There were oysters, lobsters, wurrali, and crawfish, stewed chicken,
boiled sucking-pig, plantains, bread-fruit, melons, bananas, oranges,
and strawberries. Before each guest was placed a half cocoa-nut full
of salt water, another full of chopped cocoa-nut, a third full of
fresh water, and another full of milk, two pieces of bamboo, a basket
of _poi_, half a bread-fruit, and a platter of green leaves, the
latter being changed with each course. We took our seats on the ground
round the green table. An address was first delivered in the native
language, grace was then said, and we commenced. The first operation
was to mix the salt water and the chopped cocoa-nut together, so as to
make an appetising sauce, into which we were supposed to dip each
morsel we ate, the empty salt-water bowl being filled up with fresh
water with which to wash our fingers and lips. We were tolerably
successful in the use of our fingers as substitutes for knives and
forks. The only drawback was that the dinner had to be eaten amid such
a scene of novelty and beauty, that our attention was continually
distracted: there was so much to admire, both in the house itself and
outside it. After we had finished, all the servants sat down to
dinner, and from a dais at one end of the room we surveyed the bright
and animated scene, the gentlemen--and some of the ladies
too--meanwhile enjoying their cigarettes.
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