TAHITI. 



25 



I am at a loss to understand why so innocent a pleasure should not 

 have been encouraged rather than discountenanced. In conformity 

 with this opinion, the absence of flowers around the missionaries' 

 dwellings is universal, and cannot fail to be remarked in a climate 

 where the plants most admired in their own country, as exotics, are of 

 almost spontaneous growth. 



Cooking and eating occupy but a small portion of their time. The 

 latter indeed is performed with more of the air of a business which 

 requires despatch, than any thing else they do. Their food consists 

 principally of bread-fruit, taro, banana, vi-apple (Spondias), oranges, 

 cocoa-nuts, sugar-cane, fowls, and fish. They eat no salt, but employ 

 instead of it a sort of sop made of sea-water, cocoa-nut milk, and the 

 root of the Ti. Their mode of eating is somewhat disagreeable, for 

 the bread-fruit or taro is dipped in the sop, and then sucked into the 

 mouth with a smacking sound that may be heard at some distance. 

 The vessel most commonly used is a cocoa-nut shell. The children 

 are fed upon poe, which is made of bread-fruit and taro, pounded 

 together with a little sugar. The child is laid on its back, and is 

 crammed with balls of poe of the size of a walnut, at which it shows its 

 delight, by flapping its arms, kicking, and chirping like a young bird. 



At Tahiti the mode of carrying burdens is the same as we found 

 prevailing throughout Polynesia ; the wood-cut will best explain it. 



