and by a certain process is made to undergo the two states of
fermentation, the saccharine and acetous, in the latter of which it is
moulded into balls, and called _Mahie_. The natives seldom make a meal
without this sour paste. Salt water is the universal sauce, without
which no meal is eaten. Their drink in general consists of water, or the
juice of the cocoa-nut; the art of producing liquors that intoxicate by
fermentation being at this time happily unknown among them; neither did
they make use of any narcotic, as the natives of some other countries do
opium, beetel-nut, and tobacco. One day the wife of one of the chiefs
came running to Mr. Banks, who was always applied to in every emergency
and distress, and with a mixture of grief and terror in her countenance,
made him understand that her husband was dying, in consequence of
something the strangers had given him to eat. Mr. Banks found his friend
leaning his head against a post, in an attitude of the utmost languor
and despondency. His attendants brought out a leaf folded up with great
care, containing part of the poison of the effects of which their master
was now dying. On opening the leaf Mr. Banks found in it a chew of
tobacco, which the chief had asked from some of the seamen, and
imitating them, as he thought, he had rolled it about in his mouth,
grinding it to powder with his teeth, and ultimately swallowing it.
During the examination of the leaf he looked up at Mr. Banks with the
most piteous countenance, and intimated that he had but a very short
time to live. A copious draught of cocoa-nut milk, however, set all to
rights, and the chief and his attendants were at once restored to that
flow of cheerfulness and good-humour, which is the characteristic of
these single-minded people.

There is, however, one plant from the root of which they extract a juice
of an intoxicating quality, called _Ava_, but Cook's party saw nothing
of its effects, probably owing to their considering drunkenness as a