part of people who live sufficiently well on taro, sweet-potatoes, fish,
pork, and beef--all articles which they raise for themselves, and which
they get by labor and against disadvantages which few white farmers would
encounter.

For instance, the Puna coast of Hawaii is a district where for thirty
miles there is so little fresh water to be found that travelers must bring
their own supplies in bottles; and Dr. Coan told me that in former days
the people, knowing that he could not drink the brackish stuff which
satisfied them, used to collect fresh water for his use when he made the
missionary tour, from the drippings of dew in caves. Wells are here out
of the question, for there is no soil except a little decomposed lava, and
the lava lets through all the water which comes from rains. There are
few or no streams to be led down from the mountains. There are no fields,
according to our meaning of the word.

Formerly the people in this district were numbered by thousands: even
yet there is a considerable population, not unprosperous by any means.
Churches and schools are as frequent as in the best part of New England.
Yet when I asked a native to show me his sweet-potato patch, he took me
to the most curious and barren-looking collection of lava you can imagine,
surrounded, too, by a very formidable wall made of lava, and explained
to me that by digging holes in the lava where it was a little decayed,
carrying a handful of earth to each of these holes, and planting there in
a wet season, he got a very satisfactory crop. Not only that, but being
desirous of something more than a bare living, this man had planted a
little coffee in the same way, and had just sold 1600 pounds, his last
crop. He owned a good wooden house; politely gave up his own mats for me
to sleep on; possessed a Bible and a number of other works in Hawaiian;
after supper called his family together, who squatted on the floor while