374 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
size of a walnut, and are produced in abundance. 
Sometimes the natives burn them to charcoal, 
which they pulverize, and use in 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 fishing 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 cocoa- 
nut leaf, and look like a number of peeled ches- 
nuts 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 attend¬ 
ed, 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 re¬ 
markably white; and though the latter is not used 
by the Sandwich Islanders, except occasionally in 
