes a 

 small sup of the salt water, either out of the cocoa- 

 nut shell, or the palm of his hand : in the mean time 

 one of his attendants has prepared a young cocoa- 

 nut, by peeling off the outer rind with his teeth, an 

 operation which to an European appears very surpris- 

 ing ; but it depends so much upon slight, that many 

 of us were able to do it before we left the island, 

 and some that could scarcely crack a filbert : the 

 master, when he chooses to drink, takes the cocoa- 

 nut thus prepared, and boring a hole through the 

 shell with his finger, or breaking it with a stone, he 

 sucks out the liquor. When he has eaten his bread- 



