OF THE SOUTH SEAS 417 



we removed them with our tongues, draining the am- 

 brosial juice with each morsel, and ate twenty or thirty- 

 each. The fish was steeped in lime-juice, not cooked, 

 and flavored with the cocoanut sauce and wild chillies. 

 The crayfish were curried with the curry plant of the 

 mountains, the shrimp were eaten raw or boiled, and 

 the goldfish were baked. 



The sucking pig and fowl had been baked in a native 

 umu, or oven, on hot stones, and the taro and yams 

 steamed with them. Taro tops were served with cocoa- 

 nut cream. One was not compelled by any absurd 

 etiquette to choose these dishes in any sequence. My 

 left-hand neighbor was indifferent in choice, and ate 

 everything nearest to him first, and without order, tak- 

 ing feis or bananas or a goldfish, dozens of shrimps, a 

 few prawns, a crayfish, and several varos, but informing 

 me, with a caress of his rounded stomach, that he was 

 saving most of his hunger for the chicken, pig, and poi. 

 He was a Tahitian of middle age, with a beaming face, 

 and happy that I spoke his tongue. When the pig 

 and poi were set before us, he devoured large quantities 

 of them. The poi was in calabashes, and was made of 

 ripe breadfruit pounded until dough with a stone pestle 

 in a wooden trough, then baked in leaves in the ground, 

 and, when cooked, mixed with water and beaten and 

 stirred until a mass of the consistency of a glutinous 

 custard. He and I shared a calabash, and his adroit- 

 ness contrasted with my inexperience in taking the poi 

 to our mouths. He dipped his forefinger into the poi, 

 and withdrew it covered with the paste, twirled it three 

 times and gave it a fillip, which left no remnant to dangle 



