They do not appear to eat any animal food raw; but having no vessel in which water can be boiled, they either broil it upon the coals, or bake it in a hole by the help of hot stones, in the same manner as is practised by the inhabitants of the islands in the South Seas.

Whether they are acquainted with any plant that has an intoxicating quality, we do not know; but we observed that several of them held leaves of some sort constantly in their mouths, as an European does tobacco, and an East Indian betele: we never saw the plant, but when they took it from their mouths at our request; possibly it might be a species of the betele, but whatever it was, it had no effect upon the teeth or the lips.

As they have no nets, they catch fish only by striking, or with a hook and line, except such as they find in the hollows of the rocks and shoals, which are dry at half ebb.

Their manner of hunting we had no opportunity to see; but we conjectured by the notches which they had every where cut in large trees in order to climb them, that they took their station near the tops of them, and there watched for such animals as might happen to pass near enough to be reached by their lances: it is possible also, that in this situation they might take birds when they came to roost.

Voyaging Accounts