THE TI PLANT. 
273 
The village is populous, and the natives soon 
thronged around us. To our great regret, two- 
thirds of them appeared to be in a state of in¬ 
toxication, a circumstance we frequently had 
occasion to lament, in the villages through 
which we passed. Their inebriation was gene¬ 
rally the effect of an intoxicating drink made of 
fermented sugar-cane juice, sweet potatoes, or ti 
root. 
The ti plant is common in all the South Sea 
islands, and is a variety of draccena, resembling 
the draccena terminalis, except in the colour of its 
leaves, which are of a lively shining green. It is a 
slow-growing plant, with a large woody fusiform 
root, which, when first dug out of the ground, is 
hard and fibrous, almost tasteless, and of a white 
or light yellow colour. The natives bake it in 
large ovens under ground. After baking, it ap¬ 
pears like a different substance altogether, being 
of a yellowish brown colour, soft, though fibrous, 
and saturated with a highly saccharine juice. It 
is sweet and pleasant to the taste, and much of it 
was eaten in this state, but the greater part is 
employed in making an intoxicating liquor much 
used by the natives. They bruise the baked 
roots with a stone, and steep them with water in a 
barrel or the bottom of an old canoe, till the mass 
is in a state of fermentation. The liquor is then 
drawn off, and sometimes distilled, when it pro¬ 
duces a strong spirit; but the greater part of it is 
drank in its fermented state without any further 
preparation. The root is certainly capable of 
being used for many valuable purposes. A good 
beer may be made from it; and in the Society 
Islands, though never able to granulate it, we 
have frequently boiled its juice to a think syrup, 
iv. t 
