38G 
MISSIONARY TOUR 
or a pen; but if it would not give you pleasure to send 
it, Ī do not wish it.” 
Soon after we had entered his house, a salt flying - 
fish w as broiled for supper. A large copper boiler was 
also brought out, and tea was made with some dried 
mint, which, he said, he had procured many months 
ago from ships at Towaihae. He supped at the same 
time, but, instead of drinking tea, took a large cocoa- 
nut shell full of ava. If an opinion of its taste might 
be formed by the distortion of his countenance after 
taking it, it must be a most nauseous dose. There 
seemed to be about half a pint of it in the cup; its 
colour was like thick dirty calcareous water. As he 
took it, a man stood by his side with a calabash of 
fresh water, and the moment he had swallowed the 
intoxicating dose, he seized the calabash, and drank a 
hearty draught of water, to remove the unpleasant 
taste and burning effect of the ava. 
The ava has been used for the purpose of inebriation 
by most of the South Sea Islanders, and is prepared 
from the roots and stalks of a species of pepper plant, 
the piper methysticum of Forster, which is cultivated 
for this purpose in many of the islands, and being a 
plant of slow growth, was frequently tabued from the 
common people. The water in which the ava had been 
macerated, was the only intoxicating liquor with which 
the natives were acquainted before their intercourse with 
foreigners, and was, comparati vely speaking, but little 
used, and sometimes only medicinally, to cure cutaneous 
eruptions and prevent corpulency. But since they have 
been so much visited by shipping, the case is very differ¬ 
ent. They have been taught the art of distillation ; and 
foreign spirits in some places are so easily obtained, that 
