The pulp of the bread-fruit between the rind and the core is all eatable. The core itself, which is about the size and shape of the handle of a knife, is uneatable. The bread-fruit is never eaten raw. The usual mode of dressing it is to remove the rind and the core, divide the pulp into three or four pieces, and bake it in an oven similar to the one just described. When taken out, in somewhat less than an hour, the outside of the fruit is nicely browned, and the inner part so strongly resembles the crumb of wheaten bread as to have suggested the name of the tree. It is not, however, quite so pleasant to the taste, being rather insipid and slightly sweet. Nevertheless it is extremely good for food, and is much prized by the natives, to whom it may almost be said to be the staff of life.
The tree on which this excellent fruit grows, besides producing two, and, in some cases, three crops in a year, furnishes a species of gum, or resin, which oozes from the bark when cut, and hardens when exposed to the sun. It is used for pitching the seams of canoes. The bark of the young branches is employed in making several varieties of native cloth. The wood of the tree is also valuable for building houses and canoes. There are nearly fifty varieties of the bread-fruit tree, for which the natives have distinct names, and as these varieties ripen at different times, there are few months in the year in which the fruit is not to be had.
Not less valuable to the natives of these islands is the cocoa-nut tree, the stem of which is three or four feet in diameter at the root, whence it tapers gradually without branch or leaf to the top, where it terminates in a beautiful tuft or plume of long green leaves which wave gracefully in every breeze.
One of the singular peculiarities of this tree is its power of flourishing in almost any soil. It grows equally well on the mountain-side, in the rich valleys beside the streams, and on the barren sea-beach of the coral reefs, where its only soil is sand, and where its roots are watered by the waves of every rising tide. Another peculiarity is, that fruit in every stage may be seen on the same tree at one time—from the first formation, after the falling of the blossom, to the ripe nut. As the tree is slow in growth, the nuts do not probably come to perfection until twelve months after the blossoms have fallen. The successive ripening of the nuts, therefore, seems to have been purposely arranged by our beneficent Creator, with a special view to the comfort of man. Each nut is surrounded by a tough husk, or shell, nearly two inches thick, and when it has reached its full size it contains a pint, or a pint and a half, of the juice usually called cocoa-nut milk.
The kernels of the tough outer husks, above referred to, are the “cocoa-nuts” which we see exposed for sale in this country, but these nuts give no idea of the delightful fruit when plucked from the tree. They are old and dry, and the milk is comparatively rancid. In the state in which we usually see cocoa-nuts they are never used by the natives except as seed, or for the extraction of oil.
Some varieties of this tree grow to a height of sixty or seventy feet. As all the nuts are at the top the gathering of them would be an extremely difficult matter were it not for an ingenious contrivance by which the natives manage to climb the trees; for it may be easily understood that to shin up an exceedingly rough pole of seventy feet high, with bare legs, would try the mettle of most men—civilised as well as savage. The plan is simple. The native strips off a piece of tough bark from a branch, and therewith ties his feet together, leaving them, however, several inches apart, grasping the trunk with his arms he presses his feet against each side of the tree so that the piece of bark between them catches in the roughnesses of the stem; this gives him a purchase by which he is enabled to leap or vault up like a monkey.
The wood of the tree is excellent. The natives make pillars for their houses and their best spears from it. A species of what we may call natural cloth is found, ready-made, on its leaves, with which they make sacks, and shirts, and jackets. Plaited leaflets form coverings for their floors. Baskets are made from the leaves, matting and cordage of the fibrous husk, and oil is extracted from the nut. Besides all this, the shells of the old nuts are used as water-bottles, and, when carved and highly polished, they form elegant drinking-cups.
The perfect adaptation of the bread-fruit and cocoa-nut trees to the varied wants of the South-sea islanders tells, more eloquently than could be told in words, of the wisdom and benevolence with which the Almighty cares for His creatures, even while those creatures are living in the habitual neglect of Himself, and in the violation of all His laws.