d pigs and dogs. The flesh of both of these animals was eaten,
but only by persons of higher rank. Fowls were also bred and eaten, but
they were not very common, and their flesh was not very much esteemed.
The sugar-cane was indigenous in the islands, and the people ate it as a
fruit; along with bananas and plantains it occupied a considerable
portion of every plantation. Captain Cook found the natives skilful
husbandmen, but thought that with a more extensive system of
agriculture, the islands could have supported three times the number of
the existing inhabitants.[8] He remarked that the chiefs were much
addicted to the drinking of kava, and he attributed some of the
cutaneous and other diseases from which they suffered to an immoderate
use of what he calls the pernicious drug.[9]

[8] J. Cook, _Voyages_, vi. 215 _sq._, 219, 224 _sq._, vii. 126
_sq._; U. Lisiansky, _Voyage round the World_, p. 126; Archibald
Campbell, _Voyage round the World_ (Edinburgh, 1816), pp.
161-63, 182 _sq._, 194-197; W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 61, 215
_sq._, 420 (as to irrigation); C. S. Stewart, _Residence in the
Sandwich Islands_, pp. 111-113; Tyerman and Bennet, _op. cit._
i. 412, 426, 428, 430, 472; O. von Kotzebue, _Neue Reise um die
Welt_ (Weimar, 1830), ii. 96; J. J. Jarves, _op. cit._ pp. 68
_sq._; J. Remy, _op. cit._ pp. xxiv _sq._, xliii; F. D. Bennett,
_Narrative of a Whaling Voyage round the World_, i. 213 _sqq._
As to the system of irrigating the taro fields, see especially
O. von Kotzebue, _Voyage of Discovery into the South Sea and
Beering's Straits_ (London, 1821), i. 340 _sq._

[9] J. Cook, _Voyages_, vii. 113 _sq._

Sec. 3. _Houses, Mechanical Arts_

Captain King observed that in some respects the natives of the Sandwich
Islands approached nearer in their manners and customs to the Maoris of
New Zealand than to their less distant neighbours of the Society and
Friendly Islands, the Tahitians and the Tongans. In nothing, he says, is
this more observable than in their method of living together in small
towns or villages, containing from about one hundred to two hundred
houses, built pretty close together, without any order, and with a
winding path leading through them. They were generally flanked towards
the sea with loose detached walls, intended for shelter and defence.[10]
The shape of the houses was very simple. They were oblong with very high
thatched roofs, so th