her use at all. A cook in my own family asked for the wages due him, which
he had been saving for some time; he received forty-four dollars, and gave
the whole amount at once to his father-in-law, who had come from another
island on purpose to get this money. Nor was it grudged to him, so far as
any of us could see. "By-and-by, if we are poor and in need, they will do
as much for us," is the excuse.

As you ride along in the country, you will see your guide slyly putting a
stone or a bunch of grass on a ledge near some precipice. If you look, you
will see other objects of the same kind lying there. Ask him about it and
he will tell you, with a laugh, that his forefathers in other times did
so, and he does the same. It is, in fact, a peace offering to the
local divinity of the place. Is he, then, an idolater? Not at all; not
necessarily, at least. He is under the compulsion of an old custom; and
he will even tell you that it is all nonsense. The same force leads him
to treat with respect and veneration a chief or chiefess even if abjectly
poor, though before the law the highest chief is no better than the common
people.

They are hearty and even gross feeders; and probably the only
christianized people who live almost entirely on cold victuals. A Hawaiian
does not need a fire to prepare a meal; and at a _luau_, or feast, all the
food is served cold, except the pig, which ought to be hot.

Hospitable and liberal as he is in his daily life, when the Hawaiian
invites his friends to a _luau_ he expects them to pay. He provides for
them roast pig, poi, baked ti-root, which bears a startling resemblance in
looks and taste to New England molasses-cake; raw fish and shrimps, limu,
which is a sea-moss of villainous odor; kuulaau, a mixture of taro and
cocoa-nut, very nice; paalolo, a mixture of sweet-potato and cocoa-nut;