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    Kindness of Marheyo and the rest of the Islanders - A full Description of
    the Bread-fruit Tree - Different Modes of preparing the Fruit.
 
All the inhabitants of the valley treated me with great kindness; but as to the
household of Marheyo, with whom I was now permanently domiciled, nothing could
surpass their efforts to minister to my comfort. To the gratification of my
palate they paid the most unwearied attention. They continually invited me to
partake of food, and when after eating heartily I declined the viands they
continued to offer me, they seemed to think that my appetite stood in need of
some piquant stimulant to excite its activity.
    In pursuance of this idea, old Marheyo himself would hie him away to the
seashore by the break of day, for the purpose of collecting various species of
rare seaweed; some of which, among these people, are considered a great luxury.
After a whole day spent in this employment, he would return about nightfall with
several cocoa-nut shells filled with different descriptions of kemp. In
preparing these for use, he manifested all the ostentation of a professed cook,
although the chief mystery of the affair appeared to consist in pouring water in
judicious quantities upon the slimy contents of his cocoa-nut shells.
    The first time he submitted one of these saline salads to my critical
attention, I naturally thought that anything collected at such pains must
possess peculiar merits; but one mouthful was a complete dose; and great was the
consternation of the old warrior at the rapidity with which I ejected his
epicurean treat.
    How true it is, that the rarity of any particular article enhances its value
amazingly. In some part of the valley - I know not where, but probably in the
neighbourhood of the sea - the girls were sometimes in the habit of procuring
small quantities of salt, a thimbleful or so being the result of the united
labours of a party of five or six employed for the greater part of the day. This
precious commodity they brought to the house, enveloped in multitudinous folds
of leaves; and as a special mark of the esteem in which they held me, would
spread an immense leaf on the ground, and dropping one by one a few minute
particles of the salt upon it, invite me to taste them.
    From the extravagant value placed upon the article, I verily believe, that
with a bushel of common Liverpool salt, all the real estate in Typee might have
been purchased. With a small pinch of it in one hand, and a quarter section of a
bread-fruit in the other, the greatest chief in the valley would
