56 
PORTER’S JOURNAL, 
ly lined; after which, the bunches of green bananas are packed in, 
and covered with grass, to prevent the dirt from coming in con¬ 
tact with them; then the whole is covered with dirt, and left four 
days, at the expiration of which time, they are taken out, perfect¬ 
ly ripe and of a beautiful yellow colour. 
The tarra is a root much resembling a yam, of a pungent taste, 
and excellent when boiled or roasted. The natives, by grating 
it, and mixing it with cocoa-nut oil, make of it a paste, which is 
highly esteemed by them. It grows in a nut soil, and much pains 
is taken in its cultivation. 
The sugar-cane grows to an uncommon size here, it being no 
unusual thing to see the stalks fourteen feet in length, and ten 
or twelve inches in circumference. The only use they make of it 
is to chew and swallow the juice. 
The kava is a root possessing an intoxicating quality, with 
which the chiefs are very fond of indulging themselves. They 
employ persons of a lower class to chew it for them and spit it into 
a wooden bowl; after which a small quantity of water is mixed 
with it, when the juice is strained into a neatly polished cup, 
made of a cocoa-nut shell, and passed round among them: it ren¬ 
ders them very stupid and averse to hearing any noise: it deprives 
them of their appetite, and reduces them almost to a state of tor¬ 
por: it has the effect of making their skin fall off in white scales; 
affects their nerves, and no doubt brings on a premature old age. 
They applied the word kava to every thing we eat or drank of a 
heating or pungent nature. Rum or wine was called kava; pep¬ 
per, mustard, and even salt, with the nature and use of which 
they are entirely unacquainted, was called kava, as was also 
our spittle. A mineral water of a strong taste, several springs 
of which are to be found on the island, and are held in high esti¬ 
mation by the natives for the cure of scrophulous and some other 
complaints, is called vie kava. 
The bread-fruit tree has been so often and so minutely de¬ 
scribed by other voyagers that a description of it here may be 
thought by some superfluous. I have but little new to offer on 
the subject; yet as a description of it may not be disagreeable to 
such as may chance to peruse these pages, and as they are writ¬ 
ten chiefly for the improvement and information of my son, it is 
