200 
BREAD-FRUIT TREE. 
called the bread-fruit , growing on a tree as big as 
our large apple-trees, with dark leaves. The fruit 
is round, and groves on the boughs like apples, of 
the bigness of a good penny loaf; when ripe it turns 
yellow, soft, and sweet ; but the natives take it 
green, and bake it in an oven till the rind is black ; 
this they scrape off, and eat the inside, which is soft 
and white, like the inside of new baked bread, hav- 
ing neither seed nor stone ; but if it is kept above 
twenty-four hours it is harsh. As this fruit is in 
season eight months in the year, the natives feed 
upon no other sort of bread during that time. They 
told us that all the Ladrone islands had plenty of it. 
I never heard of it in any other place,’’ 
This is nearly the same description of the plant 
which lord Anson has given in his Voyage, who 
found it growing in some of the Philippines as well 
as the Ladrone islands. Several voyagers have no- 
ticed the bread-fruit; but till captain Wallis returned 
from the South Seas, and captain Cook from his 
voyage round the world, its history was but imper- 
fectly known, Rumphius describes the tree as an 
inhabitant of the eastern parts of Sumatra, and tells 
us that the natives call it sopcus, and soccum capas. 
From the account which our famous circumnavi- 
gator captain Cook has left behind him, we learn 
that this fruit not only serves as a substitute for 
bread among the inhabitants of Otaheite and the 
neighbouring islands, but also, variously dressed, 
composes the principal part of their food. It growls 
on a tree that is about the size of a middling oak ; 
