152 REMARKS AND OPINIONS. 



for its bast, from which cords and strings arc 

 made. On the pandanus depends the food, and 

 on the cocoa-tree the navigation of these people. 

 The manufacturing of the ropes and strings is an 

 employment of the men, and even the greatest 

 chiefs are seen engaged in it. The fibres of the bast 

 are separated and cleaned, by maceration, in pits of 

 fresh water. The rope is spun at the same time with 

 the two threads of which it consists, equal bundles 

 of fibres prepared before-hand being added to 

 each. The wood of the old cocoa-tree, rubbed to 

 powder, and mixed to a dough, witii the help of 

 the juice of the husk of the unripe nut, is boiled in 

 cocoa-nut shells, or roasted over the fire, and 

 used for food. Cocoa-nut shells are the only 

 vessels in which the people can carry water about 

 with them j they are preserved in longish woven 

 baskets, made expressly for the purpose, with the 

 eye upwards, and strung together. The cocoa- 

 tree is planted and increased every where on the 

 inhabited and uninhabited islands ; but, notwith- 

 standing the many young plantations with which 

 you meet, it is only seen bearing fruit on the inhab- 

 ited islands, and only on a few, and in the 

 southern groups waving its crown high in the air. 

 The cocoa-tree bears only very small nuts in 

 Radack. 



The bread fruit-tree (Md) is not common in 

 Radack, it is found only planted in the damp 

 ground in the interior of the inhabited islands. 



