All the houses were built in the woods that lay between the sea and the mountains. No more ground was cleared for each house than was just sufficient to prevent the droppings of the branches from falling on the roof; so that the inhabitant could step at once from his cottage into the shade of the forest, which was the most delightful and romantic that could be imagined. It consisted of groves of bread-fruit and cocoa-nut trees without underwood, and paths led in all directions through it from one house to another. Only those travellers who have experienced the intense overpowering heat of tropical countries can form a just conception of the enjoyableness of a ramble through the shady groves of Tahiti. The food eaten by the natives was chiefly vegetable. They had tame hogs, dogs, and poultry, but these were not plentiful, and the visit of Cook's ship soon diminished the numbers of animals very considerably. When a chief killed a hog it was divided almost equally amongst his dependants, and as these were numerous, the share of each individual at a feast was not large. Dogs and fowls fell to the lot of the lower classes. Cook says that he could not commend the flavour of their fowls, but he and his crew unanimously agreed that a South-Sea dog was little inferior to English lamb! He conjectured that their excellence was owing to the fact that they were fed exclusively upon vegetables. Like everything else in Tahiti, the art of cooking was somewhat peculiar. The preparation of a dog for dinner is thus described:-- "The dog, which was very fat, we consigned over to Tupia, who undertook to perform the double office of butcher and cook. He killed him by holding his hands close over his mouth and nose, an operation which continued above a quarter of an hour. While this was going on, a hole was made in the ground about a foot deep, in which a fire was kindled, and some small stones were placed in layers alternately with the wood to get heated. The dog was then singed by holding him over the fire, and by scraping him with a shell the hair came off as clean as if he had been scalded in hot water. He was then cut up with the same instrument, and his entrails being taken out, were sent to the sea, where, being carefully washed, they were put into cocoa-nut shells with what blood came from the body. "When the hole was sufficiently heated, the fire was removed, and some of the stones,--which were not so hot as to discolour anything that touched them,--being placed in the bottom, were covered with green leaves. The dog and the entrails were then placed upon the leaves, other leaves were placed above them, the whole was covered up with the remainder of the hot stones, and the mouth of the hole was closed with mould. In somewhat less than four hours it was again opened and the dog taken out excellently baked. Nearly all the fish and flesh eaten by the inhabitants is dressed in this way."