GENERAL ACCOUNT HEDLET. 31 



was very nice, but it would take a great deal of such food to 

 satisfy the appetite."* 



Leichhardt writes of Northern Australia : " At the deserted 

 camp of the natives, which I visited yesterday, I saw half a cone 

 of the Pandanus covered up in hot ashes, large vessels (koolimans) 

 filled with water in which roasted seed-vessels were soaking ; seed 

 vessels which had been soaked, were roasting on the coals, and 

 large quantities of them broken on stones and deprived of their 

 seeds. This seems to shew that, in preparing the fruit when ripe 

 for use, it is first baked in hot ashes, then soaked in water to 

 obtain the sweet substance contained between its fibres, after 

 which it is put on the coals and roasted to render it brittle, when 

 it is broken to obtain the kernels."! 



In Funafuti the children make necklaces out of bits of the 

 brightly coloured nuts. J 



Of the timber trees the most imposing is the Fetau (Calophyllum 

 inophyllum, Linn.). On the lagoon side of the north-eastern islet 

 and overhanging the water are some handsome examples of this 

 tree forty feet in height and six or seven in diameter, whose roots 

 extend downwards to the hightide mark, and clasp the rocks in 

 the fashion of the Maritime Pines of Europe, or the Spotted Gums 

 of Australia. The rough barked, short, stout trunk branches 

 like an oak abruptly into heavy, thick limbs. The foliage is 

 dense, glossy and dark green ; among which is borne a profusion 

 of delicate, sweet smelling, white flowers, greatly valued by the 

 natives, and woven by them into garlands for feasts and festivals. 

 On the main islet were a few small trees, but the species was not 

 abundant thore. I did not notice the hard dark timber in use 

 by the natives. Probably it was not workable by the shell adzes 

 used before civilisation.^ 



Another of the taller timber trees is the Pouka|| (Hernandia 

 peltala, Meissn.). On a sandy flat just behind the village, is a 

 wood chiefly composed of this species. Hemmed in by each other 

 and the palms they have shot up into straight, unbranched, 

 slender saplings, forty feet high and twenty inches in diameter ; 



* Gill loc. cit., p. 185. 



t Leichhardt Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia, 1847, 

 p. 406. 



J As described by Gill loc. cit., p. 186. 



Seemann (Flora Vitiensis, 1865-73, p. 12) says of the oil of this tree in 

 Fiji, " the natives use it for polishing arms and greasing their bodies, 

 when coconut is not at hand. The leaves ere torn in small pieces, soaked 

 in water for a night and then used for washing inflamed eyes. Boats 

 and canoes are built of the wood and it is named with the Vesi (Afzelia 

 bijuga) as the best timber produced in Fiji." 



|| " Buka " in Karotonga Gill, loc. cit., p. 166. 



