THE CANDLE-NUT. 
373 
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, some¬ 
times 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, generally 
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 natu¬ 
ral 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 dwell¬ 
ing. 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 preparing varnish for their 
tapa, or native cloth. The inner bark produces a 
permanent dark-red dye, but the nuts are the most 
valuable part; they are heart-shaped, about the 
