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SPRINGER BRIEFS IN GLOBAL UNDERSTANDING

Peter Jackson · Walter E.L. Spiess

Farhana Sultana Editors

Eating, Drinking:
Surviving
The International
Year of Global
Understanding 
IYGU
SpringerBriefs in Global Understanding

Series editor
Benno Werlen, Department of Geography, Friedrich Schiller University
Jena, Germany
The Global Understanding Book Series is published in the context of the 2016
International Year of Global Understanding. The books in the series seek to
stimulate thinking about social, environmental, and political issues in global
perspective. Each of them provides general information and ideas for the purposes
of teaching, and scientific research as well as for raising public awareness. In
particular, the books focus on the intersection of these issues with questions about
everyday life and sustainability in the light of the post-2015 Development Agenda.
Special attention is given to the inter-connections between local outcomes in the
context of global pressures and constraints. Each volume provides up-to-date
summaries of relevant bodies of knowledge and is written by scholars of the highest
international reputation.

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/15387

Peter Jackson Walter E.L. Spiess
•

Farhana Sultana
Editors

Eating, Drinking: Surviving

The International Year of Global
Understanding - IYGU

123
Editors
Peter Jackson Farhana Sultana
Department of Geography Department of Geography
University of Sheffield Syracuse University
Sheffield Syracuse, NY
UK USA

Walter E.L. Spiess

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
Karlsruhe
Germany

ISSN 2509-7784 ISSN 2509-7792 (electronic)

SpringerBriefs in Global Understanding
ISBN 978-3-319-42467-5 ISBN 978-3-319-42468-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-42468-2

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016948243

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016. This book is published open access.
Open Access This book is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, duplication,
adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit
to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if
changes were made.
The images or other third party material in this book are included in the work's Creative Commons
license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if such material is not included in the work's
Creative Commons license and the respective action is not permitted by statutory regulation, users will
need to obtain permission from the license holder to duplicate, adapt or reproduce the material.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publi-
cation does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the
relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this
book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the
authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or
for any errors or omissions that may have been made.

Printed on acid-free paper

This Springer imprint is published by Springer Nature

The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Series Preface

We are all experiencing every day that globalization has brought and is bringing
far-flung places and people into ever-closer contact. New kinds of supranational
communities are emerging at an accelerating pace. At the same time, these trends do
not efface the local. Globalization is also associated with a marked reaffirmation of
cities and regions as distinctive forums of human action. All human actions remain
in one way or the other regionally and locally contextualized.
Global environmental change research has produced unambiguous scientific
insights into earth system processes, yet these are only insufficiently translated into
effective policies. In order to improve the science-policy cooperation, we need to
deepen our knowledge of sociocultural contexts, to improve social and cultural
acceptance of scientific knowledge, and to reach culturally differentiated paths to
global sustainability on the basis of encompassing bottom-up action.
The acceleration of globalization is bringing about a new world order. This
involves both the integration of natural-human ecosystems and the emergence of an
integrated global socio-economic reality. The IYGU acknowledges that societies
and cultures determine the ways we live with and shape our natural environment.
The International Year of Global Understanding addresses the ways we live in an
increasingly globalized world and the transformation of nature from the perspective
of global sustainability—the objective the IYGU wishes to achieve for the sake of
future generations.
Initiated by the International Geographical Union (IGU), the 2016 IYGU was
jointly proclaimed by the three global umbrella organizations of the natural sciences
(ICSU), social sciences (ISSC), and the humanities (CIPSH).
The IYGU is an outreach project with an educational and science orientation
whose bottom-up logic complements that of existing UN programs (particularly the
UN’s Post-2015 Development Agenda and Sustainable Development Goals) and
international research programs. It aims to strengthen transdisciplinarity across the
whole field of scientific, political, and everyday activities.
The IYGU focuses on three interfaces seeking to build bridges between the
local and the global, the social and the natural, and the everyday and scientific

v
vi Series Preface

dimensions of the twenty-first-century challenges. The IYGU initiative aims to raise

awareness of the global embeddedness of everyday life; that is, awareness of the
inextricable links between local action and global phenomena. The IYGU hopes to
stimulate people to take responsibility for their actions when they consider the
challenges of global social and climate changes by taking sustainability into
account when making decisions.
This Global Understanding Book Series is one of the many ways in which the
IYGU seeks to contribute to tackling these twenty-first-century challenges. In line
with its three core elements of research, education, and information, the IYGU
aims to overcome the established divide between the natural, social, and human
sciences. Natural and social scientific knowledge have to be integrated with
non-scientific and non-Western forms of knowledge to develop a global compe-
tence framework. In this context, effective solutions based on bottom-up decisions
and actions need to complement the existing top-down measures.
The publications in this series embody those goals by crossing traditional divides
between different academic disciplines, the academic and non-academic world, and
between local practices and global effects.
Each publication is structured around a set of key everyday activities. This brief
considers issues around the essential activities of eating and drinking as funda-
mental for survival and will complement the other publications in this series.

Jena, Germany Benno Werlen

May 2016
Contents

Introduction: Understanding the Complexities of Eating,

Drinking, and Surviving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Peter Jackson, Walter E.L. Spiess and Farhana Sultana
Globalization and Malnutrition: Geographical Perspectives
on Its Paradoxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Elizabeth Young
Drinking Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Trevor Birkenholtz
The Politics and Consequences of Virtual Water Export . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Jeroen Vos and Rutgerd Boelens
Integrated Water Resources Management as a New Approach
to Water Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Olivier Graefe
Surviving as an Unequal Community: WASH for Those
on the Margins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Kathleen O’Reilly
Challenges to Food Security in a Changing World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Walter E.L. Spiess
Moral Economies of Food in the Socialist/Post-socialist World . . . . . . . . 75
Marisa Wilson
The Nutrition Transition in Developing Asia: Dietary Change,
Drivers and Health Impacts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Matthew Kelly

vii
viii Contents

Food Sovereignty and the Possibilities for an Equitable, Just

and Sustainable Food System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Ann E. Bartos
Food Security and Food Waste . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Jonathan Cloke
Contributors

Ann E. Bartos School of Environment, The University of Auckland, Auckland,

New Zealand
Trevor Birkenholtz Department of Geography and GIS, University of Illinois,
Champaign, IL, USA
Rutgerd Boelens Department of Environmental Sciences, Wageningen
University, Wageningen, The Netherlands
Jonathan Cloke Department of Geography, Loughborough University,
Leicestershire, UK
Olivier Graefe Department of Geosciences, University of Fribourg, Fribourg,
Switzerland
Peter Jackson Department of Geography, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK
Matthew Kelly Department of Global Health, Research School of Population
Health, ANU College of Medicine, Biology and Environment, The Australian
National University, Acton, ACT, Australia
Kathleen O’Reilly Department of Geography, Texas A&M University, College
Station, TX, USA
Walter E.L. Spiess Institute of Food Process Engineering, Karlsruhe Institute of
Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany
Farhana Sultana Department of Geography, Maxwell School, Syracuse
University, Syracuse, NY, USA
Jeroen Vos Department of Environmental Sciences, Wageningen University,
Wageningen, The Netherlands

ix
x Contributors

Marisa Wilson Geography Building, School of Geosciences, University of

Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
Elizabeth Young School of Sciences (Geography and Environment), Staffordshire
University, Stoke-on-Trent, UK
Abstract

This publication addresses the global challenges of food and water security in a
rapidly changing and complex world. The essays highlight the links between
bio-physical and socio-cultural processes, making connections between local and
global scales, and focusing on the everyday practices of eating and drinking,
essential for human survival. Written by international experts, each contribution is
research-based but accessible to the general public.

Keywords IYGU

Eating

Drinking

Food security
Water security




Development Well-being MDGs SDGs

xi
Introduction: Understanding
the Complexities of Eating, Drinking,
and Surviving

Peter Jackson, Walter E.L. Spiess and Farhana Sultana

Abstract This introduction to a series of essays on the global challenges of food and
water security, commissioned as part of the International Year of Global
Understanding, provides a definition of key terms and an historical context to these
contemporary issues. It discusses the human right to adequate food and water,
outlining some of the political struggles that have arisen over accessing these vital
resources. Patterns of ‘under-’ and ‘over-consumption’ are discussed and analyzed,
measured against the targets set in the Millennium Development and Sustainable
Development Goals. The essays share a common approach, linking global chal-
lenges to the realities of everyday life and emphasizing the connections between
biophysical and socio-cultural processes. The essays also address a number of
cross-cutting themes including gender, ethnic and religious diversity, and the
emotional and affective dimensions of life, going beyond questions of survival to
incorporate the more qualitative dimensions of human well-being and quality of life.

Keywords IYGU

Eating

Drinking Food security

Water security




Malnutrition Obesity Well-being MDGs SDGs

P. Jackson (&)
Department of Geography, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TN, UK
e-mail: p.a.jackson@sheffield.ac.uk
W.E.L. Spiess
Institute of Food Process Engineering, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology,
Kaiserstr. 12, 76128 Karlsruhe, Germany
e-mail: rose-walter.spiess@t-online.de
F. Sultana
Department of Geography, Maxwell School, Syracuse University,
144 Eggers Hall, Syracuse, NY 13244-1020, USA
e-mail: sultanaf@maxwell.syr.edu

© The Author(s) 2016 1

P. Jackson et al. (eds.), Eating, Drinking: Surviving,
SpringerBriefs in Global Understanding, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-42468-2_1
2 P. Jackson et al.

