THE PLANT WORLD 101 



Lorenzo asked me to allow his son to live with me so that he might learn 

 English. He will not accept wages, and even takes his meals at his own 

 home. Susana asked only five pesos a month for wages ($2.50 in our 

 money), but my conscience made me increase her pay to seven pesos; 

 the two pesos extra I call a gratuity, so as not to incur the ill-will of my 

 American neighbors, who do not want the natives "ruined" by being 

 paid too much for their work. I have shown Vicente and my secretary, 

 Jose de Torres, how to dry plants. While I am at my office Vicente will 

 change the driers and spread them out in the sun. Both he and Jose 

 know the vernacular names of most of the island plants, and will be very 

 useful to me on my collecting excursions. 



Susana has had carte blmiche to get what cooking utensils she needs ; 

 but she says she requires very few things. In the kitchen she has a stone 

 metate and mayio for making tortillas of maize and for grinding coffee and 

 chocolate. The metate is simply an inclined slab of stone supported on 

 three legs ; the mano, a stone cylinder, like a small rolling-pin, slightly 

 tapering at each end. The kitchen has neither stove nor chimney. The 

 cooking is done on a broad ledge, covered with sand, on which stones 

 are laid in pairs for supporting stew-pans, griddles, and the chocolate and 

 coffee-pots. The sand is kept in place by a raised border of wood. The 

 smoke finds its way out through a hole in the lee gable. This seems to 

 be very effective, since with the exception of a few short intervals the 

 wind blows from the eastward the greater part of the year. The water 

 of my well is fit for cooking, but I have cautioned Susana not to use 

 anything but distilled water, even for washing dishes, as I want to avoid 

 sickness if possible ; and there is now considerable fever among the 

 people. Poor things ! I wish we could distil water enough for them all. 

 There is no system of drainage here, and the town is very flat. The 

 Major is starting his men digging a trench from the palace to the sea for 

 a sewer. I have had a wooden gutter made which catches the rain water 

 from the eaves and leads it to a large stone jar on my terrace. In another 

 jar I keep distilled water, of which I get a daily allowance from that 

 brought from the ship. Fortunately I have enough of the latter to 

 supply an American neighbor with drinking water for the use of his 

 family. I do not think the rain water is dangerous, and even the well 

 water maybe used if it is first boiled. Above the jar of drinking water I 

 have hung a Samoan 'ava-cup — a half -shell of a coconut. By my kitchen 

 the pretty rose-colored creeper I brought with me from Honolulu (^Anti- 

 go7ion leptopus) is now growing rapidly, and I have planted a yellow- 

 flowered bignonia by the terrace, which I shall train upon strings.* My 

 little house is beginning to seem like home. I have covered the walls of 

 the living-room with pieces of Samoan tapa-cloth and have hung up a 



* See plate. 



