In this fine climate houses are almost unnecessary.  The minimum range of the thermometer is about 63 deg., the maximum 85 deg., giving an average of 74 deg..  Their sheds or houses consist generally of a thatched roof raised on posts, the eaves reaching to within three or four feet of the ground; the floor is covered with soft hay, over which are laid mats, so that the whole is one cushion, on which they sit by day and sleep by night.  They eat in the open air, under the shade of the nearest tree.  In each district there is a house erected for general use, much larger than common, some of them exceeding two hundred feet in length, thirty broad, and twenty high.  The dwelling-houses all stand in the woody belt which surrounds the island, between the feet of the central mountains and the sea, each having a very small piece of ground cleared, just enough to keep the dropping of the trees from the thatch.  An Otaheitan wood consists chiefly of groves of bread-fruit and cocoa-nuts, without underwood, and intersected in all directions by the paths that lead from one house to another.  ‘Nothing,’ says Cook, ’can be more grateful than this shade, in so warm a climate, nor anything more beautiful than these walks,’

With all the activity they are capable of displaying, and the sprightliness of their disposition, they are fond of indulging in ease and indolence.  The trees that produce their food are mostly of spontaneous growth—­the bread-fruit, cocoa-nut, bananas of thirteen sorts, besides plantains; a fruit not unlike an apple, which, when ripe, is very pleasant; sweet potatoes, yams, and a species of arum; the pandanus, the jambu and the sugar-cane; a variety of plants whose roots are esculent—­these, with many others, are produced with so little culture, that, as Cook observes, they seem to be exempted from the first general curse that ‘man should eat his bread in the sweat of his brow.’  Then for clothing they have the bark of three different trees, the paper mulberry, the bread-fruit tree, and a tree which resembles the wild fig-tree of the West Indies; of these the mulberry only requires to be cultivated.

In preparing the cloth they display a very considerable degree of ingenuity.  Red and yellow are the two colours most in use for dyeing their cloth; the red is stated to be exceedingly brilliant and beautiful, approaching nearest to our full scarlet; it is produced by the mixture of the juices of two vegetables, neither of which separately has the least tendency to that hue:  one is the Cordia Sebestina, the other a species of Ficus; of the former the leaves, of the latter the fruits yield the juices.  The yellow dye is extracted from the bark of the root of the Morinda citrifolia, by scraping and infusing it in water.

Their matting is exceedingly beautiful, particularly that which is made from the bark of the Hibiscus tiliaceus, and of a species of Pandanus.  Others are made of rushes and grass with amazing facility and dispatch.  In the same manner their basket and wicker work are most ingeniously made; the former in patterns of a thousand different kinds.  Their nets and fishing-lines are strong and neatly made, so are their fish-hooks of pearl-shell; and their clubs are admirable specimens of wood-carving.