Page:Twenty years before the mast - Charles Erskine, 1896.djvu/91

 hair. The dress of the men is the pareu, a piece of cloth tied round the waist, extending down the leg to  the calf, and a gay-colored shirt. Often the shirt without the pareu is seen, and some dress in sailor rig.

They live on yams, taro, bread-fruit, vi-apple, bananas, oranges, cocoanuts, sugar-cane, fowls, and fish. The latter they eat raw. They use neither chairs, tables, nor salt, but instead of the latter they use sea-water. It is very amusing to see them eat. They sit upon mats spread on the earth-floor, both sexes cross-legged, and  "sail right in." Each article of food is dipped into the sea-water, and they munch away with their mouths full. Such a smacking of their lips! it is jolly to see and hear them. They are, in fact, perfect gormands. They eat, eat, and eat, until they can scarcely breathe: and then  those who are so full that they cannot get up, roll over  and go to sleep, and don’t eat again until they get hungry. Their huts are of an oval shape, sixty by twenty feet, and from twenty to twenty-five feet high, built of breadfruit and cocoanut trees. The walls are of bamboo, the roofs are thatched with pandanus. They contain one large room, which is screened off at night with various  mats. They are generally built in a grove of cocoanut or bread-fruit trees. A native can live wherever he likes, for food is to be found everywhere in abundance. As for lodging, it never enters his mind, for the Tahitian can sleep just as well on the beach at high-water mark,  or under a banana tree, as in his own hut. They are very fond of the water, and when in it are as happy as  ducks. They are very graceful swimmers. They tie a line to the top of a cocoanut tree, and on it swing across