The Global Challenges of Food and Water Security

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, food security can be said
to exist ‘when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to
sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences
for an active and healthy life’.1 While food insecurity was once associated mainly
with low income countries, cast within a ‘development discourse’, it is increasingly
seen as relevant to high- and middle-income countries as a result of a particular
combination of circumstances. Commonly referred to as a ‘perfect storm’
(Beddington 2010), experts have warned of the combined effects of climate change
(increasing extreme weather events such as floods and droughts), the pressures of
population growth and urbanization on the availability of agricultural land, and the
increasing global demand for meat and animal products, which are threatening to
undermine the ability of current agri-food systems to feed a global population
which it is estimated will increase from around 7.4 billion today to around
9.6 billion by 2050 (UN 2013). The need for sufficient clean water to meet the
needs of both thirsty people and crops have also put enormous pressure on dwin-
dling water resources, creating water crises in drinking water systems and irrigation
systems, bringing into question how we manage surface and ground water sources.
To cope with future challenges innovative solutions have to be sought. Within the
same time period it is also estimated that there will be a quadrupling in the global
economy, a doubling in the demand for food and fuel, and a more than 50 %
increase in the demand for clean water (Foresight 2011).
The spectre of population growth outstripping available resources especially in
food insecure environments has been debated for many years. Writing before the
Industrial Revolution had transformed the economies of Western Europe and North
America, Malthus (1798/2008) described the tendency of population, when
unchecked by war and famine, to increase geometrically while agricultural outputs
tended to increase arithmetically. Responses to the imbalance of population and
resources have varied from calls to restrict population growth by contraception and
other means that Malthus would not have countenanced, to an emphasis on
increasing agricultural yields through scientific and technological innovation.
Whether increased outputs can be achieved without having an adverse effect on the
environment is currently being debated by advocates and critics of ‘sustainable
intensification’ (Garnett et al. 2013).
Periodic crises, such as the 2007–8 ‘spike’ in food prices which was driven by the
increasing cost of agricultural commodities (including key inputs such as pesticides
and fertilisers), led to social unrest, food riots and trade restrictions, precipitating
what UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon called ‘the worst food crisis in a

1
The full definition can be consulted at http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/y4671e/y4671e06.htm
(accessed 20 April 2016). As might be imagined, each clause in the definition has been fought over
since the initial formulation was advanced at the World Food Summit in 1996. See Midgley (2013)
for a genealogy of this complex process.
Introduction: Understanding the Complexities of Eating, Drinking, and Surviving 3

Fig. 1 The 2007–8 spike in

food prices. Source FAO

generation’ (April 2008) (see Fig. 1). These issues reflect an underlying scarcity of
food, water, and energy sources—to some extent because of a poor management of
the available resources—as the world enters the period of ‘peak oil’ production.
Magazines such as The Economist have reported on ‘The end of cheap food’
(6 December 2007) and ‘The silent tsunami: the food crisis and how to solve it’
(19 April 2008), while think-tanks such as the New Economics Foundation have
discussed the dire consequences offuture food shortages, predicting that even the most
food-secure places might be as little as ‘nine meals from anarchy’ (Simms 2008).
While growing food requires water, more importantly for us to survive as a
species we need to consume water. Water is the biologically-necessary and
non-substitutable resource that makes life on this planet possible. To reproduce our
own beings requires that humans have adequate access to clean, safe potable water.
For societal growth, water has to be available for a variety of societal needs—
sanitation, industry, irrigation, ecosystem reproduction. Water is thus a political,
economic, cultural, legal, and spiritual entity, and it seeps across all boundaries,
natural and social. Water has been fought over through history, but it has also been
regulated through communal, religious, and political means. As water sources
become contaminated, polluted, and depleted, the global demand on water has
continued to rise. Growing water crises around the world have meant that some
have easier access to necessary water while others do not. Over 800 million people
do not have access to clean drinking water on a daily basis. This astounding number
indicates the daily suffering that individuals and societies must endure for basic
survival. To address this, the United Nations declared in 2010 that water was a
human right. UN Resolution 64/292 states unequivocally that ‘The right to safe and
clean drinking water and sanitation is a human right that is essential for the full
enjoyment of life and all human rights’. This means that states have an obligation to
fulfil the right for their citizens. Global water justice movements, policymakers,
citizens, and scholars worked hard to get the UN to ratify the resolution, and have
been rallying stakeholders to ensure water security of individuals, households, and
communities are met. However, ensuring water of adequate quantity, quality,
4 P. Jackson et al.

reliability, affordability, and accessibility remain significant challenges around the

world (Sultana and Loftus 2012). This is particularly true of the Global South, but
increasingly so in wealthy countries (e.g., Flint, Michigan, USA).
Controlling water, whether through technology or market mechanisms, has
resulted in increasing suffering of many. The steady rise in commodification and
privatization of water around the world has meant that poor people are marginalized
in accessing a basic human right. Governments often privatize water supply systems
as part of loan conditionality of international aid donors. Poor communities often
cannot afford the water they need for survival, thereby resorting to accessing con-
taminated water sources. More than 2000 children under the age of five die daily from
water-related illnesses, especially from lack of sanitation and hygiene. The need to
make clean water more accessible to all could not be more profound. The priorities to
meet the daily water needs of a thirsty population are important for nation-states, but
such concerns are often neglected until crises unfold (e.g., water-borne disease out-
breaks). Cities and municipalities struggle to provide safe potable water in the face of
infrastructural, financial, and coverage challenges. The famous Cochabamba Water
Wars in Bolivia in 1999 resulted in global attention to the commodification and
privatization of water that hurt the poor, demonstrating the interconnections between
geopolitics, international aid, urban governance, and citizen disenfranchisement. In
understanding the role that water plays in mobilizing people (when there is insuffi-
cient water) as well as creating apathy (when water is not of concern) can help us see
the ways water is valued, managed, and how societies relate to one another.
As the preceding comments suggest, the scarcity of resources is compounded by
problems of unequal access, whether in terms of gender disparities in access to food
and water or in terms of the twin problems of ‘over-consumption’ (mainly in the
Global North) coupled with ‘under-consumption’ (mainly in the Global South). For
at the same time as there are more than 900 million undernourished people
worldwide, there are growing numbers of overweight and obese people described
by many as reaching epidemic proportions.2 The World Health Organization noted
that more than 1.9 billion adults were overweight in 2014 (using the medical
definition of those with a Body Mass Index of 25 or above), of whom more than
600 million were classified as obese (with a BMI of 30 or above).3 That
‘under-consumption’ is not restricted to the Global South can be demonstrated by
the alarming rates of food poverty in even the most affluent countries.4 These issues
have led to calls for a shift in emphasis from food charity to food rights (see, for
example, Riches and Silvasti 2014).5

2
Malnutrition is considered the greatest risk to public health (greater than HIV-AIDS, malaria and
TB combined).
3
For further details of how obesity and overweight are defined, see http://www.who.int/
mediacentre/factsheets/fs311/en/ (accessed 20 April 2016). For a critical account of the obesity
‘epidemic’, see Guthman (2011).
4
For a discussion of First World food poverty, see Riches and Silvasti (2014).
5
The right to an adequate standard of living, including adequate food, clothing and housing, was
affirmed under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, a multilateral
Introduction: Understanding the Complexities of Eating, Drinking, and Surviving 5

‘Halving hunger’ by 2015 was one of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs) which also included specific targets for improving child health, water and
sanitation, women’s reproductive health, reductions in epidemic diseases and
improvements in education and networking. According to the UN’s own evaluation
and despite considerable progress in some areas, high levels of hunger were still
found in sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia, with moderate level of hunger
persisting in Western, Eastern and South-Eastern Asia, in Oceania, the Caucasus
and Central Asia, and in Latin America and the Caribbean. The MDGs also sought
to halve the proportion of the world’s population without improved drinking water
but, by 2015, ‘low coverage’ was still recorded in sub-Saharan Africa and Oceania,
with only ‘moderate coverage’ reported in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Poor
progress or deterioration was also noted in several parts of the world.6 The MDGs
have now been superseded by a series of equally ambitious Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs) which include specific commitments to ‘end hunger,
achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture’
and to ‘ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for
all’ by 2030.7

Approaching the Issues

Our approach in this publication is to emphasise the relationship between the global
challenges of food and water security and the realities of everyday life for people in
different parts of the world. We emphasise the practicalities of eating and drinking
as social processes, undertaken in households and communities, besides the more
abstract approaches to food and water taken by food scientists or hydrologists.
Without underestimating the power of agri-food corporations and global trade
agreements in shaping contemporary food systems, we emphasise the agency of
ordinary people in meeting the daily challenges of ‘feeding the family’ (De Vault
1991). We also focus on the challenges involved in managing water which enables
food to be grown, for families to have their right to water met for drinking, cooking,
sanitation and survival needs, and for societies to access water that enables them to
flourish and develop.
As with the other publications in this series, we emphasise the links between
bio-physical and socio-cultural processes, and the connections between different
geographical scales, from the most local decisions taken at household level to the

(Footnote 5 continued)
treaty adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1966. Several countries, including the US, have not
yet ratified the Covenant.
6
For an assessment of progress in achieving the MDGs, see http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/
2015_MDG_Report/pdf/MDG%202015%20PC%20final.pdf (accessed 20 April 2016).
7
For further information on the Sustainable Development Goals, see https://
sustainabledevelopment.un.org/?menu=1300 (accessed 20 April 2016).
6 P. Jackson et al.

actions of transnational corporations that have truly global consequences. The

authors and editors have experience of researching in many parts of the world
(though we acknowledge the risk of ethnocentrism implicit in the current balance of
power in academia reflected in the places from which the majority of our authors
are drawn). We hope to increase the reach of our work through translating this
English edition into Spanish and Portuguese (with further editions planned as soon
as the necessary funds are secured). We also hope the Regional Action Centres
associated with the IYGU will use this publication as a resource, debating its
applicability to their own circumstances and proposing new avenues for future work
to increase its global relevance.
Each essay has been written by someone with academic expertise in the area
discussed but we have encouraged them to write in a style that is accessible to the
general public, including an audience of students and teachers. With the coopera-
tion of Ben Hennig and his colleagues at Oxford, we have included a series of
illustrations from the Worldmapper project which uses specially-designed maps to
highlight the extent of social and spatial inequalities that characterise our current
agri-food systems.8 The maps provide a way of visualizing existing differences,
making connections, thinking across scales and imagining alternative worlds,
demonstrating the power of ‘thinking geographically’ (Jackson 2006). Authors
have also been asked to explore alternative framings that challenge the conventional
wisdom of orthodox ideas and approaches. How, for example, might the language
of ‘food security’ shape the way we think about food poverty and inequality? How
might these ideas be reshaped by adopting the language of food justice or food
sovereignty? Each essay adopts a lively and argumentative approach, using evi-
dence to make a case rather than being purely polemical.
Besides our substantive emphasis on eating and drinking, the essays also address
a series of cross-cutting themes including gender, ethnic and religious diversity, and
the emotional and affective dimensions of life which take the argument beyond
questions of survival (as might be suggested by our title) into the more qualitative
dimensions of human well-being and quality of life.

