inner, if one of
the servants had not fed him.[90]

[Footnote 90: The great people of Otaheite, whether men or women, seem
to think that the labour of eating is sufficient employment, without the
additional task of feeding, which in all probability they find can be
done more expeditiously by proxy. Nor is such a consideration entirely
unworthy of nobility, where the power of consuming food is so exorbitant
as among those islanders it might be convenient, one should think, for
any man of rank who was capable of swallowing enormous quantities of
food every hour or two, to have an attendant properly instructed in the
art of stowing the belly-timber, as honest Sancho, of eating notoriety,
calls it. "Tinah," says Captain Bligh, in the account of his voyage to
this island, &c. "was fed by one of his attendants, who sat by him for
that purpose, this being a particular custom among some of the superior
chiefs; and I must do him the justice to say, he kept his attendant
constantly employed: There was indeed little reason to complain of want
of appetite in any of my guests. As the women are not allowed to eat in
presence of the men, Iddeah dined with some of her companions about an
hour afterwards, in private, except her husband, Tinah, favoured them
with his company, and seemed to have entirely forgotten that he had
dined already." The capabilities of Tinah's stomach, it seems, were of
very common acquirement at Otaheite. "They have not always regular
meals," says the account of the Mis. Voy., "but usually eat as soon as
they rise at day-break. Some are very voracious, especially the chiefs.
Pomarae hath eaten a couple of fowls and two pounds at least of pork,
besides other things, at a meal with us on board." Some persons may
imagine this impossible; but the fact is, the stomach, like every other
member, acquires strength by exercise, and can, by due care, if there be
no disease, be made to digest quantities of food as great as its
distended limits are capable of receiving. There cannot be a more
erroneous, or a more pernicious opinion, than what is commonly
entertained, that the keenness of the appetite, and the energy of the
digestion, are never above what the necessities of the system require.
They are often enormously greater, and sometimes actually constitute
most troublesome and highly formidable symptoms in certain
diseases.--E.]

SECTION XI.

_The Observatory set up; the Quadrant stolen, and Consequences of the
Th