THROUGH HAWAII. 
377 
placing it in the sun till the inside is decayed, and may 
be shaken out. The shell, which remains entire, except 
the small perforation made at the stalk for the purpose 
of discharging its contents, and serving as a mouth to 
the vessel, is, when the calabash is large, sometimes 
half an inch thick. In order to stain it, they mix 
several bruised herbs, principally the stalks and leaves 
of the arum, and a quantity of dark ferruginous earth, 
with water, and fill the vessel with it. They then draw 
with a piece of hard wood or stone on the outside of 
the calabash, whatever figures they wish to ornament 
it with. These are various, being either rhomboids„ 
stars, circles, or wave and straight lines, in separate 
sections, or crossing each other at right angles, gene¬ 
rally marked with a great degree of accuracy and taste. 
After the colouring matter has remained three or four 
days in the calabashes, they are put into a native oven 
and baked. When they are taken out, all the parts 
previously marked appear beautifully brown or black, 
while those places, where the outer skin had not been 
broken, retain their natural bright yellow colour. The 
dye is now emptied out, and the calabash dried in the 
sun; the whole of the outside appears perfectly smooth 
and shining, while the colours imparted by the above 
process remain indelible. 
Large quantities of kukui, or candle nuts, hung in 
long strings in different parts of Arapai’s dwelling. 
These are the fruit of the aleurites triloba ; a tree which 
is abundant in the mountains, and highly serviceable to 
the natives. It furnishes a gum, which they use in pre¬ 
paring varnish for their tapa, or native cloth. The 
inner bark produces a permanent dark-red dye, but the 
nuts are the most valuble part; they are heart-shaped, 
3 c 
