food he was eating. From this I knew at once that he was 'tabooed;' and
upon asking the reason of his being so, as he appeared in good health,
and not afflicted with any complaint that could set him without the pale
of ordinary intercourse, I found that it was because he was then
building a house, and that he could not be released from the 'taboo'
till he had it finished. Being only a "cookee,"[AA] he had no person to
wait upon him, but was obliged to submit to the distressing operation of
feeding himself in the manner proscribed by the superstitious ordinance;
and he was told by the tohunga, or priest, that if he presumed to put
one finger to his mouth before he had completed the work he was about,
the atua (divinity) would certainly punish his impious contempt, by
getting into his stomach before his time, and eating him out of the
world. Of this premature destiny he seemed so apprehensive that he kept
his hands as though they were never made for touching any article of
diet; nor did he suffer them by even a single motion to show the least
sympathy for his mouth, while that organ was obliged to use double
exertions, and act for those members which superstition had paralysed.

"Sitting down by the side of this deluded being, whom credulity and
ignorance had rendered hopeless," says Nicholas, "I undertook to feed
him; and his appetite being quite voracious, I could hardly supply it as
fast as he devoured. Without ever consulting his digestive powers, of
which we cannot suppose he had any idea, he spared himself the trouble
of mastication; and, to lose no time, swallowed down every lump as I put
it into his mouth: and I speak within compass when I assert that he
consumed more food than would have served any two ploughmen in England.

"Perfectly tired of administering to his insatiable gluttony, which was
still as ravenous as when he commenced, I now wished for a little
intermission; and taking advantage of his situation, I resolved to give