78 TUTUILA. 



Toa, after his unsuccessful search for his favourite eels, went into the 

 brook for a bath, which he told me he very frequently did during the 

 day ; and it was delightful to see the pleasure he took in it. The 

 natives, indeed, are almost constantly in the water, and, consequently, 

 very cleanly in their persons. Finding that it occupied too much of 

 their thoughts on the Sabbath, bathing on that day has been forbidden. 



This village contained about forty houses, of a large and commo- 

 dious size, and about two hundred inhabitants, a number of whom 

 were absent on a visit to Upolu. 



Towards evening, we took our leave of Toa, thanking him warmly 

 for his kindness ; we were escorted to the outside of the village by his 

 friends and relations, whilst Toa himself accompanied us to Pago- 

 pago. 



The natives have no fixed time for meals, eating whenever they feel 

 hungry. Their food consists of pork, fish, bread-fruit, cocoa-nuts, 

 bananas, &c, but principally of taro. All of these are produced in 

 abundance. Water is their common drink, and, notwithstanding 

 cocoa-nuts are so abundant, the milk is seldom used : the trouble of 

 procuring them is too much for them. They use ava made from the 

 Piper mythisticum, and it is the only intoxicating drink they have.* 

 It is never used to excess, although old and young, male and female, 

 are very fond of it. The taste, to one unaccustomed to it, is not 

 pleasant, being somewhat similar to that of rhubarb and magnesia. 

 Their mode of preparing it is the same as has already been described. 



They sleep on the large coarse mats with which they always cover 

 the floors of their houses. Over these they spread coloured tapas, 

 some of which are also used for nets of protection against the numerous 

 musquitoes. For a pillow they use a piece of bamboo supported on 

 small legs. Their hair is frequently shorn close, and coral, lime, or 

 ashes sprinkled over it to destroy the vermin, which are generated in 

 great numbers in their tapas and mats. 



According to old Toa, a native is in a comfortable condition when 

 he has a good house ; a well-made visiting canoe ; a neat, handy, large 

 and well-formed woman for a wife ; a taro-patch with a good fence ; 

 cocoa-nut, and bread-fruit trees, with a reasonable number of pigs. 



The women are now admitted to the same privileges as the men. 

 The chiefs have still great power over the people, although the influ- 

 ence of the missionaries has tended greatly to diminish it. Most of 

 the people look back to the days when polygamy existed with regret, 



* The ava does not, according to the whites, intoxicate in the same manner as ardent 

 spirits, but produces a temporary paralysis, tremors, and a confused feeling about the head, 

 indistinctness and distortion of vision, somewhat resembling the effect of opium. 



