4g Art. VII — A. Mft'sumiua: 



burnt out, the stones, wliicli are red-hot, are levelled. Green 

 leaves are laid over the bottom to a depth of 20 cm. ; on which 

 the bread-fruit, each cut in eight pieces, is heaped up in a conical 

 shape. It is, in turn, covered with leaves, so that the whole 

 comes to present an appearance suggestive of a thatched roof. 

 Finally, a, hole is made on the top of the heap, through which 

 some three quarts of water prepared for the purpose are poured. 

 This causes a tremendous sound, the vapor enveloping every- 

 thing near. Then tlie liole is closed and the heap is further 

 covered with new leaves or grass so as to prevent the escape of 

 vapor. After some thirty minutes the leaves are removed and 

 the baked fruit is taken out. The natives sometimes have their 

 bread-fruit baked in common in the same earth oven, in which 

 case they insert leaves of the taro and other plants to make the 

 b()undary lines, so to speak, of their respective possessions. 



In an earth oven measuring about 1.50 m. in diameter, several 

 hundred pieces of the bread-fruit may be baked at one time, while 

 they could not possibly roast so many by placing the fruit directly 

 on red-hot stones ; therefore when tliey are preparing for feasts, for 

 instance, they find the former method more convenient than the 

 latter. The roasted bread-fruit, however, has the better flavour. 

 This is partly due to the difference in preparation and partly to 

 the circumstance that wliile only the ripe fruit is roasted the 

 unripe is used for baking. 



Before taking the baked fruit home, the natives mash it with 

 a pounder on a wooden board, which has a slight hollow in the 

 middle part, and knead it into flat cakes measuring about 25 

 cm. in diameter. These are carried home wrapped up in banana 

 leaves (PI. VI, fig. 2). The cakes thus prepared supply food for 

 several days. But when they eat too many such cakes immediately 



