Chapter Fifteen - Page 2

occupies in a Typee bill of fare, induces me to give at some
length a general description of the tree, and the various modes
in which the fruit is prepared.

The bread-fruit tree, in its glorious prime, is a grand and
towering object, forming the same feature in a Marquesan
landscape that the patriarchal elm does in New England scenery.
The latter tree it not a little resembles in height, in the wide
spread of its stalwart branches, and in its venerable and
imposing aspect.

The leaves of the bread-fruit are of great size, and their edges
are cut and scolloped as fantastically as those of a lady's lace
collar. As they annually tend towards decay, they almost rival
in brilliant variety of their gradually changing hues the
fleeting shades of the expiring dolphin. The autumnal tints of
our American forests, glorious as they are, sink into nothing in
comparison with this tree.

The leaf, in one particular stage, when nearly all the prismatic
colours are blended on its surface, is often converted by the
natives into a superb and striking bead-dress. The principal
fibre traversing its length being split open a convenient
distance, and the elastic sides of the aperture pressed apart,
the head is inserted between them, the leaf drooping on one side,
with its forward half turned jauntily up on the brows, and the
remaining part spreading laterally behind the ears.

The fruit somewhat resembles in magnitude and general appearance
one of our citron melons of ordinary size; but, unlike the
citron, it has no sectional lines drawn along the outside. Its
surface is dotted all over with little conical prominences,
looking not unlike the knobs, on an antiquated church door. The
rind is perhaps an eighth of an inch in thickness; and denuded of
this at the time when it is in the greatest perfection, the fruit
presents a beautiful globe of white pulp, the whole of which may
be eaten, with the exception of a slender core, which is easily
removed.

The bread-fruit, however, is never used, and is indeed altogether
unfit to be eaten, until submitted in one form or other to the
action of fire.

The most simple manner in which this operation is performed, and
I think, the best, consists in placing any number of the freshly
plucked fruit, when in a particular state of greenness, among the
embers of a fire, in the same way that you would roast a potato.
After the lapse of ten or fifteen minutes, the green rind
embrowns and. cracks, showing through the fissures in its sides
the milk-white interior. As soon as it cools the rind drops off,
and you then have the soft round pulp in its purest and most
delicious state. Thus eaten, it has a mild and pleasing flavour.

Sometimes after