Introducing the Essays

The essays begin with an outline of the global inequalities that affect people’s daily
access to food and water in the Global North and South. Elizabeth Young high-
lights the ‘cruel paradox’ at the heart of the current agri-food system where
under-nutrition in some places co-exists with obesity as a major public health
problem in other places. She outlines the geographically uneven nature of hunger
and the need to disaggregate data to reveal the various scales at which inequalities
occur including social inequalities by age and gender. Young’s essay raises

8
For further information, see http://www.worldmapper.org (accessed 20 April 2016).
Introduction: Understanding the Complexities of Eating, Drinking, and Surviving 7

questions of equity and entitlement, approaching food as a human right rather than
as a matter of national and international security.
Trevor Birkenholtz takes a similar approach to the world’s unequal access to
drinking water, the scarcity of which disproportionately affects women. Drawing on
the concept of ‘modern water’ as a calculable physical entity, divorced from its
socio-cultural context, Birkenholtz argues that this technocratic way of thinking
about water may exacerbate the problems of scarcity it was designed to eradicate.
He suggests that the ‘hydrosocial cycle’ may be a preferable concept to the
geo-engineering construct of the ‘hydrological cycle’, acknowledging the way that
water supply development is embedded within wider issues of climate change, food
security, natural disasters, healthy ecosystems, and livelihood well-being. While
access to water has been improved in many parts of the world, the UN estimates
that water scarcity affects around 40 % of the global population, urban-rural dis-
parities persist and new conflicts have arisen over the privatization and commod-
ification of this most basic resource.
Jeroen Vos and Rutgerd Boelens mobilise the concept of ‘virtual water’ in
their discussion of the relationship between water resources, agriculture and trade.
The idea is to measure the amount of water ‘embedded’ in specific products,
representing the water used (or contaminated) in its production. While the concept
has academic and political value, drawing attention to the amount of water con-
sumed in the production of export crops, frequently traded across considerable
distances, it can draw attention away from local situations in which real as opposed
to virtual water is a matter of life or death, where few if any alternative sources are
available. The needs of agri-food corporations for water to produce high-value
fruits and vegetables or other water-intensive crops such as bio-fuels put them in
competition with the resource needs of local small-holders and other less powerful
rural communities. As the regulation of water resources becomes increasingly
transnational, these political struggles are likely to intensify.
In his essay on integrated water resources management, Olivier Graefe asserts
that the problem of access to water is not primarily due to an overall scarcity of
water, nor is it primarily a technical or ecological issue. Rather, Graefe maintains, it
is a management problem whose roots extend back to colonial times and whose
solution must be found in political-economic terms. Despite major achievements in
increasing global access to water, Graefe highlights failures in policy initiatives
such as the structural reform programmes that followed the Bretton Woods
agreement and which gave rise to competition between the agricultural, industrial
and drinking water sectors. Examining the ‘new paradigm’ of integrated water
management which advocates the river basin as the most appropriate scale for water
management, Graefe shows how water transfers between river basins, which cur-
rently affect some 120 million people worldwide, undermine this approach.
Attention therefore turns to questions of governance and the reliance on environ-
mental experts who may lack political and democratic legitimacy.
Focusing on water, sanitation and hygiene, Kathleen O’Reilly highlights the
consequences of unequal access to these key resources for people’s health and
wellbeing. She shows how safe disposal of human waste and effective hygiene
8 P. Jackson et al.

standards are key issues in the survival of vulnerable populations, especially chil-
dren, where conditions at the household level have repercussions at the regional and
national scale, ultimately affecting global-level inequalities in infant mortality.
O’Reilly also shows how poor sanitation and access to clean water impact dis-
proportionately on women, increasing the risks of bodily harm and emotional stress.
A Community-Led Total Sanitation approach is one means of combatting these
environmental health issues, providing people with the dignity of reasonable access
to safe water and effective sanitation.
Walter Spiess outlines the present availability and outlook for food supply in
the next decades based on data compiled by FAO working groups. Differentiating
global data highlights the availability of major nutrients in food secure and dis-
advantaged insecure regions of the globe. A major problem is the increasing length
and complexity of supply chains which has led to a growing disconnection between
food producers and consumers, one of the major reasons for the current low levels
of consumer trust in food (Kjaernes et al. 2007).9 Factors with a pronounced impact
on food supply include the growing middle class in Developing as well as
Transitional Countries who desire more animal-based food components like dairy
and meat products and increased biofuel production. Both realities diminish the
supply especially of grains for consumers; the increased meat production requires
large amounts of grain-feed and is related to an increased emission of greenhouse
gases while biofuel production diverts valuable raw materials from the human food
chain. The increased demand for more raw materials to support the food supply for
the growing world population requires the use of so far underutilized land reserves
but also a more intelligent use of available resources.
Marisa Wilson contrasts the moral economy of food in socialist and
post-socialist countries with countries that espouse a market-led neoliberal
approach. She argues that the production and consumption of food raises moral
issues because it is a social necessity rather than simply a commodity that is
produced and traded for profit. Her essay raises ethical issues about ‘eating well’,
often cast in terms of quality, taste and sustainability, all of which have moral
implications. Through her research on Cuba, Wilson shows how the way people
produce, exchange and consume food have impacts on their everyday lives.
Throughout its history, food production in Cuba has been tied into a global
economy, whether producing sugar for export to the US in the period before 1959
or for the Soviet Union after the Revolution. Today, Cuba relies heavily on
imported food and it is unclear how the current period of normalization in its
relations with the US will play out. Drawing on her own ethnographic work, Wilson
suggests that (neo)liberal and (post)socialist moral economies currently co-exist in
uneasy tension with practical consequences for people’s everyday lives.

9
Following a recent outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease in the UK, the Policy Commission on the
Future of Farming and Food (2002) argued that the current agri-food system was ‘dysfunctional’
because farming had become detached from the rest of the economy and the environment.
Emphasising the need for reconnection along the supply chain, the report’s authors argued that
consumers no longer knew enough about what they eat and how it is produced.
Introduction: Understanding the Complexities of Eating, Drinking, and Surviving 9

Turning attention to East and Southeast Asia, Matthew Kelly explores the process
of change from a predominantly rice-based diet to one that includes an increasing
volume of processed food, high in fats, salt and sugar. While famine and malnutrition
have been reduced as a result of this so-called ‘nutrition transition’, it has had severe
consequences in terms of rapidly increasing rates of obesity and associated
non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular problems and
diet-related cancers. Kelly debates the extent to which these changes have been driven
by the expansion of industrialized agriculture and the growing reach of transnational
corporations, keen to sell energy-dense foods to an expanding middle-class consumer
market who aspire to Western-style diets. The dilemma, he suggests, is whether
economic growth and food security can be achieved while avoiding the negative
health and environmental impacts of large-scale dietary change.
In the following essay, Ann Bartos outlines an alternative framing to the
dominant food security discourse, tracing the origins of the concept of ‘food
sovereignty’ in the global social movement associated with La Via Campesina.
Focusing on the case of Aotearoa New Zealand, Bartos argues that these concepts
have a distinctive history as they travel between different places. She shows how
Tourism NZ and the dairy company Fonterra have mobilised a particular ‘geo-
graphical imaginary’ in their marketing strategies based on the model of ‘100 %
Pure New Zealand’. She then uses this framework to examine three basic premises
of the food sovereignty discourse regarding the provision of safe, sufficient and
nutritious food; its cultural appropriateness; and its encouragement of domestic
production and self-sufficiency. Bartos concludes that each of these issues is
problematic in the New Zealand case, undermined by inequalities of provision, the
speciousness of ‘consumer choice’ in a national context that is dominated by two
supermarket chains; and a range of environmental issues including the pollution of
agricultural land and freshwater ecosystems.
In the final essay, Jonathan Cloke raises some fundamental questions about
current levels of food waste, arguing that these are not a regrettable side-effect of
current systems of production, distribution and consumption but that they are
intrinsic to the profit-driven motives of contemporary agri-business.10 Advocating a
food-systems approach, Cloke argues that over-supply is a systemic rather than an
accidental feature of food businesses that seek to avoid empty shelves, insisting on
cosmetic standards for the shape and appearance of produce, encouraging the
purchase of larger pack-sizes and using promotional strategies such as
buy-one-get-one-free—all of which are likely to lead to food waste either in-store or
in people’s domestic environments. The resulting food waste is often sent to landfill
where it contributes to anthropogenic global warming through the generation of
methane emissions and other greenhouse gases. Cloke challenges the ‘productivist’

10
A recent report by the Institute of Mechanical Engineers (IME 2013) estimated that between 30
and 50 % of food produced globally never reaches a human stomach because of wastage on farm,
during harvesting, processing and transportation, or in store and at home.
10 P. Jackson et al.

orientation of contemporary food policy calling for more attention to corporate

profits as the engine driving food and other resource waste.
While these essays are by no means comprehensive in their global or topical
coverage, we hope they provide a useful overview of the current challenge of
securing sufficient, safe food and water to meet the needs of the world’s rapidly
expanding population. We have sought to advance a critical perspective on these
issues, emphasising political questions about distribution and equality as much, if
not more, than questions of absolute scarcity. We have outlined a range of alter-
native formulations to conventional thinking about food and water security, such as
food sovereignty and the hydrosocial cycle, discussing the moral and political
economies of current agri-food systems and the need to take account of geo-
graphical variations in issues that are often cast at the global or national scale. We
have emphasised the differential impacts of resource scarcities on men and women
and on younger and older people, challenging conventional solutions that are cast in
technocratic terms that ignore their socio-cultural, political and ethical dimensions.
In calling for greater understanding of the challenges of food and water security, we
advocate the need for theoretically informed, empirically grounded research that
addresses questions of scale, focusing on the inter-connections between
bio-physical and socio-cultural systems. These are some of the fundamental themes
that underpin the International Year of Global Understanding and they are key to
addressing the challenges of eating, drinking and surviving, now and in the future.

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International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, duplica-
tion, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give
appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons
license and any changes made are indicated.
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Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if such material is not included in
the work’s Creative Commons license and the respective action is not permitted by statutory
regulation, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to duplicate, adapt or
reproduce the material.
12 P. Jackson et al.

Total population. The distribution of the earth’s population is shown in this map. The size of each
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Globalization and Malnutrition:
Geographical Perspectives on Its
Paradoxes

Elizabeth Young

Abstract This chapter maintains that the food system is one of the most important
globally embedded networks of production and consumption; its integral connec-
tions with the petroleum industry and global security confirm its significance. The
chapter establishes the complex nature of mapping and measuring malnutrition. It
reviews significant shifts in the incidence of malnutrition but argues that disag-
gregating statistics is vital to understanding trends. Changes in theorizations of the
problem of malnutrition and associated solutions are then considered, including
conceptual shifts from food security to food sovereignty. The global food chain is
embedded in contentious political, economic, and scientific debates. Volatility in
local food prices are influenced by global factors: oil prices; energy policies; dietary
changes, foreign direct investments associated with “land grabs” or financial
speculation. The chapter concludes with a call for a fundamental rethinking of
global food provisioning to establish a more socially equitable and environmentally
sustainable system.

