und, and its bottom being loosely covered
with stones, a large fire is kindled within it. As soon as the requisite
degree of heat is attained, the embers are removed, and the surface of
the stones being covered with thick layers of leaves, one of the large
packages of Tutao is deposited upon them and overspread with another
layer of leaves. The whole is then quickly heaped up with earth, and
forms a sloping mound.

The Tutao thus baked is called 'Amar'; the action of the oven having
converted it into an amber-coloured caky substance, a little tart, but
not at all disagreeable to the taste.

By another and final process the 'Amar' is changed into 'Poee-Poee'.
This transition is rapidly effected. The Amar is placed in a vessel, and
mixed with water until it gains a proper pudding-like consistency, when,
without further preparation, it is in readiness for use. This is the
form in which the 'Tutao' is generally consumed. The singular mode of
eating it I have already described.

Were it not that the bread-fruit is thus capable of being preserved for
a length of time, the natives might be reduced to a state of starvation;
for owing to some unknown cause the trees sometimes fail to bear fruit;
and on such occasions the islanders chiefly depend upon the supplies
they have been enabled to store away.

This stately tree, which is rarely met with upon the Sandwich Islands,
and then only of a very inferior quality, and at Tahiti does not abound
to a degree that renders its fruit the principal article of food,
attains its greatest excellence in the genial climate of the Marquesan
group, where it grows to an enormous magnitude, and flourishes in the
utmost abundance.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

MELANCHOLY CONDITION--OCCURRENCE AT THE TI--ANECDOTE OF MARHEYO--SHAVING
THE HEAD OF A WARRIOR

IN looking back to this period, and calling to remembrance the
numberless proofs of kindness and respect which I received from the
natives of the valley, I can scarcely understand how it was that, in the
midst of so many consolatory circumstances, my mind should still have
been consumed by the most dismal forebodings, and have remained a
prey to the profoundest melancholy. It is true that the suspicious
circumstances which had attended the disappearance of Toby were enough
of themselves to excite distrust with regard to the savages, in whose
power I felt myself to be entirely placed, especially when it was
combined with the knowledge that these v