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'The house itself is built, after the fashion of these islands, of wattle plastered with coral lime, the roof thatched with the leaves of the cocoa-nut and pandana; the fences of the garden were made of cane, prettily worked together in a cross pattern; the path neatly kept, and everything looking clean and tidy.
The respective armies and their leaders animated the courage of their warriors by battle-songs, till the horns were blown again; the armies once more slowly approached each other; the champions retired into their ranks, and the battle was renewed with a prodigious noise; spears waved in the air; pandana seed flew from the delicate hands of the female warriors, over the heads of their husbands, upon the enemy, but the armies never came near enough to be really engaged.
They had also cocoanuts, thirteen sorts of bananas, plantains; a fruit not unlike an apple, sweet potatoes, yams, cacao; a kind of arum, the yambu, the sugar-cane; a fruit growing in a pod, like a large kidney bean; the pandana tree, which produces fruit like the pine-apple, and numerous edible roots of nutritious quality.
Just beyond it the valley was clothed with fine trees and luxuriant vegetation of all descriptions, amongst which was conspicuous the pretty pandana palm, and rich gardens of plantains; whilst thistles of extraordinary size and wild indigo were the more common weeds.
The former were armed with sticks instead of lances, the latter had their baskets filled with pandana seeds for stones, and their hair, instead of being as usual, tastefully bound up, hung dishevelled and wild about their heads, giving them the appearance of maniacs.
After the yams, a number of dishes were produced, prepared from the powdered cocoa-wood, which is made with water into a thick paste, and then baked in small cakes: it has no taste at all, and cannot be very nutritious. A dessert of Mogan and Pandana juice concluded the repast. The drink was cocoa-milk, sucked from a small hole made in the nut.
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