60 
SANDWICH ISLANDS. 
habits, they little regarded regular hours for meals, and 
that they liked to eat frequently, though not to excess. 
Their greatest luxury was oysters, of which they were par¬ 
ticularly fond; and one day, some of the chiefs having been 
out to walk, and seeing a grey mullet, instantly seized it, 
and carried it home, to the great delight of the whole party, 
who, on recognizing the native fish of their own seas, could 
scarcely believe that it had not swam hither on purpose for 
them, or be persuaded to wait till it was cooked before they 
ate it. Once, and once only, they drank a considerable 
quantity of wine; it was when, after repeated and extra¬ 
ordinary ill-behaviour, the interpreter Rives was dismissed. 
This event gave them all the highest satisfaction, and they 
sat carousing all night; but even then they only consumed 
twenty bottles of wine, and that was not much among so 
many. 
Their moderation in every thing was quite remarkable, 
when we consider the nature and habits of half-civilized 
men; and, perhaps, it might have been as well if some of 
those travellers who, having been at the Sandwich Islands, 
lings a head per day for their table: as .they ate little or no butchers’ meat, 
but lived chiefly on fish, poultry, and fruit, by no means the cheapest articles in 
London, their gluttony could not have been great. So far from their always 
preferring the strongest liquors, their favourite beverage was some cider, with 
which they had been presented by Mr. Canning. 
