Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 2 (Stockdale).djvu/165

] After crossing a channel as shallow as the preceding, we arrived at Oneata. Having the curiosity to examine the inside of a habitation, constructed with much art, we were greatly surprized to see a chief, who, sitting very gravely near the middle of the hut, permitted a foremast-man of our ship to take the greatest freedoms with one of the prettiest girls in the island. He informed us, on offering some cocoa nuts, that he could not allow us to drink their liquor within his dwelling. We could not have supposed that the witness of the party, we had just happened to interrupt under his roof, would have been so rigid to persons who came thither merely to quench their thirst; but we made a point of not disputing the matter with him.

Two natives arrived in the mean time, bringing in their hands some very ripe cocoa nuts opened, and with these we saw them prepare a dish, of which they appeared to be very fond. With shells, fixed in a piece of wood by way of handle, they scraped out the nuts, which they bruised with a very hot stone, so as to make a pulp of it; this they reduced to the consistence of a pudding, after mixing it with some fresh roasted bread-fruit; which done, they formed it into balls; and these they ate immediately.

Under a large shed we saw a double canoe,