THROUGH HAWAII. 
255 
came to a house, which our guide pointed out as our 
lodgings. It was a miserable hut, and we asked if we 
could not find better accommodations, as we intended 
to spend the Sabbath in the village? Mauae told us it 
was the only one in the place that was not crowded 
with people, and he thought the most comfortable one 
we could procure. 
The village is populous, and the natives soon thronged 
around us. To our great regret, two-thirds of them 
appeared to be in a state of intoxication, a circum¬ 
stance we frequently had occasion to lament, in the 
villages through which we passed. Their inebriation 
was generally the effect of an intoxicating drink made 
of fermented sugar-cane juice, sweet potatoes, or ti 
root. 
The ti plant is common in all the South Sea islands, 
and is a variety of draccena, resembling the drcicana 
terminalis, except in the colour of its leaves, which are 
of a lively shining green. It is a slow-growing plant, 
with a large woody fusiform root, which, when first dug 
out of the ground, is hard and fibrous, almost tasteless, 
and of a white or light yellow colour. The natives 
bake it in large ovens underground, in the same man¬ 
ner as they dress the arum and other edible roots. 
After baking, it appears like a different substance alto¬ 
gether, being of a yellowish brown colour, soft though 
fibrous, and saturated with a highly saccharine juice. 
It is sweet and pleasant to the taste, and much of it is 
eaten in this state, but the greater part is employed in 
making an intoxicating liquor much used by the natives. 
They bruise the baked roots with a stone; and steep 
them with water in a barrel or the bottom of an old 
canoe, till the mass is in a state of fermentation. The 
