16 BREAD-FRUIT. 
was stored and victualled for eighteen months, 
Besides other provision, he had supplies of port- 
able soup, essence of meat, sour krout, and dried 
malt ; to which were added articles of iron and 
steel, trinkets, beads, and looking-glasses, for 
traffic with the natives. The plants, the best 
he could obtain, he was to convey to the West 
Indies, to attempt their growth for the sup- 
port of the slave population; it having been 
the opinion of Sir Joseph Banks, who had visited 
Otaheite with Captain Cook in 1769, that the 
bread-fruit tree might be successfully cultivated 
in those colonies. 
The ship was fitted out in dock at Deptford 
under Bligh's superintendence. The great cabin 
was devoted to the preservation of the plants. A 
false floor, cut full of holes, contained the garden- 
pots, in which the plants were to be placed. 
The bread-fruit grows on a tree of about 
the size of a common oak, which, towards the 
top, divides into large and spreading branches. 
The leaves are of a very deep green. The bread- 
fruit springs from twigs to the size of a penny loaf. 
It has a thick rind ; and before becoming ripe, 
it is gathered, and baked in an oven. The inner 
part is like the crumb of wheaten bread, and 
found to be very nutritive. Captain William 
Dampier,* who sailed round the world in the 
year 1688, thus described the bread-fruit : " It 
* Dampier was an old English navigator, born in 1652. 
His name is associated with that of the famous Alexander 
Selkirk, who sailed in company with him. Selkirk's won- 
derful adventures suggested to De Foe the idea of his inimit- 
able Robinson Crusoe, and to Cowper the beautiful verses, 
beginning, " I am monarch of all I survey." 
