Being
Presented With A Gun And Sword, He Returned Four Cows, And Proclaimed
Liberty For The People To Trade With Us.
He gave the English cocoa-nuts
to eat, while he chewed betel and areka-nut, tempered with lime of burnt
oister shells.
It has a hot biting taste, voids rheum, cools the head,
and is all their physic. It makes those giddy who are not accustomed to
its use, producing red spittles, and in time colours the teeth black,
which they esteem handsome, and they use this continually. From the
governor they were conducted to the carpenter's house, who was a chief
man in the town. His house was built of stone and lime, low and little,
plaistered with white lime, roofed with rafters, which were covered with
leaves of the cocoa-nut tree, the outsides wattled with canes.
"Their houses are kept clean and neat, with good household stuff, having
gardens inclosed with canes, in which they grow tobacco and plantains.
For dinner, a board was set upon tressels, on which was spread a fine
new mat, and stone benches stood around, on which the guests sat. First,
water was brought to each in a cocoa-shell, and poured into a wooden
platter, and the rinds of cocoa-nuts were used instead of towels. There
was then set before the company boiled rice, roasted plantains, quarters
of hens, and pieces of goat's flesh broiled. After grace said, they fell
to their meat, using bread made of cocoa-nut kernels, beaten up with
honey, and fried.
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