Keywords Global food system Geography of malnutrition Conceptualization
malnutrition

Mapping and measuring malnutrition

Food security Food




sovereignty Politics and malnutrition Food provisioning

The current food system has evolved in response to specific historical, political, and
economic circumstances; it is not a natural system but a socially constructed one
which reflects patterns of power and privilege. It is a dynamic system which has
changed dramatically in the past and will in the future (Rosegrant et al. 2012).
Goodman and Sage (2013) assert that “there is almost nothing more geographical
than food in the ways that it intimately interlinks production and consumption,
nature and society, bodies and landscapes, the global and the local, and indeed
spaces, places, and everywhere in between” (p. 3). This chapter maintains that the

E. Young (&)
School of Sciences (Geography and Environment), Staffordshire University,
Leek Road, Stoke-on-Trent ST4 2DF, UK
e-mail: l.young@staffs.ac.uk

© The Author(s) 2016 13

P. Jackson et al. (eds.), Eating, Drinking: Surviving,
SpringerBriefs in Global Understanding, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-42468-2_2
14 E. Young

food system has become one of the most important globally embedded networks of
production and consumption; its integral connections with the petroleum industry
and global security only serve to confirm its centrality and significance (Le Billon
et al. 2014a, b; Goodall 2008; Weis 2009).
Geographical perspectives on food illuminate a cruel paradox at the heart of
contemporary globalization. Why do millions of people still die from hunger and
hunger-related diseases while the health of millions is threatened by an obesity
pandemic? In a world where millions enjoy a more varied diet than ever before and
waste nearly as much as they eat, why does food scarcity still haunt millions?
Meanwhile countries as varied as China, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt now
suffer a “double burden” where under nutrition coexists with obesity as a major
public health problem; a strange world too where “some people destroy food
because prices are too low, and others literally eat dirt because food prices are too
high” (Angus 2008: 1). Understanding these paradoxes requires analysis of
unprecedented changes in global food provisioning in the last 40 years, but we start
with a review of malnutrition statistics which establishes the contentious nature of
the “food debate.”
[A]bout 805 million people are estimated to be chronically undernourished in 2012–14,
down more than 100 million over the last decade……In the same period, the prevalence of
undernourishment has fallen from 18.7 to 11.3 percent globally (SOFI, 2014 introduction).

So, time to celebrate? Maybe, but first it is vital to consider some problems
associated with measuring malnutrition (Lappé et al. 2013; IFPRI 2014). The FAO
(2012, 2014) employs a limited definition of hunger based on a diet of
1800 kilocalories per day, the minimum for someone who is not active. If we
assume people are active and need more calories, then these estimates are a gross
underrepresentation. They also ignore “hidden hunger,” diets sufficient in calories
but which lack essential minerals and vitamins, such as iron, vitamin A, iodine and
zinc. A recent estimate holds that 2 billion people suffer from this form of mal-
nutrition and associated health problems (IFPRI 2014, p. 5).
Such statistics also ignore the geography of global hunger. While there has been
a marked decline in under nutrition between 1990 and 2014, the process has been
very uneven. Advances “by two countries, China (−96 million) and Viet Nam (−24
million) amounts to 91 % of the net numerical reduction in undernourished people
between 1990 and 2012” (Lappé et al. 2013, p. 1). Such geographical disaggre-
gation is vital for understanding global trends. It is also vital for identifying suc-
cessful and unsuccessful national policies. Examining regional trends is complex
too—examples from Africa exemplify this point.
The 2012 FAO Report remarks that “we are losing the battle in Africa.”
However, if we disaggregate the statistics, a more nuanced picture emerges;
countries in this region exemplify best and worst practice. Ghana’s success is
dramatic and illustrates what can be done to reduce hunger by dedicated political
interventions (Curtis 2011). In contrast, the Democratic Republic of Congo
exemplifies the worst case situation and helps explain the poor performance of Sub
Saharan Africa (SSA) in aggregate; extract this one country and the “picture” from
Globalization and Malnutrition: Geographical Perspectives on Its Paradoxes 15

SSA is less depressing. These examples exemplify the importance of scale to

analyses of malnutrition; it is always instructive to disaggregate data whether at the
global, regional or national scale.
Disaggregating statistics based on other variables is also illuminating, as pop-
ulations which are economically and political marginalized dominate national
statistics. Rural populations have a higher incidence of malnutrition than urban
populations; females and children more than males; ethnic minorities and people
with disabilities more than the general population (Young 2012). Finally, world
food prices are volatile and subject to changes associated with social and natural
factors, so numbers vary seasonally and the specific geography of their impacts are
notoriously complex (Cohen and Smale 2012).
Recently malnutrition due to overconsumption has emerged, diets with too many
calories, sugar, and fats are a major global public health problem. Once considered
a problem for small numbers of people in affluent societies, obesity has now
reached epidemic proportions.1 Globalization since the 1970s helps explain the
nutritional transition in the global south and the emergence of obesity there
(Hawkes 2006). Countries formerly concerned only with under nutrition now suffer
from a ‘double burden’ where under nutrition coexists with obesity (FAO 2006).
Alarming headlines appear regularly across the globe, there is no escape from the
“obesity pandemic” (Popkin 2007; Frenk 2012). However, measuring obesity is
problematic and its incidence, as well as its implications, is contested. The dis-
cussion above establishes the controversial and contentious nature of mapping and
measuring malnutrition; explaining the causes and evaluating solutions are more
politically charged, it is indeed a “battle for mouths, minds and markets” (Lang and
Heasman 2004). How do we explain the patterns of malnutrition and how may they
be reduced?
Proximate factors may be responsible for volatile food prices and increases in the
number of hungry people, but the nature of these has changed markedly as the food
system has become more global in character. In the past, unpredictable weather,
pests and conflict often resulted in local food price increases and associated food
shortages. Today, local food prices are more often influenced by global factors: oil
prices; energy policies; dietary changes, foreign direct investments associated with
“land grabs” or financial speculation (Saturnino et al. 2011; Goodall 2008; Geary
2012; GRAIN 2008; IATP 2008; Ghosh 2009; Jarosz 2009; Wahl 2009;
Swaminathan 2013). To understand the extensive and protracted nature of global
malnutrition we must examine the profound changes in the structure and nature of
global political economy (Clapp 2012; Clapp and Cohen 2009; von Braun 2007;
Weis 2007; Young 2012; Le Billion et al. 2014a, b; McMichael 2009; Magdoff
2004, 2008, 2013; Magdoff and Tokar 2010).
Conceptualisations of the problem and their associated policy recommendations
are diametrically opposed and reflect divergent political perspectives. At one

Describing obesity as an ‘epidemic’ is controversial as, unlike most epidemics, it is not a com-
1

municable disease.
16 E. Young

extreme are those who advocate more industrial food production and urge us to
embrace new technologies emerging from corporate research laboratories. This
vision triumphs the technological revolution that has transformed agricultural
production since the end of the 1950s and argues that the revolution should be
extended and intensified (World Bank 2008; Beddington 2010; DuPont 2014;
Monsanto 2014). This perspective employs a narrow interpretation of food security:
food security, at the individual, household, national, regional and global levels is achieved
when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and
nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy
life (World Food Summit 1996).

Traditional approaches have emphasized producing more food from a more or

less stable resource base, a process sometimes referred to as ‘sustainable intensi-
fication’. But transformations of the global system over the last 60 years mean that
the food security concept has limited purchase to tackle the myriad problems
associated with the food system today; namely, human rights abuses, international
trade and aid policy, global governance and development policy, equity, access and
ownership of resources, public health, and environmental issues, for example
(Pretty et al. 2010; Sage 2012; Mittal 2009; Young 2010; Carolan 2011).
Conceptualizing ‘the food problem’ as a simple ‘production’ issue, where ‘we need
more food’ ignores the complex reasons that some people are hungry. This ‘pro-
ductionist’ approach still dominates debates about the problem of hunger and is
allied to Malthusian interpretations where “too many people” are understood to be
the problem. Such simplistic interpretations are untenable; the problem is much
more complex and politically charged. As Maxwell and Slater (2004, p. 3) conclude
‘[A] preoccupation with food security is no longer sufficient’.
At the other end of the spectrum, are those who argue that the nature of con-
temporary food production is the cause of the current crisis and that its promotion
will exacerbate the problem (Wise and Sundell 2014). This vision calls for a fun-
damental rethinking of global food provisioning, and argues for changes at every
stage of the food system to establish a more socially equitable and environmentally
sustainable system (Clapp 2012; Paarlberg 2010; Thurow and Kilman 2009; von
Braun 2007; Weis 2007; Lang and Heasman 2004; Holt-Gimenez and Patel 2009;
Young 2012). This interpretation emphasizes the central role of corporate control
and the political manipulation of trade and subsidy regimes. At present corporate
profits increase while millions remain hungry, others become obese and the envi-
ronment suffers. World Watch (2010) suggest that instead of producing more food a
more effective way to address food security issues and climate change would be to
encourage self-sufficiency and waste reduction, in wealthier and poorer nations
alike. Such perspectives reject the narratives emanating from agribusiness interests
and their allies in governments; instead they emphasize securing “entitlements” and
promoting “food sovereignty” (see Bartos, this volume).
Sen (1981) introduced the concept of entitlements and transformed the debate
about food security and hunger. He argued that “[S]tarvation is the characteristic of
some people not having enough food to eat. It is not the characteristic of there not
Globalization and Malnutrition: Geographical Perspectives on Its Paradoxes 17

being enough food to eat” (Sen 1981, p. 1); as is the case today when we produce
more than enough food to feed everyone. However, millions do not have the
capacity to access the food in their midst, their assets (financial and social) are
insecure or minimal; food follows customers, whether people or pets. Processes
operating at every scale influence how food is distributed and how entitlements are
constructed (Young 2012, p. 22). The ability of some people to command food
reflects their political, economic, or social status. The role of gender is an obvious
example; female entitlements are frequently constrained by discrimination which
privileges male access to land, capital, and education (Action Aid 2010; IFAD
2012; Tsikata and Golah 2010; IDS 2014; FAO 2013).
Food sovereignty (Nyelini Declaration 2007) is another concept employed to
explain malnutrition; it draws attention to how and where decisions about the food
system are implemented. Unlike food security, it puts the question of power and
politics at the center of the debate (Schanbacher 2010). Food sovereignty “is the
right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through eco-
logically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food
and agriculture systems” (Nyeleni Declaration). The concept has been adopted by
myriad groups who want radical changes to the contemporary food system
(Anderson and Bellows 2012; GRAIN 2014).2 Major themes include: securing
livelihoods; gender equity; environmental objectives; land and property rights and
agrarian reform policies; local autonomy; democratic systems of governance; and it
urges resistance to corporate control of the food system. Food sovereignty estab-
lishes politics at the heart of the food debate. It is about who controls the food
system and about human rights (Valente 2014). This perspective challenges the
power of corporations, other special interests and the institutions of global gover-
nance (World Trade Organization, World Bank and International Monetary Fund)
that deliver their agendas. Instead, they demand that the food system be more
democratically governed and locally embedded; for them, neo-liberal, market-based
solutions—hegemonic since the 1950s—are not working and business as usual is
not an option (Wise 2013).
Every stage of the modern food chain is embedded in contentious economic and
scientific debates; these are political because they are about the role of markets and
the state, about global trading regimes and the ability of governments to control
their agricultural and food policies. They are political because food security is the
most basic expectation that citizens have of their government; failure to provide a
decent diet is associated with autocratic or corrupt regimes or conflict ridden
political situations. Finally, they are political because scarcity leads to food riots
which have been associated with radical regime change in the past and food is now
embedded in global security debates.
Given the complexity of the food system, employing various scales for analysis
helps illuminate some otherwise obscure interactions. Processes which operate at

