des femmes est de faire la cuisine, et de mettre en oeuvre un espece de
plante sauvage, et un arbre,--pour en faire de la toile."--_Lettres
Edifiantes et Curieuses_, tom. xv. p. 313.--D.]

The cocoa-nut and bread-fruit trees are scattered about without any
order, and seem to give them no trouble, after they have attained a
certain height. The same may be said of another large tree, which
produces great numbers of a large, roundish, compressed nut, called
_eeefee_; and of a smaller tree that bears a rounded oval nut, two
inches long, with two or three triangular kernels, tough and insipid,
called _mabba_, most frequently planted near their houses.

The _kappe_ is commonly regularly planted, and in pretty large spots;
but the _mawhaha_ is interspersed amongst other things, as the _jeejee_
and _yams_ are; the last of which I have frequently seen in the
insterspaces of the plantain trees at their common distance. Sugar-cane
is commonly in small spots, crowded closely together; and the mulberry,
of which the cloth is made, though without order, has sufficient room
allowed for it, and is kept very clean. The only other plant, that they
cultivate for their manufactures, is the _pandanus_, which is generally
planted in a row, close together, at the sides of the other fields; and
they consider it as a thing so distinct in this state, that they have a
different name for it, which shews, that they are very sensible of the
great changes brought about by cultivation.

It is remarkable, that these people, who, in many things shew much taste
and ingenuity, should shew little of either in building their houses,
though the defect is rather in the design than in the execution. Those
of the lower people are poor huts, scarcely sufficient to defend them
from the weather, and very small. Those of the better sort are larger
and more comfortable, but not what one might expect. The dimensions of
one of a middling size, are about thirty feet long, twenty broad, and
twelve high. Their house is, properly speaking, a thatched roof or shed,
supported by posts and rafters, disposed in a very judicious manner. The
floor is raised with earth smoothed, and covered with strong thick
matting, and kept very clean. The most of them are closed on the
weather-side, (and some more than two-thirds round), with strong mats,
or with branches of the cocoa-nut tree plaited or woven into each other.
These they fix up edgewise, reaching from the eaves to the groun