For drink, they have in general nothing but water, or the juice of the cocoa-nut; the art of producing liquors that intoxicate, by fermentation, being happily unknown among them; neither have they any narcotic which they chew, as the natives of some other countries do opium, beetle-root, and tobacco. Some of them drank freely of our liquors, and in a few instances became very drunk; but the persons to whom this happened were so far from desiring to repeat the debauch, that they would never touch any of our liquors afterwards. We were, however, informed, that they became drunk by drinking a juice that is expressed from the leaves of a plant which they call _Ava Ava_. This plant was not in season when we were there, so that we saw no instances of its effects; and as they considered drunkenness as a disgrace, they probably would have concealed from us any instances which might have happened during our stay. This vice is almost peculiar to the chiefs, and considerable persons, who vie with each other in drinking the greatest number of draughts, each draught being about a pint. They keep this intoxicating juice with great care from their women. Table they have none; but their apparatus for eating is set out with great neatness, though the articles are too simple and too few to allow any thing for show; and they commonly eat alone; but when a stranger happens to visit them, he sometimes makes a second in their mess. Of the meal of one of their principal people I shall give a particular description.