2
The right to adequate food and freedom from hunger is also inscribed in international law through
Article 11.2 of the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights.
Another random document with
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make a suitable return for so valuable a consideration, accompanying his
apology with a small present of mats, cocoa-nuts, and a preparation of the
ripe bup, that had an agreeable sweet taste. It was after dark when our party
left the village, and went to the beach to embark. They had already left the
shore a few yards, when some natives came running down, and called for
them to return, saying, the chief had another mat for the captain. They
landed, when they were told, that the mat was in the village, and that Huzzy
must go for it. The captain, not choosing to send for the mat, put off again.
In a few moments two or three other messengers came running to the beach,
calling for the boat to return. When she had pulled in a few yards from the
shore, they said that the chief wanted Huzzy to go up to the village for the
mat, and that he did not wish to keep the axe, which he had sent back to the
captain, unwilling, as we supposed, to lay himself under so great an
obligation as its acceptance implied. The captain refused to take the axe,
telling the messenger to say to his chief, that what we had given, we never
took back, and, with this, left the shore and returned on board. The tide had
risen considerably over the coral bank, and the party found the surf
somewhat dangerous in returning, having their boats nearly filled with
water.

The dress and general appearance of these people, as well as their

language, was the same as that of the natives of the Mulgraves. Their
canoes were also the same. We saw only three or four with sails, which
were hauled upon the beach. The power of the great chief must, therefore,
consist in his dominion over other islands to the northward and westward of
him, where there is an almost connected chain for several hundred miles,
and from which, when he undertakes an important enterprise, he must, in a
great measure, draw his resources. It was probably with the object of
collecting forces for the great chief, that Latuano visited so many islands
during his exile from his own, and to which he was at last restored by
foreign aid.

At eight in the evening, we made sail to the northward and westward,

with a fresh breeze from the eastward. The weather was clear, and we stood
on under easy sail all night. Early in the morning land was discovered,
bearing nearly west, and soon afterwards more land was seen to the north.
The last was Ibbitson's Island, and appeared to be separate from that
discovered first. It is not improbable, however, that they are connected by
coral reefs, that were too distant from us to be observed.

The land was all low, and had the appearance of the Mulgraves and
other coral islands. At meridian, we hove to, and put off in two boats.
Having passed to leeward of the island, we crossed a drowned reef, that
extended as far as the eye could reach to the N.W., when we found
ourselves in an inland sea, which was extensive and quite smooth. That part
of the island where we landed was about five miles long, and a quarter of a
mile wide. Upon the margin of the inland sea, there were a number of huts,
but when we landed, not an inhabitant could be seen. The huts had
evidently been but recently occupied. The island was covered abundantly
with cocoa-nut and bup trees, and a few of the bread-fruit were here and
there to be seen. On the shore of the inland sea the water was smooth and
unruffled, and the humble but neat dwellings of the natives, scattered about
amongst the cocoa forests, presented a scene of quiet and repose, peculiarly
soothing to the mind, contrasted with the eternal war of breakers on the
ocean side. We had not been long on shore before we found a few old
people, who had concealed themselves in the bushes, and, although they
were at first afraid of us, they became less timid, and increased in number,
when we had presented them with some pieces of iron, and a few old
buttons. In return, they gave us mats, fishing-nets, cocoa-nuts, and bup,
with the last of which they filled our boat. Their dress and language was the
same as at the Mulgraves, and their habitations and canoes were also the
same. Amongst all these islands, the natives ascend the cocoa-nut trees, in
the way I have described at the Marquesas. Here we saw several very old
people, some of whom had lost all their teeth,—a circumstance we had not
before remarked in any of these islands. There were also two or three
cripples, who were not less remarkable, being the first we had seen. All the
females were very old, and, upon inquiring the cause, they replied, that the
young men had sent the young women away, for fear they would be given
presents. Two or three large sail canoes came from a great distance over the
inland sea, and approached us without fear. The natives told us that they had
never seen white men before.

The captain landed upon a different island from myself, and the natives,
having fled from their habitations as they did upon the island where I
landed, he sent a few old people, that were found, commanding all the
inhabitants to return to their homes, and, fearing his displeasure, in a few
minutes their huts were occupied in the same manner as though the white-
faced strangers had not appeared amongst them.

At five, P.M., we returned to the schooner, with our boats laden with
fruit, and soon afterwards made sail, shaping our course for the Sandwich
Islands. We were favoured with south easterly trades, blowing in fresh gales
for a number of days, which rendered our passage materially shorter than it
would probably have been otherwise. But what was still less to have been
expected than a south-east trade in the northern tropic, was a strong current,
that set us at the rate of thirty to forty miles a day, N.E. from the latitude of
sixteen to twenty-five north. Part of the time that we experienced this strong
current, the wind was blowing a double-reefed top-sail breeze from East
and E.N.E., differing only from two to four points with the opposite
direction of the current. When we arrived in the latitude of twenty-three
degrees north, the trades left us, and the winds became variable. At
meridian of December the 24th, we were, by our calculation, thirty miles
from an island, said to have been discovered recently by a whaler, and
which we made to bear from us E. by N. Our latitude observed was twenty-
five degrees fifty-seven minutes, N. Longitude, by chronometer, one
hundred and eighty-six degrees twenty-seven minutes, W. We ran off to the
eastward all the following day, and at meridian, December 25th, observed,
in latitude twenty-six degrees, N.; longitude one hundred and eighty-three
degrees twenty minutes W., without having seen the slightest indications of
land.

On Christmas day, we gave the crew a dinner of turtle, which were still
fat, and very delicious. We had fed them occasionally upon bup and other
vegetation, that was found upon the islands.

December the 27th, we came within the vicinity of another new

discovery of a whaler, and at meridian, had it bearing, by our calculation,
S.E. ten miles. We ran for it until six, P.M., December 28th, when no
appearance of land being in sight, we hove about, and stood to the
northward, for a newly discovered reef, which, at meridian, bore from us,
by calculation N. by E., distant one hundred miles. Latitude observed,
twenty-six degrees ten minutes N.; longitude, by chronometer, one hundred
and seventy-six degrees fifty-one minutes, W. The reef for which we were
now steering was called, by the discoverer, Clark's Reef. It was said to
extend sixty miles, in a south-west and north-easterly direction, and we
thought it impossible that it should escape our observation, if laid down any
where near the given latitude and longitude.

At nine, P.M., December the 30th, we were within twenty-five miles of

the centre of the reef, by our calculation, and as it was blowing a gale, and
we were scudding before it with an unusually high sea, we hove to for the
night. At three, A.M., we again made sail, and ran for the centre of the reef.
At meridian, December the 31st, the centre of it was still twenty miles from
us, bearing N. E. by N. From meridian to one, P.M., we steered N. by E.,
and then bore up, and steered east all the rest of the twenty-four hours,
without seeing the reef or any indications of it. At meridian, observed, in
latitude twenty-six degrees forty-seven minutes, N.; longitude, by
chronometer, one hundred and seventy-two degrees eleven minutes, W.

We continued on to the eastward, with the hope of falling in with two

islands and a reef, of another whaler's discovery. Our confidence in their
given latitude and longitude, however, was quite destroyed by frequent
disappointments, and we now looked for their discoveries, as we would
have sought for lands, known only in the tradition of the natives of some
unfrequented island, with the hope of finding them, but with little
expectation of success. It happened with these, as with all the rest of the
new discoveries we had looked for. We passed within a few miles of the
latitude, and ran down from one to two degrees of longitude, without
observing any thing that indicated the vicinity of land.

On the second of January, 1826, we ran off to the southward of east for
Ballard's Island. During the middle of the day, the sea, from being very
heavy, became comparatively smooth, and continued so for sixty miles,
when the heavy swell again set in from the westward, as before.

At three, P.M., on the fourth of January, a rock was reported from the
mast-head, eight leagues from us. It proved to be Ballard's Island, as it is
called. At eight on the following morning, we passed within two hundred
yards of it. It is about two or three hundred yards in circumference, and
rises two hundred feet from the sea. On one side it has a considerable
inclination, where seals had crawled up, and several were basking in the
sun, almost to the very top. Large flocks of birds were perched upon its
ragged sides, or wending their flight around it. Not the least sign of
vegetation was any where to be seen. Near its base, was a small rock, from
ten to twenty feet above the water level. Ballard's Rock rises in three equi-
distant peaks, the centre of which is the highest, and all of them, to the very
base, are white with bird-lime. A high surf breaks all around it. Our
observations placed it in north latitude, twenty-five degrees two minuses;
west longitude, one hundred and sixty-seven degrees fifty minutes.

On the evening of January the fifth, the weather became squally, with
constant flashes of lightning and distant thunder. From south to west, and
N.W., the heavens were obscured with a heavy black cloud, which rose with
great rapidity. We furled all sail. When the cloud ascended our zenith, it
became perfectly calm, and a roaring was heard in the air for several
minutes, like that of wind through the tops of pines, when hail-stones of an
unusual size began to fall upon our deck, accompanied with very sharp
lightning and heavy thunder. The hail was of short duration, and passed
over without a breath of wind.

The nearest of the Sandwich Group was Bird Island, for which we
steered, and on the ninth of January, at eight in the morning (having the
preceding night been enveloped in fog) it was discovered close to us. We
tacked and stood close in with the south-west side, where was a small sand-
beach, fifty to a hundred yards long.

