QUALITIES OF BREAD-FRUIT. 41 
vegetable, it is good, but is a very indifferent substi¬ 
tute for English bread. 
To the natives of the South Sea Islands it is the 
principal article of diet, and may indeed be called 
their staff of life. They are exceedingly fond of 
it, and it is evidently adapted to their constitutions, 
and highly nutritive, as a very perceptible improve ¬ 
ment is often manifest in the appearance of many 
of the people, a few weeks after the bread-fruit 
season has commenced. For the chiefs, if is 
usually dressed two or three times a day ; but the 
peasantry, &c. seldom prepare more than one oven 
during the same period; and frequently tihcina , 
or bake it again, on the second day. 
During the bread-fruit season, the inhabitants 
of a district sometimes join, to prepare a quan¬ 
tity of opio . This is generally baked in a pro¬ 
digious oven. A pit, twenty or thirty feet in 
circumference, is dug out; the bottom is filled with 
stones, logs of firewood are piled upon them, and 
the whole is covered with large stones. The wood 
is then kindled, and the heat is often so intense, as 
to reduce the stones to a state of liquefaction. 
When thoroughly heated, the stones are removed 
to the sides; many hundred ripe bread-fruit are 
then thrown in, j ust as they have been gathered 
from the trees, and are piled up in the centre of 
the pit; a few leaves are spread upon them, the 
remaining hot stones built up like an arch over the 
heap, and the whole is covered, a foot or eighteen 
inches thick, with leaves and earth. In this state 
it remains a day or two ; a hole is then dug on one 
side, and the parties to whom it belongs take out 
what they want, till the whole is consumed. Bread¬ 
fruit baked in this manner, will keep good several 
weeks after the oven is opened. 
