e on board. We brewed it in the same
manner as spruce-beer, and the process is as follows: First, make a strong
decoction of the small branches of the spruce and tea plants, by boiling
them three or four hours, or until the bark will strip with ease from off
the branches; then take them out of the copper, and put in the proper
quantity of molasses, ten gallons of which is sufficient to make a ton, or
two hundred and forty gallons of beer; let this mixture just boil, then pot
it into the casks, and to it add an equal quantity of cold water, more or
less, according to the strength of the decoction, or your taste: When the
whole is milk-warm, put in a little grounds of beer, or yeast, if you have
it, or any thing else that will cause fermentation, and in a few days the
beer will be fit to drink. After the casks have been brewed in two or three
times the beer will generally ferment itself, especially if the weather is
warm. As I had inspissated juice of wort on board, and could not apply it
to a better purpose, we used it together with molasses or sugar, to make
these two articles go farther. For of the former I had but one cask, and of
the latter little to spare for this brewing. Had I known how well this beer
would have succeeded, and the great use it was of to the people, I should
have come better provided. Indeed I was partly discouraged by an experiment
made during my former voyage, which did not succeed then, owing, as I now
believe, to some mismanagement.

Any one, who is in the least acquainted with spruce pines, will find the
tree which I have distinguished by that name. There are three sorts of it;
that which has the smallest leaves and deepest colour, is the sort we
brewed with; but doubtless all three might safely serve that purpose. The
tea-plant is a small tree or shrub, with five white petals, or flower-
leaves, shaped like those of a rose, having smaller ones of the same figure
in the intermediate spaces, and twenty or more filaments or threads. The
tree sometimes grows to a moderate height, and is generally bare on the
lower part, with a number of small branches growing close together towards
the top. The leaves are small and pointed, like those of the myrtle; it
bears a dry roundish seed-case, and grows commonly in dry places near the
shores. The leaves, as I have already observed, were used by many of us as
tea, which has a very agreeable bitter and flavour when they are recent,
but loses some of both when