of plantains he has apples, he never tastes them till they have been pared; to do this a shell is picked up from the ground, where they are always in plenty, and tossed to him by an attendant.  He immediately begins to cut or scrape off the rind, but so awkwardly that great part of the fruit is wasted.  If, instead of fish, he has flesh, he must have some succedaneum for a knife to divide it; and for this purpose a piece of bamboo is tossed to him, of which he makes the necessary implement by splitting it transversely with his nail.  While all this has been doing, some of his attendants have been employed in beating bread-fruit with a stone pestle upon a block of wood; by being beaten in this manner, and sprinkled from time to time with water, it is reduced to the consistence of a soft paste, and is then put into a vessel somewhat like a butcher’s tray, and either made up alone, or mixed with banana or mahie, according to the taste of the master, by pouring water upon it by degrees and squeezing it often through the hand.  Under this operation it acquires the consistence of a thick custard, and a large cocoa-nut shell full of it being set before him, he sips it as we should do a jelly if we had no spoon to take it from the glass.  The meal is then finished by again washing his hands and his mouth.  After which the cocoa-nut shells are cleaned, and everything that is left is replaced in the basket.’

Captain Cook adds, ’the quantity of food which these people eat at a meal is prodigious.  I have seen one man devour two or three fishes as big as a perch; three bread-fruits, each bigger than two fists; fourteen or fifteen plantains or bananas, each of them six or seven inches long, and four or five round; and near a quart of the pounded bread-fruit, which is as substantial as the thickest unbaked custard.  This is so extraordinary that I scarcely expect to be believed; and I would not have related it upon my own single testimony, but Mr. Banks, Dr. Solander, and most of the other gentlemen have had ocular demonstration of its truth, and know that I mention them on the occasion.’

The women, who, on other occasions, always mix in the amusements of the men, who are particularly fond of their society, are wholly excluded from their meals; nor could the latter be prevailed on to partake of anything when dining in company on board ship; they said it was not right:  even brothers and sisters have each their separate baskets, and their provisions are separately prepared; but the English officers and men, when visiting the young ones at their own houses, frequently ate out of the same basket and drank out of the same cup, to the horror and dismay of the older ladies, who were always offended at this liberty; and if by chance any of the victuals were touched, or even the basket that contained them, they would throw them away.