ROUND THE WORLD WITH CAPTAIN COOK 19 



many are the pigs and poultry which now flourish in 

 Australasia and in the Friendly Islands that are descended 

 from the stocks left behind by Cook. For months to- 

 gether the ship's provisions were kept almost untasted. 

 Cocoa-nuts, and bread-fruit, and strange new birds, etc., 

 supplied their larder. And, whatever length of time they 

 were kept on or near the shore, there arose no distaste 

 for these things. Perhaps the most remarkable of the 

 new kinds of food which they enjoyed was the Bread-fruit 

 (Artocarpus incisa), so plentiful in Otaheite that one 

 could walk for miles under the grateful shade of these 

 trees, which, together with cocoa-palms, were found grow- 

 ing everywhere in great profusion. They had scarcely 

 landed at Otaheite, when barter began with the natives for 

 bread-fruit, both roasted and raw. A bead as large as a 

 pea purchased four or six bread-fruits and a like number 

 of cocoa-nuts. Banks tells us that they were obliged to 

 leave off buying for two days, so great was the supply. 

 Two months later there was a sudden scarcity. The 

 season had come for gathering the bread-fruits wholesale, 

 with the object of storing them, or of manipulating them 

 into a sort of paste called mahie, which served for food 

 until the appearance of a new crop. The chief sustenance 

 of these people seemed to be the bread-fruit ; and beside 

 this, the inner bark of the tree furnished a capital material 

 for weaving into cloth. 



The ship's party were not exempt from occasional dis- 

 aster. At Tierra del Fuego, the two negro servants 

 succumbed to the cold and exposure ; and here Mr. 

 Buchan, the artist, exhibited the first signs of illness which 

 carried him off three months later. Otherwise the entire 

 company enjoyed good health until they stopped at the 

 fatal port of Batavia, two years after leaving England. 

 One after another they became ill with malarial fever. 

 Several died, and were buried there ; and others, after 

 the ship left, who were buried at sea. These included 



