212 POPULAR GEOGRAPHY OF PLANTS. 



The South Sea Islanders reckon the Breadfruit and the 

 Cocoa-nut amongst their most precious treasures, not only 

 in life, but in death also. The corpse of a departed relative 

 is carefully supplied with these by the mourners, as well as 

 with bunches of green leaves and a young Plantain-tree, 

 being intended, as the natives explained to Sir Joseph 

 Banks, as a propitiatory offering to their gods ; a Cocoa-nut 

 shell filled with fresh water is placed on the stem of a Plan- 

 tain-tree, near the wicker-work shed where the corpse lies 

 extended on a bier, and a little bag with some roasted 

 pieces of Breadfruit is hung on a post close by : there are 

 few things perhaps more touching to a Christian than the 

 thought of such heathen funeral rites. Sir Joseph Banks 

 was so anxious to witness them, that finding he could do so 

 on no other condition, he even consented on one occasion 

 to take part in them, and was very much complimented by 

 the chief mourner on the discreet manner in which he con- 

 ducted himself. 



It is to the inner bark of three different trees that the 

 natives are indebted for clothing the Mulberry, the Bread- 

 fruit, and another, described as not unlike a wild Pig-tree 

 from which they manufacture three different kinds of cloth, 

 by a long process of soaking it, of spreading it out in layers 