The captain, taking the Globe's whale-boat, went in shore to fish, but
seeing a few seal upon the sand beach, was induced to land. It soon
afterwards became squally and blew with great violence. The surf upon the
beach rose with the wind, and, when the captain, after a short examination
of the island, attempted to return, he found it impossible to launch his boat
through the surf, and was reduced to the necessity of passing the night upon
the island. It blew a gale and rained in torrents all night. The captain and his
boat's crew took shelter in a cavern upon the sea-shore, where they had not
been long by a comfortable fire they had made, when, by the rising of the
tide the sea broke in upon them, and they with difficulty escaped to the side
of the rocks, and thence upon the sand-beach. The island was high and
almost perpendicular, and with the floods that fell and rushed down its steep
sides, rocks of a large size were disengaged from their beds, and came
tumbling down in every direction, to the great peril of the captain and his
boat's crew, sufficiently uncomfortable from the torrents of water that were
falling and driving upon the gale. After a little search, they found an asylum
in a cave at the side of a mountain, where they passed the night. In the
morning, when they ascended the mountain, the schooner was no where to
be seen. It was high and steep, and she had beat up within a few miles of the
island and passed their line of sight. Their disappointment and chagrin was
inexpressible, supposing, from the schooner's not being in sight, she had
been driven off, and that it would be a considerable time before she could
return, and afford them that relief their situation so much required, being
very much fatigued and exhausted from their exposure. At day-light, the
weather cleared and the wind moderated. We beat up and hove to off the
sand-beach nearly as soon as the boat we had sent with refreshments.

When the captain saw the schooner approaching close in with the
island, he made a last effort to launch his boat. They succeeded in getting
her into the breakers, but the first heavy roller that broke under them
severed the boat amid-ships, and the captain upon one end of her and a man
that could not swim on the other, were hove up safely on the beach by the
succeeding wave. The rest of the boat's crew were good swimmers, and also
landed in safety. Our boat was not far off when this occurred, and anchoring
as near as possible to the shore, the men, all but one, swam off to her
through the surf. The only way we could devise to get the captain and
seaman off, was to float a cork-jacket on shore, at the end of a line, which
being put on by the captain and seaman, alternately, and a rope tied round
them, they were hauled through the surf without any other injury than
swallowing a quantity of salt-water.

Bird's Island is an uninhabited rock, about a league in circumference,

and the highest part from five to eight hundred feet above the ocean. Where
our boat landed, is the only spot where a landing could be effected, and
upon that side alone it has an inclination by which it may be ascended.
Every where else it is perpendicular, and at a distance, looks like the work
of art. It has a scanty vegetation.
 At five, P.M., January the 11th, we made sail for the island of Oahoo,
with a fine breeze from the westward and pleasant weather. At daylight, on
the following morning, we saw the small island of Onehow, and soon
afterwards, the highland of Atooi. During the whole day, we were coming
up with and sailing along on the west side of Atooi, moving at the rate of
eight and nine miles per hour. Of a clear day, it may be seen at least fifty or
sixty miles. We did not approach nearer to it than eight or ten. It had the
appearance, at that distance, of beautiful table-land, being every where very
regular and of nearly the same altitude. Towards evening, on the 12th of
January, we made the island of Oahoo, and should have been at anchor in
Onavoora on the following day had we passed between Atooi and Oahoo,
but from some mistake about the prevailing winds on the opposite side of
Oahoo, we continued on round the north end of it, and did not anchor at
Onavoora until the sixteenth. Two or three American merchant vessels were
lying there, with which we exchanged salutes. The Dolphin was the first
American man-of-war that ever entered a harbour of the Sandwich Islands,
and the firing of the guns, and the report widely circulated that an American
man-of-war had arrived, brought the inhabitants from far and near to the
shore of the harbour to witness the novel sight. Several of our countrymen,
who were traders here, and had been expecting us for some time, came on
board to offer their congratulations, and invite us on shore to partake of
their hospitality. It was highly gratifying to us upon landing, to meet nearly
all of our countrymen residing at the Island, who came down, en masse, to
the beach, to welcome us on shore, in the most kind and friendly manner.
We were a little disappointed, however, when we came to look round and
found that none of the missionaries had partaken in the general sentiment.
They were also our countrymen, and from the character of benevolence and
philanthropy they had assumed to themselves, we had a right to expect they
would have been amongst the first to hail us with a welcome to their lonely
abode. We expected, indeed, that they would not only have received us as
countrymen, but as friends, whose kindness, and sympathy would be highly
acceptable to them in their peculiar situation.

From the shore we were escorted to a large frame building called the
wooden-house, then occupied by our countryman, Captain Wilds, where a
handsome dinner was prepared, to which every luxury was added that could
be obtained from the shipping or the shore. We were much surprised on
landing, to find a rabble of naked and half-naked natives, amounting to
many hundreds, as we had been taught to believe, from the various
information we had received, that their condition was much improved, and
that they were far advanced in civilization. They were of all ages, and
formed a more varied and fantastic group than I had any where seen, even
where no degree of civilization had taken place, from an intercourse with
white men. Some of them were quite naked; some had their native dress of
tappa cloths; some had on cotton shirts, some a pair of old trowsers, and
some nothing but an old jacket. Many of them had adorned their heads with
wreaths of red and yellow flowers, and some their necks and wrists with
necklaces and bracelets of shells. They expressed the greatest pleasure at
seeing us, shouting and crowding around, so that we could not get along
without pushing them out of the way. In appearance, a comparison of them
with the natives of the Marquesas or Mulgrave Islands, would have been
greatly to their disadvantage. On the following day, we were again invited
to dine at the same place, where we met a second time with our
countrymen, and interchanged with them those sentiments of friendship and
sympathy that naturally arise on meeting in a strange land, and which are
felt by Americans with peculiar force. It appeared to us that they could not
sufficiently express their gratification at seeing us at Oahoo, by the most
unremitted attention, for they continued to feast and give us parties every
day for more than a week, and until our various and pressing duties made it
inconvenient for us to partake of them. On the first sabbath after our arrival,
I went to the place of worship appointed by the missionaries for the natives.
A large building, formerly occupied for this purpose, had been destroyed a
short time previous to our arrival, and as they had now no house sufficiently
large to contain the whole congregation, the place appointed for worship
was an extensive enclosure in the rear of a large frame building, which is
occupied as the dwelling of the young king. Within this enclosure, was
assembled about a thousand people, as I supposed, seated on the ground.
Some of them were dressed in silks, cottons, and calicoes, and others were
in their native dress, being quite naked, except about the waist. They were
in the open air, without any protection from the sun, which was pouring its
vertical rays upon them. Mr. Bingham, the head of the mission, was
addressing them in the language of the island, and when he saw me at the
outer edge of the circle, very kindly beckoned me to come round where the
queen dowager was seated. He was standing there himself. A native was
holding an umbrella over his head, and around him were seated all the chief
men and women, some in chairs, and some of them on the ground. With one
or two exceptions, they were all people of uncommon size. Some of them
were quite neatly dressed, but others had displayed a most whimsical and
ridiculous fancy. When I came near Cahumanu, who was the favourite wife
of the departed and highly distinguished Tamahamaha, she extended her
hand to me and bade one of her attendants bring me a chair. The service
lasted about an hour, when the assemblage dispersed, and the natives ran
away as much pleased as so many children let loose from school. At the
close of the service, I promised myself so much politeness on the part of the
distinguished personages present, as to receive from some of them an
invitation to go into their houses, as I was in the uniform of a foreign
officer; but in this I was altogether disappointed. I had the satisfaction of
speaking, for a few minutes, with Mr. Bingham, whose attention was soon
called from me by the presence of some chief, with whom he wished to
exchange a salutation, and after recognizing two or three of the chiefs
present whom I had seen before, I was suffered to depart without receiving
any further notice.

On Monday, I made a call of ceremony on the high chief Boque, who

was one of the attendants of the late king Rio Rio, on his visit to the king of
England. He was a man of about thirty years of age, upwards of six feet,
and stout in proportion. He had a flat nose and thick lips, but the general
expression of his face was that of benevolence and good nature—an
expression truly characteristic, according to the testimony of those who
have had an opportunity of knowing him well. We found him sitting in a
chair at a table, with a desk before him, upon which he was making pot-
hooks after a copy, having just commenced learning to write. He got up and
shook hands with us, as did also his wife, who was seated on some mats at
the other end of the hut. Boque was dressed in a coarse linen shirt and
trowsers, having a pair of heavy shoes on his feet, without any stockings.
Queen Boque was nearly as large as her husband, and looked a good deal
like him. She had on a plain white muslin cap and dress, neither of which
were very clean or neatly put on. It was, however, in as good taste as could
be expected in so rude a state of society, but I thought it less becoming than
would have been her native dress. She invited us to be seated, and made an
attempt at politeness, such as she had seen practised in England, having
accompanied her husband thither. The hut was an oblong building, about
sixty by forty feet. Its simple structure was the same that has been in use in
the islands from time immemorial, being poles laid over crotches, upon
which the rafters rested, and differing in nothing from the habitations of the
poorest people, except that the crotches, poles, and rafters, were longer, and
there were more of them. It was thatched from the top all the way to the
ground, with a thick covering of grass. The interior was all in one
apartment, from the top of the rafters to the hard beaten ground floor. There
was nothing ornamental, and no superfluous furniture. A bedstead standing
in one corner, with some pieces of white tappa cloth of the island for
curtains, whereon was laid a pile of mats for a bed; two or three piles of
mats laying along near the centre of the hut, raised one or two feet from the
floor, by being piled one above the other, for beds or lounging places; two
or three old chairs; a plain table of small dimensions, and a dressing-case
with a mirror in it, was all of Boque's furniture, either useful or ornamental.
Besides these may be mentioned a few hollow gourds for poye, (a favourite
food of the Sandwich Islanders, made from the tarrow,) hanging at the side
of the hut.

Leaving Boque's palace, we went with the intention of making a similar

call upon the high chief Crimacu, known to strangers who have visited the
island, by the name of Billy Pitt. He was the high carnie, or great friend of
Tamahamaha, in whose wars he was greatly distinguished for personal
prowess, sagacity, and wisdom. When we came to his hut, we found him
sleeping in a swinging cot, with several attendants sitting round, one of
whom was fanning him. He was in very ill health, having for a long time
been afflicted with the dropsy, and we departed without waking him. His
hut differed in nothing from that of Boque, except that it was not so large,
and had a greater profusion of mats in it. It was standing in one corner of an
extensive plain, that was partially enclosed by a wicker fence just at the
outskirts of the town of Onaroora, and all around it was growing wild grass
and weeds, except where the footsteps of the people, who passed to and
from the hut, had trodden them down. It looked but little like the habitation
of a man who had been a great warrior, and associated as second in
authority with one who had conquered and ruled over thousands of men.
One would naturally suppose that in emerging from a savage state, with
absolute power, he would have made an attempt, at least, to imitate the style
and manners of the white men with whom he was constantly meeting, and
always on terms of friendship.

