Australasia -- Description and travel; Australasia -- Discovery and exploration; Explorers -- Australasia
the American maize, tobacco, or other cultivated plants reached the
Pacific islands till they were brought there, from Asia or Europe in
recent times.]
[19] This word is derived from two Greek roots meaning "Black
Islanders". There is much difficulty in deciding what is Papuan and
what Melanesian when classifying the peoples of the Solomon Islands
and Bismarck Archipelago. There is a strong infusion of Melanesian
blood in Hawaii.
[20] The Bread-fruit, which will often be referred to in these
pages, is a tree of moderate height (_Artocarpus incisa_). With its
near relative, the Jack fruit, it is a member of the Mulberry order,
and consequently a distant relation of the figs. Dampier gives the
following description of the Bread-fruit of the Pacific Islands: "It
grows on a large tree as big and as high as our largest apple trees.
It has a spreading head full of branches, and dark leaves. The fruit
grows on the boughs like apples; it is as big as a penny loaf ...
of a round shape, and has a thick, tough rind. When the fruit is
ripe it is yellow and soft, and the taste is sweet and pleasant.
The natives of this island (Guam) use it for bread; they gather it
when full grown, while it is green and hard; then they bake it in an
oven, which scorches the rind and makes it black: they scrape off
the outside black crust and there remains a tender thin crust, and
the inside is soft, tender, and white, like the crumb of a penny
loaf. There is neither seed nor stone in the inside, but it is of a
pure white substance like bread. It must be eaten new, for if it is
kept above twenty-four hours it becomes dry, harsh, and choky ...
this fruit lasts in season for eight months in the year." Mr. John
Masefield, who has edited the best and the most recent edition of
Dampier, compares the flavour of Bread-fruit to "apple sauce".
[Illustration: PAPUAN OF SOUTH-EAST NEW GUINEA, NEAR PORT MORESBY
(From a drawing by the late Professor T.H. Huxley)]
[Illustration: OCEANIC NEGRO TYPE FROM THE NORTHERNMOST SOLOMON
ISLANDS
(From a photograph)]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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