1769. ROUND THE WORLD. 201 



fruit and fish, he begins with his plantains, one of 

 which makes but a mouthful, though it be as big as 

 a black-pudding ; if, instead of plantains, he has apples, 

 he never tastes them till they have been pared ; to 

 do this a shell is picked up from the ground, where 

 they are always in plenty, and tossed to him by an 

 attendant : he immediately begins to cut or scrape 

 off the rind, but so awkwardly that great part of the 

 fruit is wasted. If, instead of fish, he has flesh, he 

 must have some succedaneum for a knife to divide it; 

 and for this purpose a piece of bamboo is tossed to 

 him, of which he makes the necessary implement by 

 splitting it transversely with his nail. While all this 

 has been doing, some of his attendants have been 

 employed in beating bread-fruit with a stone pestle 

 upon a block of wood ; by being beaten in this man- 

 ner, and sprinkled from time to time with water, it 

 is reduced to the consistence of a soft paste, and is 

 then put into a vessel somewhat like a butcher's tray, 

 and either made up alone, or mixed with banana or 

 mahie, according to the taste of the master, by pour- 

 ing water upon it by degrees and squeezing it often 

 through the hand : under this operation it acquires 

 the consistence of a thick custard, and a large cocoa- 

 nut shell full of it being set before him, he sips it as 

 we should do a jelly if we had no spoon to take it 

 from the glass : the meal is then finished by again 

 washing his hands and his moutli. After which the 

 cocoa-nut shells are cleaned, and every thing that is 

 left is replaced in the basket. 



The quantity of food which tliese people eat at a 

 meal is prodigious : I have seen one man devour two 

 or three fishes as big as a perch ; three bread-fruits, 

 each bigger than two lists ; fourteen or fifteen plan- 

 tains or bananas, each of them six or seven inches 

 long, and four or five round ; and near a quart of 

 the pounded bread-fruit, which is as substantial as 

 the thickest unbaked custard. This is so extraordi- 

 nary that I scarcely expect to be believed ; and I 