After we had interchanged salutes with the shore, chief Boque came on
board on the 17th, to make us a visit of ceremony. He was dressed in a
splendid English major-general's uniform, and made a very handsome
appearance. He remained and partook of a collation with us, at which
several gentlemen were invited to meet him, and in all respects acquitted
himself in a more polite and becoming manner than could have been
expected from one whose opportunities had been so limited. He drank
sparingly of wine, and left us at an early hour, notwithstanding the
solicitations of the company for him to remain. A few hours after he had
landed, I met him again, and should hardly have recognized him but for his
large stature and good-natured face. He had stripped himself of all his
finery, and was walking over the plain from his house with nothing on but
his marrow, and a piece of tappa cloth of the island thrown loosely over his
shoulders. I asked him why he had taken off his uniform, to which he
replied, that it was too warm.

Our countrymen, to vary the entertainments they were constantly giving

us, and thereby make them the more acceptable, proposed that we should
make an excursion to a valley, called by them Pearl River, from the pearl
frequently found in a small stream that passes through it. As horses could
not be obtained for all, part of the company went by water, whilst the rest,
four or five, mounted on horseback. The distance was about fifteen miles. I
made one of the land party, and we set off early in the afternoon. There was
no road, and in many places not even a footpath. The whole way was over
hill and dale, and through swamps. We had to jump fences and ditches
made through tarrow-patches, and ascend by narrow paths, difficult and
dangerous cliffs. All the afternoon was occupied in this manner, and it was
sundown when we arrived at our place of destination. One old native made
bold to oppose us in jumping our horses over his fence, and was so
obstinate in his refusal to let us pass, that for a time we thought we should
have to relinquish our excursion—a reflection not very agreeable, after
having advanced more than half way over so wretched a road. Finally, when
all other arguments had failed, some one of the party, thinking that the
native opposed our trespass upon his premises with no other object than to
lay us under contribution, gave him half a dollar, which did more for us
than all our threats or persuasion. Instead of opposing, he afterwards
pointed out to us the best way. From Onavoora to Pearl River, the country
was thinly inhabited. We met with no considerable village or rich valley.
Our road lay near the edge of a wide marsh, that intervened between us and
the sea, in the opposite direction from which, an undulating country
extended three or four miles, when it was interrupted by the high and
uninhabited range of mountains that run through the centre of the island
from one end to the other. It was Saturday evening, when we arrived at
Pearl River, and, according to the doctrine in which the missionaries had
instructed the Sandwich islanders, their sabbath had commenced. The hut
that we were to occupy belonged to Captain Dana, an American gentleman,
to whom we were indebted for many hours of agreeable pastime. Besides
the hut, he possessed other property in the valley, which gave him an
influence with the chief of it, that enabled him to command whatever it
produced. When we arrived, the chief was seated on a mat, near Captain
Dana's hut, moody, and, apparently, very stupid. The arrival of so many
strangers, in a place where a visiter was scarcely ever seen, produced a
lively interest amongst the villagers. All of them seemed to partake of the
general excitement, but the chief, though celebrated for his hospitality, was
now sunk in the most listless apathy, and apparently scarcely sensible of our
presence. When he was told that we wanted supper, and preparation made
for our accommodation on the morrow, he replied, that it was the sabbath,
and neither then nor on the morrow could fire be made, as it was forbidden
by the Almighty. Upon being asked how he knew that it was forbidden by
the Almighty, he said, that Mr. Bingham had seen the Almighty, who told
him so. This was a great check to our promised enjoyment, and one that we
were quite unprepared for, as no prohibition of making fire on Saturday, or
any other night, was in existence at Onavoora. We saw but a poor prospect
of getting supper or any thing, indeed, until we returned, unless we fasted
on Sunday, and that our religious scruples did not call for, if it were not
unavoidable. We were unwilling, however, to interfere with the established
observances, which had been thought necessary to civilize and improve the
condition of the people, and bore our disappointment in silence. After
wandering about the village for a while, which was small, and scattered
over a sterile ridge, we were relieved from our unpleasant dilemma by a
native, we had taken with us as cook and interpreter, who was commonly
known upon the island by the name of Joe Banks. He had received some
education, and had been a convert to the missionaries, from whom he
afterwards seceded. He did not like fasting any more than ourselves, and set
about haranguing the chief, to convince him of the error of his opinion, with
respect to the making of fire. Joe was not wanting in either talent or
volubility; and, to our great satisfaction, we soon found him on good terms
with the chief; a fire was made, and soon after a kid and a pig brought up
for slaughter. I observed, that the chief's skin was very rough and in scales,
resembling somewhat the shell of a small terrapin. Upon inquiring the
cause, they told me, it was the effect of the ava-root, of which he was
undergoing a course. He had almost finished the course, and his skin was all
peeling off. It was the effect of the ava, that made him so stupid, and under
its operation he was a most disgusting looking object. The natives of the
Sandwich Islands are very much subject to cutaneous irruptions, which are
troublesome, and, when of long standing, often dangerous. To eradicate
this, and some other offensive diseases, with which they are afflicted, they
sometimes go through a course of the ava. It is taken in quantities from a
gill to half a pint, of the juice of the green root. It is chewed, and the juice
spit into a gourd, if intended for the use of another person than the one who
prepares it, and is said, when taken, to deprive the person of muscular
power. In a few moments after swallowing the potion, he loses the use of all
his limbs. He experiences an agreeable sensation, and is conscious of every
thing that transpires, but without the power of speech. He lies in this
helpless condition for several hours, when he recovers his strength in a
measure, and is left in the condition of a man that has been very much
intoxicated. This, to have the desired effect, is repeated daily for about a
month; when the disease is cured, the skin all comes off, and a fair and
shining one is left in its place. When once it was settled between Joe Banks
and the chief of Pearl River Valley, that fire should be made, and our supper
cooked, he provided for us in the most sumptuous native style. We had pigs,
goats, fish, tarrow, and potatoes, in the greatest profusion. All was cooked
after the manner of the natives, and as the same method is practised
generally amongst the islanders of the Pacific Ocean, and knowing, from
experience, that it is a very good one, I will here describe it. A hole is first
dug a foot or two deep, and large, according to the size of the thing to be
cooked. A fire is then made in the hole, and, when it is burning well,
covered over with stones of a convenient size. When every thing is in
readiness, the stones being well heated, they are taken off, and the hole
cleared out. A layer of stones is then placed all round the interior, upon
which is lain the meat, after being well wrapped up in green leaves. Over
this is placed a thick layer of stones, which is covered with grass, or
something dry, and then with earth. If vegetables are to be cooked, they are
lain on the top of the upper layer of stones. The young tops of the tarrow are
usually wrapped up in leaves, and cooked with the meats in the manner
above described. It is a very excellent green, and called by the natives
lewoca, from which the method of cooking takes its name. Early in the
morning after our arrival, we arose, to look upon the wild beauty of the
valley, and wander through what, at a distance, appeared to be its meadows
and lawns; but, to our great disappointment, in descending from the hills,
the green level fields that looked so pleasant at a distance, were all cut up in
tarrow patches, flooded over, and intersected in every direction with ditches
and embankments. A scene, so uninviting, soon induced us to relinquish our
anticipated pleasure, and return.

In the course of our morning's walk we came to the house of an

Englishman, who, a few years previous, arrived at the island in a Peruvian
man-of-war, the seamen of which had risen upon their officers, and ran
away with the vessel. He had taken to himself a native wife, and, to all
appearance, had fixed here his abode for life. His hut looked extremely
comfortable—not less so, indeed, than that of the chief, and besides other
property that he had acquired, he had a fine flock of sheep feeding near his
residence. He politely invited us into his house, which we declined, as we
were returning late to breakfast.

After breakfast we set off in our boat to visit a small island near the sea
shore, where there were a great many rabbits. We passed along several
miles of an inlet of the sea, before we came to it. It was half a mile long,
level, and overgrown with high weeds. The rabbits were so numerous, that
the island was every where perforated with their burrows, and one or more
would be found in almost every bunch of high grass that we came to,—so
tame, that we could frequently take them up in our hands. We caught more
than a dozen of them in this way, in the short time that we remained. Some
years previous, an old Spaniard, by the name of Menini, who had settled at
Onavoora, put one or more pairs of rabbits upon this small island, and
prevailed upon the chiefs to tabboo them. From that time they had not been
disturbed.

After returning to our dinner, we all set off on our way back to
Onuvoora. To vary the scene, I relinquished my horse and took passage in
the boat. We sailed for several miles among marshes and barren islands,
upon a salt water inlet, up which a ship of heavy burthen might pass for a
considerable distance. The whole way was quite void of interest. When we
got to the sea, we had a head wind to row against all the way. A reef
extended out from the shore, beyond which we were compelled to go,
making the distance so great, that the evening was far advanced before we
got to the Dolphin.

Not long after our return from Pearl River, I set out one day with an
American gentleman, to ascend a high and steep mountain, that rises back
of the village, which the natives, many years ago, fortified with a few heavy
pieces of cannon. We crossed the plain, which is a mile or a mile and a half
wide, when we came to the base of the mountain. It was seven or eight
hundred feet high, and from below, seemed to rise almost perpendicular
from the plain. A winding footpath, however, showed us that it had long
and frequently been ascended by the natives, and encouraged us to make the
attempt. We had often to stop and get breath, but at last accomplished our
object, by gaining the summit and entering upon a small plain. Here we
found several huts, that were occupied by the families of the men appointed
to guard this important post, into which we entered to obtain leave to
examine the fortification. The people were very friendly; they not only
granted us permission, but hospitably proffered us some excellent melons,
which were very refreshing after our laborious ascent. There were only
three men in the fort, one of whom, that appeared to have the command,
politely waited upon us in our walk round. The guns were mounted on a
platform, at the very edge of the precipice that overlooked the harbour and
town. They were of thirty-two pound caliber. It must have been a work of
inconceivable labour for the natives to get them upon this great eminence.
The carriages and all their fixtures were very much decayed, and totally
unfit for use. The situation is very commanding, and notwithstanding the
distance, the battery would be formidable to an enemy in the harbour. From
this eminence, we had an extensive and beautiful prospect, comprehending
the valley and harbour, many miles at sea, and along the sea-coast in either
direction. The river, that waters the valley, broken in cataracts as it rapidly
descended to the sea, showed to its greatest advantage, and the valley,
covered with its tarrow patches, corn, and potatoes, presented a landscape
resembling finely cultivated fields and waving green meadows. In front,
was the thatched village of Onavoora, the huts looking like heaps of dry
straw; beyond it, the harbour and shipping; and still farther, at sea, a long
range of white foaming breakers. On the extreme right, was the valley of
Pearl River, bounded by high and rugged mountains; and to the left, the
cocoa-nut groves of Whytete and Diamond Rock, with its adjacent sterile
hills, covered with volcanic cinders.

