endants, 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 bread-fruits, 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
the fish out of the leaves and breaks one of them into the salt water,
placing the other, and what remains of the bread-fruit, upon the leaves
that have been spread before him. When this is done, he takes up a small
piece of the fish that has been broken into the salt-water, with all the
fingers of one hand, and sucks it into his mouth, so as to get with it
as much of the salt-water as possible. In the same manner he takes the
rest by different morsels, and between each, at least very frequently,
takes a small sup of the salt-water, either out of the cocoa-nut shell,
or the palm of his hand. In the meantime one of his attendants has
prepared a young cocoa-nut, by peeling off the outer rind with his
teeth, an operation which to an European appears very surprising; but it
depends so much upon sleight, that many of us were able to do it before
we left the island, and some that could scarcely crack a filbert. The
master when he chooses to drink takes the cocoa-nut thus prepared, and
boring a hole through the shell with his fingers, or breaking it with a
stone, he sucks out the liquor. When he has eaten his bread-fruit and
fish, he begins with his plantains, one of which makes but a mouthful,
though it be as big as a black-pudding; if instead of plantains he has
apples, he never tastes them till they have been pared; to do this a
shell is picked up from the ground, where they are always in plenty, and
tossed to him by an attendant. He immediately begins to cut or scrape
off the rind, but so awkwardly that great part of the fruit is wasted.
If, instead of fish, he has flesh, he must have some succedaneum for a
knife to divide it; and for this purpose a piece of bamboo is tossed to
him, of which he makes the necessary implement by splitting it
transversely with his nail. While all this has been doing, some of his
attendants have been employed in beati