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MISSIONARY TOUR 
about the size of a walnut, and are produced in abun¬ 
dance. 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 per¬ 
forated 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 pan- 
danus, 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 chesnuts 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 at¬ 
tended, 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 conve¬ 
nience 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 Island- 