From the top of the hill, we descended in a different direction on our

return, with a view of passing through a part of the valley that runs far back
from the shore between the mountains, where it appeared to be finely
cultivated and well inhabited. We had not gone far from the fort, when we
found ourselves near the centre of what had been the crater of a volcano,
and which, from its resemblance, has given the eminence the name of the
Punch Bowl, by which it is familiarly known amongst foreigners. The crater
is about a quarter or half a mile in diameter, and from one to two hundred
feet deep. When we descended to the valley, which was not without
difficulty, our way was every where interrupted by tarrow patches, their
ditches, and embankments. After crossing a small valley, we came to an
elevated piece of ground, where the natives who cultivated the tarrow
below, had built their habitations, and around them planted groves of
Banana. It was a fine morning, and the people of both sexes were
industriously engaged in their appropriate occupations. Some of the women
were roasting tarrow, and others making it up in poye. The latter operation
was interesting to me, as I had never seen it before. When the tarrow is
roasted, and the skin taken off, it resembles a potatoe; it is then put into a
tray, and with a long, smooth stone, beaten up as fine as possible,
occasionally mixing a small quantity of water with it; after it has been
beaten in this way, it is worked over a number of times, to get all the lumps
out; it then has the appearance of a thick paste or starch. A soon as it
foments a little and becomes slightly acid, it is used. When in this state, it
will not last long before it becomes very sour, and is then considered so
unwholesome, that unless the people are very poor, it is thrown away.
 After satisfying our curiosity in seeing the women make poye, we
descended the hill where several men were preparing a tarrow patch. It was
forty feet square, excavated a little, and an embankment two feet high
thrown up all around it, descending with a considerable angle from the top
to the base, making it very broad at the bottom. The labourers had advanced
thus far, and were beating the area and inner sides of the embankment with
broad heavy paddles, going over it a great many times. It appeared very
hard and firm when we saw them at work; but still, they told us, that they
had to beat it a great deal more. When this is completed, the tops of the
tarrow that have been cut off for the purpose, are set in the ground and
lightly flooded with water; after it has taken root and began to grow
thriftily, more water is let in upon it; the tarrow well grown, will generally
be covered with water to the depth of one or two feet. It is about the size of
a beet, and takes a year or more to come to its greatest perfection. It has
clusters of broad bright green leaves, that in shape and appearance are a
good deal like the common pond lilly. It is a very nutricious vegetable, and
constitutes the principal means of subsistence of the Sandwich Islanders.

The huts of the natives were very small, and although in the midst of
cultivation and fertility, the inhabitants seemed to be wretchedly poor. They
did not appear much more civilized than the natives of the Marquesas; their
habitations were certainly less comfortable. Returning to the village, we
saw a number of people scraping sticks that looked like our elder, and
preserving the inner bark. Upon inquiring its use, they told us it was to
catch fish with. When eaten by the fish, they come to the top of the water
and are taken out by hand. It is said, the fish are not the worse for this.

On our arrival at Oahoo, the Dolphin was out of repair in every respect,
and it was indispensably necessary to refit her, before we proceeded further
on our return to the coast of Chili or Peru. Whilst the masts were out, and
the vessel was undergoing general repairs, the captain received a letter from
Captain Edwards, of the ship Loudon, of New-York, stating that he had ran
upon a reef, on the Island of Ranai; besides a valuable cargo, he had a large
amount of specie and bullion on board. The chief Thunder, (chief of Ranai,)
was encouraging the natives of the island to plunder him, and finally, that
his life and treasure was in the greatest jeopardy. Although not incumbent
upon him as a duty, Captain Percival, with a promptitude highly creditable
to himself and the service to which he belonged, chartered a vessel, and
with the crew of the Dolphin, and Boque, the Governor of Oahoo, sailed on
the same day that he received the letter. He found the situation of Captain
Edwards not less critical than he had described it to be. The natives had
already plundered him of a part of his cargo, and his own crew was in a
state of mutiny. Employing the authority of Chief Boque, and the
indefatigable industry of his own crew, Captain Percival caused the stolen
goods to be restored, and the cargo and treasure of the Loudon to be safely
landed at Oahoo. When all this had been accomplished, Captain Edwards
refused to pay the charter of the vessel that was employed for his relief, in
consequence of which, a quarrel arose between himself and Captain
Percival, that eventuated in consequences injurious and disagreeable to both
parties, and after our return home, became a subject of judicial
investigation. By this investigation, which was brought on at the instance of
Captain Edwards, an opportunity was afforded to Captain Percival and the
officers of the Dolphin, to vindicate their characters, which they did, in
every instance, to the entire satisfaction of their government and
countrymen.

Whilst Captain Percival was absent at Ranai, Captain Jackson, of the

brig Harbinger, of Boston, addressed a letter to me, stating that his store in
the village had been broken open, and robbed of goods to a large amount,
and requesting my assistance to recover them. The matter was laid before
the chief, Crimacu, who instituted a search, and on the following day, sent
for Captain Jackson. At his hut, were assembled most of the foreigners of
any respectability on the island, and many of the natives to witness the
result of the inquiry. Some of the thieves had already been detected, and
now stood before the chief, who, although very ill, sat up to question them
about the robbery. They confessed their guilt, and in answering the
questions put to them, convicted others, who were sent for and brought in,
until the number amounted to six. They had shared their booty, and were
sent out, with guards, to bring it from their different places of concealment.
It consisted, principally, of fine calicoes and cloths, which had been put in
tarrow patches, and oil casks, and when returned, were so damaged, as to be
of but little value to the owner. When the chief got through with the inquiry,
and had collected all the goods that could be found, he asked Mr. Jackson
what punishment he would have inflicted upon the offenders. Mr. Jackson's
reply was, that he wanted restitution made for the loss he had sustained, and
that he would leave the punishment to the chief, according to the usage of
the islands. The chief contended that the men were all poor, and had nothing
wherewith to pay. He said that the chiefs were also poor, and denied the
justice of compelling them, under any circumstances, to pay for the thefts of
the people. He offered to put the culprits at Captain Jackson's disposal, or
inflict upon them whatever punishment he should prescribe, according to
the laws of his own country. Captain Jackson refused to say what
punishment the men should receive, and only contended that the chief was
bound to see his property, or an equivalent, restored to him. The matter was,
for some hours in debate, when the chief compromised with Captain
Jackson, by promising to have a quantity of sandal-wood collected for him
within a prescribed period. The thieves were set at liberty without
punishment, in consequence of which, it was surmised by some of our
countrymen, that the chiefs had been concerned in the theft. This, I thought,
a very unjust suspicion, as the investigation took place so publicly, that the
fact, if it had been so, could hardly have failed to appear in the course of the
inquiry.

The magnanimity of Crimacu,[14] in promising an equivalent for the

damaged goods, which he was not bound to do by the customs of the
Sandwich Islands, or the laws of civilized communities, gave me the
highest opinion of his character. It appeared to me that he first objected to
remunerate the merchant for his loss, with no other motive than to produce
discussion, from which he might learn what would be done in more
enlightened countries, in a similar case. He was told of the different
punishments that the culprits would be subject to under the laws of America
and England, but nothing could be advanced, even supposing that he was to
act in accordance with the laws of those countries, to prove that the chiefs
or king of the islands, were in any other way responsible for the thefts
committed by individuals, than to make them stand forth and suffer in
person for their offences. He remarked, that the information he received
from individuals of the same country, with respect to their laws and
customs, was often at variance, and so contradictory, that he was frequently
at a loss to know what he should do to answer the ends of justice, and give
satisfaction to the strangers who came to the islands. He declared, that the
chiefs of the Sandwich Islands, wished to do like other people.
 Amongst those with whom we held frequent and friendly intercourse,
was an Englishman, by the name of Wilkinson, who had taken passage to
the Sandwich Islands, in the Frigate Blonde, when she went there with the
remains of king Rio Rio, and who had banished himself from his own
country to this distant region, with a view of becoming a planter of the
Sandwich Islands. He had been, according to his own statement, a planter in
the West Indies in early life, and subsequently on his return to England,
joined a troop of horse, of which he was a captain, destined for Spain,
during the war in the Peninsula, where he served for a considerable time,
but at the close of the war, having left the army, and met with a reverse of
fortune, he had determined to make the experiment in which he was now
engaged. A bold one, it must be confessed, for a man, at the age of forty-
five, and with an enfeebled constitution. Aided by Captain Byron, (who,
from his high rank, and the flattering mission upon which he had been sent,
was well prepared to assist him,) Mr. Wilkinson obtained from the chiefs
the first deed that ever was granted by them, for two hundred acres of land.
It was situated about six miles from Onavoora, on elevated ground,
bordering upon a narrow valley that winds through the mountains for
several miles back from the sea. The chiefs granted the deed with great
reluctance, notwithstanding the respectable source from which the petition
came, being extremely tenacious of that command and sovereignty of the
soil, that enables them, at pleasure, to dispossess the occupant. They the
more willingly relinquished the spot that Mr. Wilkinson had fixed upon for
his residence, as it was situated upon land so high, that it could not be used
for the culture of tarrow, and was at the time unoccupied. With uncommon
industry, although cramped by the want of money, that would have given it
its full effect, he had reclaimed from a wild state, about fifty acres of land,
which, when we arrived there, was planted with sugar-cane, corn, potatoes,
bananas, &c., thus providing for his immediate wants, whilst the cane
promised a rich harvest, that would amply reward him for his toil, whenever
he could complete his machinery for the manufacture of sugar. In this,
however, to all appearance when we were there, he would encounter great
difficulty, as materials were not easily obtained; and although there were
some mechanics on the island, their constant employment in the village,
where they could frequently see their countrymen, and withal, their
fondness for pleasure was likely to deprive him for a long time of their
useful services, without which, he could do nothing. Connected with his