Page:Williams and Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, New York, 1860.djvu/70

 48 FIJI AXD THE FIJIAK^S. natives, and greatly esteemed by foreigners. As a vegetable, it is served up entire, and, made into paste, forms the chief ingredient in many native puddings. The leaves, when boiled, eat like those of the mercury, and the petiole is little inferior to asparagus. Qai or masaioe [JDraccena terminalis) — the ti-tree — costs little care. Its slight stem, crowned with a tuft of lanceolate leaves, is sometimes seen in rows on the edge of a yam bed. The root weighs from ten to forty pounds, and is used, after being baked, as liquorice, or for sweet- ening made dishes. The banana and plantain are well knoAvii, and have been frequently described. The beautiful leaf of the former, when young, becomes the " mackintosh " of Fiji, by being warmed over the fire, and made into water-proof covers for the head. It is also used as a sort of cloth in which to tie up certain kinds of food, in the preparation of which oil has been used. On a remarkably fine specimen of this tree, I counted as many as one hundred and eighty in one bunch of the fruit. The natives cultivate at least thirty varieties, the fruits of which vary in form and size. It is propagated by suckers, four or six of which rise from the roots of the old tree. Beside its use as a simple vegetable and a fruit, it forms a stew with the expressed juice of the cocoa-nut, and stuffed with the grated nut makes a pudding. The white residents use it in pies, and procure from it by fermentation a superior vinegar. Dried in balls, it is little inferior to cured figs. This, with the bread-fruit tree, is among the most useful productions of the islands. The fibrous stem has never been used by the natives for cordage. Sugar-cane is grown in large quantities, and thrives well, ripening in twelve or fourteen months. The canes girt from three to seven inches, and their juice appeases both hunger and thirst ; it is also used in cookery. The leaves are largely employed for thatch. Considerable care is bestowed in some parts of the islands on the cultivation of the yaqona, [Piper metkisticicm,) the cava of voyagers. The root, prized for its narcotic properties, and yielding the native grog, is the part most valued, and that which consequently receives the most care. So successfully is this root cultivated, as to be brought some- times to a great weight. I had one at Somosomo weighing one hundred and forty pounds. Another and veiy important object of agricultural attention in Fiji is the paper mulberry, (Broussoneiia), known to the natives as masi or malo. A malo plantation is like a nursery of young trees, liaving an average height of ten feet, and a girth of three and a half inches. It supplies the people with their principal clothing.