The chief vegetable productions of these isles are the sugar cane, the bread-fruit tree, the banana, the water-melon, the musk-melon, the taro, the ava, the pandanus, the mulberry, &c.  The bread-fruit tree is about the size of a large apple-tree; the fruit resembles an apple and is about twelve or fourteen inches in circumference; the rind is thick and rough like a melon:  when cut transversely it is found to be full of sacs, like the inside of an orange; the pulp has the consistence of water-melon, and is cooked before it is eaten.  We saw orchards of bread-fruit trees and bananas, and fields of sugar-cane, back of Ohetity.

The taro grows in low situations, and demands a great deal of care.  It is not unlike a white turnip,[E] and as it constitutes the principal food of the natives, it is not to be wondered at that they bestow so much attention on its culture.  Wherever a spring of pure water is found issuing out of the side of a hill, the gardener marks out on the declivity the size of the field he intends to plant.  The ground is levelled and surrounded with a mud or stone wall, not exceeding eighteen inches in height, and having a flood gate above and below.  Into this enclosure the water of the spring is conducted, or is suffered to escape from it, according to the dryness of the season.  When the root has acquired a sufficient size it is pulled up for immediate use.  This esculent is very bad to eat raw, but boiled it is better than the yam.  Cut in slices, dried, pounded and reduced to a farina, it forms with bread fruit the principal food of the natives.  Sometimes they boil it to the consistence of porridge, which they put into gourds and allow to ferment; it will then keep a long time.  They also use to mix with it, fish, which they commonly eat raw with the addition of a little salt, obtained by evaporation.

[Footnote E:  Bougainville calls it “Calf-foot root.”]

The ava is a plant more injurious than useful to the inhabitants of these isles; since they only make use of it to obtain a dangerous and intoxicating drink, which they also call ava.  The mode of preparing this beverage is as follows:  they chew the root, and spit out the result into a basin; the juice thus expressed is exposed to the sun to undergo fermentation; after which they decant it into a gourd; it is then fit for use, and they drink it on occasions to intoxication.  The too frequent use of this disgusting liquor causes loss of sight, and a sort of leprosy, which can only be cured by abstaining from it, and by bathing frequently in the water of the sea.  This leprosy turns their skin white:  we saw several of the lepers, who were also blind, or nearly so.  The natives are also fond of smoking:  the tobacco grows in the islands, but I believe it has been introduced from abroad.  The bark of the mulberry furnishes the cloth worn by both sexes; of the leaves of the pandanus they make mats.  They have also a kind of wax-nut, about the size of a dried plum of which they make candles by running a stick through several of them.  Lighted at one end, they burn like a wax taper, and are the only light they use in their huts at night.