Tati enjoys from the French government a yearly pension of 6,000 francs (240 pounds), which, after his death, will fall to his eldest son.
He had with him his young wife and five of his sons; the former was twenty-three years old, and the ages of the latter varied from twelve to eighteen. The children were all the offspring of other marriages, this being his fifth wife.
As we had not left Papeiti till nearly noon, and as the sun sets soon after six o’clock, and the passage between the numberless rocks is highly dangerous, we landed at Paya (22 miles), where a sixth son of Tati’s ruled as chief.
The island is intersected in all directions by noble mountains, the loftiest of which, the Oroena, is 6,200 feet high. In the middle of the island the mountains separate, and a most remarkable mass of rock raises itself from the midst of them. It has the form of a diadem with a number of points, and it is to this circumstance that it owes its name. Around the mountain range winds a forest girdle, from four to six hundred paces broad; it is inhabited, and contains the most delicious fruit. Nowhere did I ever eat such bread-fruit, mangoes, oranges, and guavas, as I did here. As for cocoa-nuts, the natives are so extravagant with them, that they generally merely drink the water they contain, and then throw away the shell and the fruit. In the mountains and ravines there are a great quantity of plantains, a kind of banana, which are not commonly eaten, however, without being roasted. The huts of the natives lie scattered here and there along the shore; it is very seldom that a dozen of these huts are seen together.
The bread-fruit is somewhat similar in shape to a water-melon, and weighs from four to six pounds. The outside is green, and rather rough and thin. The natives scrape it with mussel-shells, and then split the fruit up long ways into two portions, which they roast between two heated stones. The taste is delicious; it is finer than that of potatoes, and so like bread that the latter may be dispensed with without any inconvenience. The South Sea Islands are the real home of the fruit. It is true that it grows in other parts of the tropics, but it is very different from that produced here. In Brazil, for instance, where the people call it monkeys’ bread, it weighs from five to thirty pounds, and is full inside of kernels, which are taken out and eaten when the fruit is roasted. These kernels taste like chestnuts.
The mango is a fruit resembling an apple, and of the size of a man’s fist; both the rind and the fruit itself are yellow. It tastes a little like turpentine, but loses this taste more and more the riper it gets. This fruit is of the best description; it is full and juicy, and has a long, broad kernel in the middle. The bread and mango trees grow to a great height and circumference. The leaves of the former are about three feet long, a foot and a-half broad, and deeply serrated; while those of the latter are not much larger than the leaves of our own apple-trees.