SAMOAN GROUP. 147 



as the stones allow a free passage to water. On the pavement are 

 laid coarse mats, and the finer ones are spread above, covering about 

 half the area. 



These fine mats are rolled up until required. Many baskets hang 

 here and there, with some cocoa-nut shells to contain water, and the 

 ava-bowl. Mats are suspended about as screens. At night, each 

 sleeper is usually supplied with a musquito-curtain, called tai-namu, 

 which, forming a kind of tent, by being passed over a ridge-pole or 

 rope, and falling on the ground, answers all the purposes required.* 



On one, and sometimes on both sides of the centre-post of the 

 houses, is a small circular hearth, enclosed by stones of larger size ; 

 this is the place for burning the dried leaves of the cocoa-nut, which 

 serve them for light at night. Although these do not give out much 

 smoke, yet as they burn for a long time, the house gradually becomes 

 filled with soot, for there is no outlet above for its escape.f 



As they always use the flambeau to light them on their return 

 from their feasts, it produces a singular and pretty effect to see an 

 assembly breaking up, and the different parties winding through the 

 groves with torches, throwing the whole into bold relief. A rude 

 lamp is also used, made of a cocoa-nut shell, with a little oil in it, and 

 a piece uf ^ino-stalk for a. wick, aud likewise the nut of the Aleurites 

 triloba, or candle-nut, several of which are strung on a thin stick. 



Many white-washed houses are now to be seen, for the natives have 

 been taught the use of lime by the missionaries, and are beginning to 

 use it in their dwellings. All the missionaries' houses have plastered 

 walls, and board floors, and are very comfortable. There is a great 

 quantity of fine timber on these islands, for building purposes. The 

 timber of the bread-fruit tree and hibiscus, are alone made use of by 

 the natives. The missionaries have their planks or boards sawed by 

 hand, and generally by foreign carpenters. 



The food of the Samoans is prepared in the way practised at Tahiti, 

 and generally consists of bread-fruit, bananas, taro, sweet-potatoes, 

 and yams. Fish is supplied in quantities from the reef, and they also 

 eat the large chestnut, vi-apple, and arrow-root, the fecula of which 

 they begin to manufacture in some quantities. Although it would 

 scarcely be supposed necessary, where every thing is so bountifully 

 supplied by nature, yet they make provision for times of scarcity and 

 for their voyages, of the bread-fruit, made when green into a kind of 



* Musquitoes are exceedingly annoying to strangers, but I did not remark that the natives 

 were troubled with them. Their bodies being well oiled is a great preservation against the 

 bites of these insects. 



t The prevalence of sore eyes is said to be owing to the smoke of the lamps. 



