66 



HA WAIL 



[LETTER VII. 



their knees in water while cultivating the root. It is excellent 

 when boiled and sliced ; but the preparation of poi is an ela- 

 borate process. The roots are baked in an underground oven, 

 and are then laid on a slightly hollowed board, and beaten with 

 a stone pestle. It is hard work, and the men don't wear any 

 clothes while engaged in it. It is not a pleasant-looking 

 operation. They often dip their hands in a calabash of water 

 to aid them in removing the sticky mass, and they always look 

 hot and tired. When it is removed from the board into large 

 calabashes, it is reduced to paste by the addition of water, and 

 set aside for two or three days to ferment. When ready for 

 use it is either lilac or pink, and tastes like sour bookbinders' 

 paste. Before water is added, when it is in its dry state, it is 

 called paiai, or hard food, and is then packed in ti leaves in 

 20 lb. bundles for inland carriage, and is exported to the 

 Guano Islands. It is a prolific and nutritious plant. It is 

 estimated that forty square feet will support a Hawaiian for 

 a year. 



The melon and kalo patches represent a certain amount of 

 spasmodic industry, but in most other things the natives take 

 no thought for the morrow. Why should they indeed ? For 

 while they lie basking in the sun, without care of theirs, the 

 cocoanut, the breadfruit, the yam, the guava, the banana, and 

 the delicious papaya, which is a compound of a ripe apricot 

 with a Cantaloupe melon, grow and ripen perpetually. Men 

 and women are always amusing themselves, the men with surf- 

 bathing, the women with making his — both sexes with riding, 

 gossiping, and singing. Every man and woman, almost every 

 child, has a horse. There is a perfect plague of badly bred, 

 badly developed, weedy looking animals. The beach and the 

 pleasant lawn above it are always covered with men and women 

 riding at a gallop, with bare feet, and stirrups tucked between 

 the toes. To walk even 200 yards seems considered a degra- 

 dation. The people meet outside each others' houses all day 

 long, and sit in picturesque groups on their mats, singing, 

 laughing, talking, and quizzing the haoles, as if the primal curse 

 had never fallen. Pleasant sights of out- door cooking gregari- 

 ously carried on greet one everywhere. This style of cooking 

 prevails all over Polynesia. A hole in the ground is lined with 

 stones, wood is burned within it, and when the rude oven has 

 been sufficiently heated, the pig, chicken, breadfruit, or kalo, 

 wrapped in ti leaves, is put in, a little water is thrown on, and 

 the whole is covered up. It is a slow but sure process. 



