as our largest apple-trees; it hath a spreading head, full of branches and dark leaves.  The fruit grows on the boughs like apples; it is as big as a penny-loaf, when wheat is at five shillings the bushel; it is of a round shape, and hath a thick tough rind; when the fruit is ripe it is yellow and soft, and the taste is sweet and pleasant.  The natives of Guam use it for bread.  They gather it, when full grown, while it is green and hard; then they bake it in an oven, which scorcheth the rind and makes it black, but they scrape off the outside black crust, and there remains a tender thin crust; and the inside is soft, tender, and white, like the crumb of a penny-loaf.  There is neither seed nor stone in the inside, but all is of a pure substance like bread.  It must be eaten new; for if it is kept above twenty-four hours, it grows harsh and choaky; but it is very pleasant before it is too stale.  This fruit lasts in season eight months in the year, during which the natives eat no other sort of food of bread kind.  I did never see of this fruit anywhere but here.  The natives told us that there is plenty of this fruit growing on the rest of the Ladrone Islands; and I did never hear of it anywhere else.’

Lord Anson corroborates this account of the bread-fruit, and says that, while at Tinian, it was constantly eaten by his officers and ship’s company during their two months’ stay, instead of bread; and so universally preferred, that no ship’s bread was expended in that whole interval.  The only essential difference between Dampier’s and Cook’s description is, where the latter says, which is true, that this fruit has a core, and that the eatable part lies between the skin and the core.  Cook says also that its taste is insipid, with a slight sweetness, somewhat resembling that of the crumb of wheaten bread mixed with a Jerusalem artichoke.  From such a description, it is not surprising that the West India planters should have felt desirous of introducing it into those islands; and accordingly the introduction of it was subsequently accomplished, notwithstanding the failure of the present voyage; it has not, however, been found to answer the expectation that had reasonably been entertained.  The climate, as to latitude, ought to be the same, or nearly so, as that of Otaheite, but there would appear to be some difference in the situation or nature of the soil, that prevents it from thriving in the West India Islands.  At Otaheite and on several of the Pacific Islands,

     The bread-tree, which, without the ploughshare yields,
     The unreap’d harvest of unfurrow’d fields,
     And bakes its unadulterated loaves
     Without a furnace in unpurchased groves,
     And flings off famine from its fertile breast,
     A priceless market for the gathering guest—­

is to the natives of those islands a most invaluable gift, but it has not been found to yield similar benefits to the West India Islands.