PACIFIC AND BEEPING’S STRAIT. 
95 
naturally leads to such a conclusion ; but a little reflection ought to • 
have satisfied them, that a deviation from their established habits, an 
unusual indulgence in animal food, and additional clothing, were of ^ec. 
themselves sufficient to account for the maladies. They are, however, 
unaccustomed to trace effects to latent causes. Hence they assert, that 
the Briton left them headaches and flies ; a whaler infected with the 
scurvy (for which several of her crew pursued the old remedy of bury- 
ing the people up to the necks in the earth) left them a legacy of boils 
and other sores ; and though we had no diseases on board the Blossom, 
they fully expected to be affected by some cutaneous disorder after our 
departure ; and even attributed some giddiness and headaches that were 
felt during our stay to infection from the ship’s company. 
The women have all learned the art of midwifery. Parturition 
generally takes place during the night-time ; the duration of labour is 
seldom longer than five hours, and has not yet in any case proved fatal. 
There is no instance of twins, nor of a single miscarriage, except from 
accident. 
We found upon Pitcairn Island, cocoa-nuts, bread-fruit ( artocar- 
pus incisa), plantains (musa 'paradaiHaca), bananas (rniisa sapientumj, 
Water-melons (cucurbit a citrullus), pumpkins (cucurbit a pe'po), potatoes 
(solanum esculent um), sweet potatoes (convolvulus batatas), yams (dio- 
^coria sativum), taro (caladium esculentum), peas, yappai* (arum cos- 
tatum ), sugar-cane, ginger, turmeric, tobacco, tee-plant* ( dracmia ter- 
minalis ), doodoe* (aleurites triloba ), nono* ( morinda citrofoUa), another 
species of morinda, parau* (hibiscus tiliaceus), fowtoo* (hibiscus tri- 
<^uspis), the cloth-tree (broussonetia papyrifera), pawalla* (pandanus 
f^doi^atissimusf),toonenvi* (?), and banyan-tree. A species of metrosi- 
deros, and several species of ferns. 
The first twelve of these form the principal food of the inhabitants. 
The sugar-cane is sparingly cultivated; they extract from it a juice which 
is used to flavour the tea of such as are ill, by pounding the cane, and 
boiling it with a little ginger and cocoa-nut grated into a pulp, as a 
substitute for milk. In this manner a pleasant beverage is produced. 
* Native names. A more correct account of the botany will be published by Dr. 
Hooker, Professor of Botany, &c. of Glasgow. 
