ABSTRACT
The women here exercise here the Art of Cooking,2 they gave me once a Pye made of Bananas Si in its middle were leaves with Coconut Kernel; these Leaves I suppose to be the Okras or Hibiscus esculentus; at another time, I got the young leaves of a Fig-Tree, whose Fruit is woolly like a Peach & which they call Gombaba,3 dressed in a Banana-leaf & we found it a very fine leaf, & I often tasted them with the Natives raw. Their way of eating is cleanly for they never touched the Victuals with their Fingers, but took allways fresh green leaves to hold them in. And as the Ashes of the Volcano make all the leaves & trees, under which they must walk, very dirty, they find that it is impossible to keep any thing clean between their Fingers. When they got anything from us, they took them likewise between two leaves; whether they use these leaves out of a principle of cleanliness or out of Superstition, thinking everything coming from us either enchanted or morally unclean, I cannot decide. They did however use allways leaves.4
