429 



bark produces a permanent dark-red dye, but the nuts are the most 

 valuable part; they are heart-shaped, about the size of a walnut, 

 and are produced in abundance. Sometimes the natives burn them 

 to charcoal, which they pulverize, and use it, tatauing their skin, 

 painting their canoes, surf -boards, idols, or drums; but they are 

 generally used as a substitute for candles or lamps. When designed 

 for this purpose, they are slightly baked in a native oven, after 

 which the shell, which is exceedingly hard, is taken off, and a hole 

 perforated in the kernel, through which a rush is passed, and they 

 are hung up for use, as we saw them at this place. When employed 

 for tishing by torch-light, four or five strings are enclosed in the 

 leaves of the pandanus, which not only keeps them together, but 

 renders the light more brilliant. 



''When they use them in their houses, ten or twelve are strung on 

 the thin stalk of the [rib of a] cocoa-nut leaf [leaflet], and look like 

 a number of peeled chestnuts on a long skewer. The person who has 

 charge of them lights a nut at one end of the stick, and holds it 

 up, till the oil it contains is consumed, when the flame kindles on 

 the one beneath it, and he breaks off the extinct nut with a short 

 piece of wood, which serves as a pair of snuffers. Each nut will 

 burn two or three minutes, and, if attended, give a tolerable light. 

 We have often had occasion to notice, with admiration, the merciful 

 and abundant provision which the God of nature has made for the 

 comfort of those insulated people, which is strikingly manifested by 

 the spontaneous growth of this valuable tree in all the islands; a 

 great convenience is hereby secured, with no other trouble than 

 picking up the nuts from under the trees. The tree is large, the 

 leaves and wood remarkably white; and though the latter is not 

 used by the Sandwich Islanders, except occasionally in making 

 fences, small canoes are frecpieutly made of it by the Society Island- 

 ers. In ad<Ution to the above purposes, the nuts are often baked or 

 roasted as an article of food, which the natives eat with salt. The 

 nut contains a large portion of oil, which, possessing the property 

 of drying, is useful in painting; and for this purpose quantities are 

 carried by the Russian vessels to their settlements on the north- 

 west coast of America." 



(To be continued.) 



