DRINKING AVA. 
381 
If pleasing to you. Hence we often have a mes¬ 
sage or note to the following effect : “ If pleasing 
to you, I should like a sheet of writing paper, or a 
pen ; but if it would not give you pleasure to send 
it, I do not wish it.” 
Soon after we had entered Miomioi’s house, a 
salt flying-fish was 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 before from ships at 
Towaihae. He supped at the same time, but, in¬ 
stead of drinking tea, took a large cocoa-nut shell 
fall 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 in¬ 
ebriation 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 fre¬ 
quently tabu'd 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, comparatively speaking, but 
little used, and sometimes only medicinally, to 
cure cutaneous eruptions and prevent corpulency. 
But since they have been so much visited by 
