ged 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 XV

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 very men, kind and respectful as they were to me, were, after all,
nothing better than a set of cannibals.

But my chief source of anxiety, and that which poisoned every temporary
enjoyment, was the mysterious disease in my leg, which still remained
unabated. All the herbal applications of Tinor, united with the severer
discipline of the old leech, and the affectionate nursing of Kory-Kory,
had failed to relieve me. I was almost a cripple, and the pain I endured
at intervals was agonizing. The unaccountable malady showed no signs of
amendment; on the contrary, its violence incr