down and sleep till the effects are passed, and during the time have their limbs chafed with their women’s hands.  A gill of the yava is a sufficient dose for a man.  When they drink it, they always eat something afterwards; and frequently fall asleep with the provisions in their mouths:  When drank after a hearty meal, it produces but little effect.”  The writer forgets his authority, but he remembers to have read of a practice somewhat more economical, though not more delicate, than what is adopted at Otaheite.  The people are all passionately fond of the intoxicating beverage prepared from mushrooms; as the common sort cannot procure it at first hand, owing to its price, they are in the habit of attending at the houses of the grandees, where entertainments are going on, provided with vessels for the purpose of collecting the urine of the favoured few who have drunk of it, which they eagerly swallow.  The peculiar smell and flavour, it seems, are preserved notwithstanding this percolation, and are considered amply remunerative of the pains and importunity used to obtain it.  Such things are strikingly expressive of that worse than brutish perversity which actuates man, when once his lusts have acquired the dominion.  It is lamentable to think, that after that conquest over his reason and interest, his degradation in sensuality is in proportion to his ingenuity of invention; and that no dignity of situation, or splendour of office, or brilliancy of talent, can possibly redeem him from the contempt and detestation of those whose good opinion it ought to be his ambition to covet.—­E.]

Table they have none; but their apparatus for eating is set out with great neatness, though the articles are too simple and too few to allow any thing for show:  And they commonly eat alone; but when a stranger happens to visit them, he sometimes makes a second in their mess.  Of the meal of one of their principal people I shall give a particular description.

He sits down under the shade of the next tree, or on the shady side of his house, and a large quantity of leaves, either of the bread-fruit or banana, is neatly spread before him upon the ground as a table-cloth; a basket is then set by him that contains his provision, which, if fish or flesh, is ready dressed, and wrapped up in leaves, and two cocoa-nut shells, one full of salt water, and the other of fresh:  His attendants, which are not few, seat themselves round him, and when all is ready, he begins by washing his hands and his mouth thoroughly with the fresh water, and this he repeats almost continually throughout the whole meal; he then takes part of his provision out of the basket, which generally consists of a small fish or two, two or three breadfruits, fourteen or fifteen ripe bananas, or six or seven apples:  He first takes half a bread-fruit, peels off the rind, and takes out the core with his nails; of this he puts as much into his mouth as it can hold, and while he chews it, takes