fer
performs the same operation in one second, is put to his wit's end to
provide for his starving offspring that food, which the children of a
Polynesian father, without troubling their parents, pluck from the
branches of every tree around them.

CHAPTER XIV

Kindness of Marheyo and the rest of the islanders--A full
description of the bread-fruit tree--Different modes of preparing
the fruit.

All the inhabitants of the valley treated me with great kindness; but as
to the household of Marheyo, with whom I was now permanently domiciled,
nothing could surpass their efforts to minister to my comfort. To the
gratification of my palate they paid the most unwearied attention. They
continually invited me to partake of food, and when after eating heartily
I declined the viands they continued to offer me, they seemed to think
that my appetite stood in need of some piquant stimulant to excite its
activity.

In pursuance of this idea, old Marheyo himself would hie him away to the
sea-shore by the break of day, for the purpose of collecting various
species of rare seaweed; some of which, among these people, are considered
a great luxury. After a whole day spent in this employment, he would
return about nightfall with several cocoa-nut shells filled with different
descriptions of kelp. In preparing these for use, he manifested all the
ostentation of a professed cook, although the chief mystery of the affair
appeared to consist in pouring water in judicious quantities upon the
slimy contents of his cocoa-nut shells.

The first time he submitted one of these saline salads to my critical
attention, I naturally thought that anything collected at such pains must
possess peculiar merits; but one mouthful was a complete dose; and great
was the consternation of the old warrior at the rapidity with which I
ejected his epicurean treat.

How true it is, that the rarity of any particular article enhances its
value amazingly. In some part of the valley--I know not where, but probably
in the neighbourhood of the sea--the girls were sometimes in the habit of
procuring small quantities of salt, a thimble-full or so being the result
of the united labours of a party of five or six employed for the greater
part of the day. This precious commodity they brought to the house,
enveloped in multitudinous folds of leaves; and as a special mark of the
esteem in wh