120 
VOYAGE TO THE 
room. The principal luxury in these houses is the beauty, 
softness, and cleanliness of the mats. Some little luxury 
there is too, in the external finishing of a few of them ; the 
eaves and roof-ridges are frequently ornamented with an edge 
of fern, the rich brown colour of which forms an agreeable 
contrast with the greyer and paler colour of the ordinary 
thatching. A large ornamented house requires three weeks 
to build, while an ordinary one may be completed in as 
many days. Besides these original dwellings, Honoruru can 
boast of several very commodious wooden houses, brought, 
in separate parts, from the United States. One of these, 
lately erected by the queen, Kahumanu, she has offered 
to Lord Byron as a shore residence while he remains at 
this Island. A few stone buildings have also been lately 
erected, the largest and most commodious of which belongs 
to Karaimoku, and is as yet scarcely finished. 
Behind the town the plain extends nearly a mile to the 
foot of the hills. Here the taro fields, with their little 
w T ater-courses, give a rich verdant appearance to the country : 
and beyond the town, along the shore, are the great salt¬ 
water tanks, wLich the natives have constructed by rolling 
large blocks of lava into the water, so as to form great 
dikes, in order to secure a constant supply of fish. Opposite 
to the entrance of the inner harbour there is a fort of some 
