The Queen, For Instance, Asked, During The Dessert, For A Second Plate, Which She Filled With Sweetmeats, And Ordered To Be Put On One Side For Her To Take Home With Her.

Others had to be prevented from indulging too much in the generous champagne; but, on the whole, the entertainment passed off in a becoming and good-humoured manner.

I subsequently dined with the royal family several times at the governor's. The queen then appeared in the national costume, with the coloured pareo and chemise, as did also her husband. Both were barefoot. The heir apparent, a boy of nine years old, is affianced to the daughter of a neighbouring king. The bride, who is a few years older than the prince, is being educated at the court of Queen Pomare, and instructed in the Christian religion, and the English and Tahitian languages.

The arrangements of the queen's residence are exceedingly simple. For the present, until the stone house which is being built for her by the French government is completed, she lives in a wooden one containing four rooms, and partly furnished with European furniture.

As peace was now declared in Tahiti, there was no obstacle to my making a journey through the whole island. I had obtained a fortnight's leave of absence from the captain, and was desirous of devoting this time to a trip. I imagined that I should have been able to join one or other of the officers, who are often obliged to journey through the island on affairs connected with the government. To my great surprise I found, however, that they had all some extraordinary reason why it was impossible for me to accompany them at that particular time. I was at a loss to account for this incivility, until one of the officers themselves told me the answer to the riddle, which was this: every gentleman always travelled with his mistress.

Monsieur - -, {78} who let me into the secret, offered to take me with him to Papara, where he resided; but even he did not travel alone, as, besides his mistress, Tati, the principal chief of the island, and his family, accompanied him. This chief had come to Papeiti to be present at the fete of the 1st of May.

On the 4th of May we put off to sea in a boat, for the purpose of coasting round to Papara, forty-two miles distant. I found the chief Tati to be a lively old man nearly ninety years of age, who remembered perfectly the second landing of the celebrated circumnavigator of the globe, Captain Cook. His father was, at that period, the principal chief, and had concluded a friendly alliance with Cook, and, according to the custom then prevalent at Tahiti, had changed names with him.

Tati enjoys from the French government a yearly pension of 6,000 francs (240 pounds), which, after his death, will fall to his eldest son.

He had with him his young wife and five of his sons; the former was twenty-three years old, and the ages of the latter varied from twelve to eighteen. The children were all the offspring of other marriages, this being his fifth wife.

As we had not left Papeiti till nearly noon, and as the sun sets soon after six o'clock, and the passage between the numberless rocks is highly dangerous, we landed at Paya (22 miles), where a sixth son of Tati's ruled as chief.

The island is intersected in all directions by noble mountains, the loftiest of which, the Oroena, is 6,200 feet high. In the middle of the island the mountains separate, and a most remarkable mass of rock raises itself from the midst of them. It has the form of a diadem with a number of points, and it is to this circumstance that it owes its name. Around the mountain range winds a forest girdle, from four to six hundred paces broad; it is inhabited, and contains the most delicious fruit. Nowhere did I ever eat such bread-fruit, mangoes, oranges, and guavas, as I did here. As for cocoa-nuts, the natives are so extravagant with them, that they generally merely drink the water they contain, and then throw away the shell and the fruit. In the mountains and ravines there are a great quantity of plantains, a kind of banana, which are not commonly eaten, however, without being roasted. The huts of the natives lie scattered here and there along the shore; it is very seldom that a dozen of these huts are seen together.

The bread-fruit is somewhat similar in shape to a water-melon, and weighs from four to six pounds. The outside is green, and rather rough and thin. The natives scrape it with mussel-shells, and then split the fruit up long ways into two portions, which they roast between two heated stones. The taste is delicious; it is finer than that of potatoes, and so like bread that the latter may be dispensed with without any inconvenience. The South Sea Islands are the real home of the fruit. It is true that it grows in other parts of the tropics, but it is very different from that produced here. In Brazil, for instance, where the people call it monkeys' bread, it weighs from five to thirty pounds, and is full inside of kernels, which are taken out and eaten when the fruit is roasted. These kernels taste like chestnuts.

The mango is a fruit resembling an apple, and of the size of a man's fist; both the rind and the fruit itself are yellow. It tastes a little like turpentine, but loses this taste more and more the riper it gets. This fruit is of the best description; it is full and juicy, and has a long, broad kernel in the middle. The bread and mango trees grow to a great height and circumference. The leaves of the former are about three feet long, a foot and a-half broad, and deeply serrated; while those of the latter are not much larger than the leaves of our own apple-trees.

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Words from 42877 to 43901 of 187810