1769 FOOD 135 
their brow, when their chief sustenance, bread-fruit, is pro- 
cured with no more trouble than that of climbing a tree 
and pulling it down. Not that the trees grew here 
spontaneously, but, if a man in the course of his life planted 
ten such trees (which, if well done, might take the labour 
of an hour or thereabouts), he would as completely fulfil his 
duty to his own as well as future generations, as we, natives 
of less temperate climates, can do by toiling in the cold of 
winter to sow, and in the heat of summer to reap, the 
annual produce of our soil; which, when once gathered into 
the barn, must again be re-sowed and re-reaped as often as the 
colds of winter or the heats of summer return to make such 
labour disagreeable. 
O fortunatos nimium, sua si bona norint 
may most truly be applied to these people; benevolent 
nature has not only provided them with necessaries, but 
with an abundance of superfluities. The sea, in the neigh- 
‘bourhood of which they always live, supplies them with 
vast variety of fish, better than is generally met with 
between the tropics, but these they get not without some 
trouble. Every one desires to have them, and there is not 
enough for all, though while we remained in these seas we 
saw more species perhaps than our island can boast of. 
I speak now only of what is more properly called fish, but 
almost everything which comes out of the sea is eaten and 
esteemed by these people. Shell-fish, lobsters, crabs, even 
sea insects, and what the seamen call blubbers of many 
kinds, conduce to their support; some of the latter, indeed, 
which are of a tough nature, are prepared by suffering them 
to stink. Custom will make almost any meat palatable, 
and the women, especially, are fond of this, though after 
they had eaten it, I confess I was not extremely fond of 
their company. 
Besides the bread-fruit the earth almost spontaneously 
produces cocoanuts ; bananas of thirteen sorts, the best I have 
ever eaten; plantains, but indifferent; a fruit not unlike an 
apple, which, when ripe, is very pleasant; sweet potatoes ; 
