In an hour and a half the victuals were dug up.  The pig was neither very artistically cooked nor very enticing, but cut up as quick as lightning, being divided by the hand and knife into as many portions as there were guests, and each person had his share, together with half a bread-fruit, handed to him upon a large leaf.  There was no one at our rustic table besides the officer, his mistress, the old Tati, his wife, and myself, as it is contrary to the custom of the country for the host to eat with his guests, or the children with their parents.  With the exception of this ceremony, I did not observe any other proof of love or affection between the father and son.  The old man, for instance, although ninety years of age, and suffering besides from a violent cough, was obliged to pass the night under nothing but a light roof, open to the weather, while his son slept in his well-closed huts.

On the 5th of May, we left Taipari with empty stomachs, as old Tati was desirous of entertaining us at one of his estates about two hours’ journey distant.

On our arrival, and as soon as the stones were heated for our meal, several of the natives out of the neighbouring huts hastened to profit by the opportunity to cook their provisions as well, bringing with them fish, pieces of pork, bread-fruit, plantains, and so on.  The fish and meat were enveloped in large leaves.  For our use, besides bread-fruit and fish, there was a turtle weighing perhaps more than twenty pounds.  The repast was held in a hut, to which the whole neighbourhood also came, and forming themselves into groups a little on one side of us principal guests, eat the provisions they had brought with them.  Each person had a cocoa-nut shell full of miti before him; into this he first threw every morsel and took it out again with his hand, and then what remained of the miti was drunk at the end of the meal.  We had each of us a fresh cocoa-nut with a hole bored in it, containing at least a pint of clear, sweet-tasting water.  This is erroneously termed by us “Milk,” but it only becomes thick and milky when the cocoa-nut is very stale, in which condition it is never eaten in these islands.

Tati, with his family, remained here, while we proceeded to Papara, an hour’s walk.  The road was delightful, leading mostly through thick groves of fruit-trees; but it would not suit a person with a tendency to hydrophobia, for we were obliged to wade through more than half a dozen streams and brooks.

At Papara, Monsieur —–­ possessed some landed property, with a little wooden four-roomed house, in which he was kind enough to give me a lodging.