178 
VOYAGE TO THE 
CHAP, their wives, who further extract what is left of the pulp for their own 
share, and proceed to extricate the contents of the interior, consisting 
Feb. of four or five small kernels about the size of an almond. To perform 
1826 . . •11 n ^ 
this operation, the nut is placed upon a flat stone endwise, and with 
a block of coral, as large as the strength of the women will enable 
them to lift, is split in pieces, and the contents again put aside for 
their husbands. As it requires a considerable number of these small 
nuts to satisfy the appetites of their hungry masters, the time of the 
women is wholly passed upon their knees pounding nuts, or upon the 
sharp coral collecting shells and sea-eggs. On some occasions the nuts 
are baked in the ground, which gives them a more agreeable flavour, 
and facihtates the extraction of the pulp ; it does not, however, di- 
minish the labour of the females, who have in either case to bruise the 
fibres to procure the smaller nuts. 
The superiority of sex was never more rigidly enforced than among 
these barbarians, nor were the male part of the human species ever 
more despicable. On one occasion an unfortunate woman who was 
pounding some of these nuts, which she had walked a great distance to 
gather, thinking herself unobserved, ate two or three of the kernels as 
she extracted them ; but this did not escape the vigilance of her brutal 
husband, who instantly rose and felled her to the ground in the most 
inhuman manner with three violent blows of his fist. Thus tyrannised 
over, debased, neglected by the male sex, and strangers to social affec- 
tion, it is no wonder all those qualities which in civilised countries con- 
stitute the fascination of woman are in these people wholly wanting. 
The supercargo of the Dart, to forward the service he was engaged 
in, had hired a party of the natives of Chain Island to dive for shells. 
Among these was a native missionary a very well-behaved man, who 
used every effort to convert his new acquaintances to Christianity. He 
persevered amidst much silent ridicule, and at length succeeded in 
persuading the greater part of the islanders to conform to the ceremo- 
nies of Christian worship. It was interesting to contemplate a body of 
savages, abandoning their superstitions, silently and reverently kneeling 
* We were told that at Chain Island there were thirteen houses of prayer under the 
direction of native missionaries. 
