1770 FOOD-PLANTS 313 



great abundance of the shells of a kind of fruit resembling a 

 pine-apple, though its taste was disagreeable enough. It is 

 common to all the East Indies, and called by the Dutch 

 Pyn appel Boomen (Pandanus). We found also the fruits 

 of a low palm * called by the Dutch Moeskruidige Callapus 

 (Cycas circinalis), which they certainly eat, though this fruit is 

 so unwholesome that some of our people, who, though fore- 

 warned, followed their example and ate one or two of them, 

 were violently affected by them ; and our hogs, whose con- 

 stitutions we thought might be as strong as those of the 

 Indians, literally died after having eaten them. It is 

 probable, however, that these people have some method of 

 preparing them by which their poisonous quality is destroyed, 

 as the inhabitants of the East Indian Isles are said to do by 

 boiling them, steeping them twenty-four hours in water, 

 then drying them, and using them to thicken broth, from 

 whence it would seem that the poisonous quality lies entirely 

 in the juices, as it does in the roots of the mandihoca or 

 cassada of the West Indies, and that when thoroughly 

 cleared of them, the pulp remaining may be a wholesome 

 and nutritious food. 



Their victuals they generally dress by broiling or toasting 

 them upon the coals, so we judged by the remains we saw ; 

 they understood, however, the method of baking or stewing 

 with hot stones, and sometimes practised it, as we now and 

 then saw the pits and burned stones which had been used 

 for that purpose. 



We observed that some, though but few, held constantly 

 in their mouths the leaves of a herb which they chewed as 

 a European does tobacco, or an East Indian betel ; what sort 

 of a plant it was we had no opportunity of learning, as we 

 never saw anything but the chaws, which they took from 

 their mouth to show us. It might be of the betel kind, 

 and so far as we could judge from the fragments was so ; 

 but whatever it was, it was used without any addition, and 

 seemed to have no kind of effect upon either the teeth or 

 lips of those who used it. 



1 Cycas media, Br., closely allied to 0. circinalis. See pp. 299 and 421. 



