138 GENERAL ACCOUNT OF SOUTH SEA ISLANDS CH. vn 



Custom has, I suppose, made this agreeable to their palates, 

 though we disliked it extremely ; we seldom saw them make 

 a meal without some of it in some shape or form. 



As the whole making of this mahie, as they call it, 

 depends upon fermentation, I suppose it does not always 

 succeed; it is always done by the old women, who make a 

 kind of superstitious mystery of it, no one except the people 

 employed by them being allowed to come even into that 

 part of the house where it is. I myself spoiled a large 

 heap of it only by inadvertently touching some leaves that 

 lay upon it as I walked by the outside of the house where 

 it was ; the old directress of it told me that from that 

 circumstance it would most certainly fail, and immediately 

 pulled it down before my face, who did less regret 

 the mischief I had done, as it gave me an opportunity of 

 seeing the preparation, which, perhaps, I should not other- 

 wise have been allowed to do. 



To this plain diet, prepared with so much simplicity, 

 salt water is the universal sauce ; those who live at the 

 greatest distance from the sea are never without it, keeping 

 it in large bamboos set up against the sides of their houses. 

 When they eat, a cocoanut-shell full of it always stands 

 near them, into which they dip every morsel, especially of 

 fish, and often leave the whole soaking in it, drinking at 

 intervals large sups of it out of their hands, so that a man 

 may use half a pint of it at a meal. They have also a 

 sauce made of the kernels of cocoanuts fermented until 

 they dissolve into a buttery paste, and beaten up with salt 

 water ; the taste of this is very strong, and at first was to 

 me most abominably nauseous. A very little use, however, 

 reconciled me to it, so much so that I should almost prefer 

 it to our own sauces with fish. It is not common among 

 them, possibly it is thought ill-management among them to 

 use cocoanuts so lavishly, or we were on the islands at a 

 time when they were scarcely ripe enough for this purpose. 



Small fish they often eat raw, and sometimes large ones. 

 I myself, by being constantly with them, learnt to do the 

 same, insomuch that I have often made meals of raw fish 



