mand a good price. The latter are as appetizing as olives. Tamarinds and guavas, again, are very common. The strawberries and melons, together with nearly all the vegetables, excepting cauliflower, celery and Irish potatoes, are raised by the Chinese in great quantities. The best potatoes are from New Zealand. Fresh salmon, poultry, vegetables and fruits are from California, on the arrival of every steamer. Canned, and bottled and sealed food, of all kinds, are imported, together with smoked and dried fish and meats. It is quite easy to keep house in Honolulu; but far harder and more expensive in the outlying districts, or at the other islands. At the same time, all is far more convenient now than a few years since. There are the plantations, the rice swamps, taro patches, Chinese vegetable gardens, pasture for wild cattle; but a farm, a New England farm, for instance, oh! no, not at the Hawaiian Islands, for a surety! "Sugar!" Sugar!" "Sugar plantation!" is the burden of every human cry, the refrain of every song, in this island kingdom! And money is made, in sugar-and sometimes, money is lost! There is often a great stretch of country-hill and valley, and pasturage, between the plantations. One can ride for miles over roads and pasturage, and only infrequently pass a human habitation. Then it may be a Chinese place, or a native home, here and there; possibly a foreigner's, with a native wife and children.

All Nature will seem as beautiful to you as paradise. So quiet, so peaceful, so warm, the clouds lying

low over the hills, the rich valleys, with their hundred shades of green, and the cattle wandering about, with now and then a look at the sea.

The natives are "the soul of hospitality" and kindness-unselfishness, as well. But, unless you went provided, or could eat poi (the native food, and it is an acquired taste), there are places on the Island of Hawaii where you might almost starve before you could get away. Particularly, if a long rainstorm came on, and the streams and gullies were overflowed, and roads and gulches a good deal more than ankle deep in mud, bridges broken down, and fords unfordable! while the horse you depended upon had suddenly turned lame! Then, if you did not like poi, if the very thought of it was distasteful to you, you might learn to eat it, and be perfectly willing to accept the dried fish with it. Should you get benighted anywhere on these islands, and come to a native house of one room, the natives will take their mats and lie outside, and give you their "castle." May be, in the morning they will find a little tea or coffee, and, making a fire on the ground, for they have a world of skill, will make you as nice a cup as you ever drank, and so unexpected will it be to you that it will taste like ambrosial nectar! They will, perchance, if you notice, unroll a paper which was tucked away, and give you a clean knife, fork and spoon. "There is much in the native" is a proverb, I repeat! Young taro leaves (luau) is as fine a "green" as spinach or cabbage sprouts. Poi is made from the taro; and taro, boiled or baked, is as good as

the best Irish potato, and more strengthening, it is thought. It is very nice sliced, after boiling, and fried or toasted. The bread fruit, too, is very good—a hole made in the top and filled with salt, over night, then baked or boiled. One is enough for a small family. The mountain apple (ohia), of a purplish-red color and pointed end, spongy, white, and filled with sweetest juice, is often found very grateful to the taste in riding. The milk from a fresh cocoanut will restore an over-tired man, and any native will climb a tree, going up sixty feet, if necessary, to get them! These trees are often from forty to sixty feet in height, and bear fruit for seventy years and more!

Some of the best fish is very scarce, for the natives are very fond of fish, and eat it as well as catch it! Mullet is very good, quite plentiful, but never cheap. Beef, without ice, must be cooked the day of its killing. Good mutton is not plentiful in Honolulu.

Many of the natives are Roman Catholics. The splendor of the ritual, the lights, the colors are pleasing to them, and the music charms them. The priests are unselfish men, and win good will "and golden opinions from all sorts of people." They live, certainly, in the plainest fashion, and will go by day or night to serve their converts, when sick or dying. There are also many Presbyterians on the Islands as well as members of the English Church. Kalakaua belonged to the latter; as does the Queen-dowager Kapiolani.

ALOHA, HAWAII! ALOHA NUI!

THE LAΝΤΑΝΑ.

IT

T is difficult, often, to distinguish the half-caste from the full native, for they grow darker as they get older, and the foreign blood in them never seems to predominate, but may manifest itself prominently in some traits foreign to the full native! All of them possess an unconscious grace, in manner and bearing. The national dress of the native woman, and it is much used by the foreigners, as well, is the "holoku." When cut and shaped with care and taste, and made of fine material-lawn, muslin, silk, even satin it is as graceful and flowing a tea, or breakfast gown as can be fashioned. I have seen one in white, that was nothing less than an inspiration—a poem! They are often made with a loose, flowing demi-train, and tight waist in front; or the reverse, tight in the back, with flowing front, trimmed with lace and ribbons. The natives, as a rule, go barefooted. They will wear shoes to church, but, may be; take them off on the way home-always if a rain comes up! The darkey, when questioned about taking off his hat in the rain, said, you know, that his hat was his own, but his head was his master's. They are their own masters, and can quickly explain to you

in Hawaiian, that "wet feet will not induce illness; but to walk in wet shoes, or to keep them on, will.” But, wet or dry, they hate to put their feet in prison. Oh! they are Nature's loveliest children all through and through and all the real harm they know has been taught to them, and brought to them, I am sure! They grow crazy over Fourth of July; don't pretend to go indoors for two nights and one day! Singing and music and firecrackers and all, all three combined, every minute! On Sundays and holidays they come in from the outlying valleys, troops of them, all on their own native horses, women riding "cavalier," dashing over the roads, for they are reckless riders, with their hats and necks, men and women both, decked with leis of ferns, flowers and maile.

They are barbaric in their choice of colors, and no figure can be too large, nor no red too red for their holokus and neckerchiefs. Their national dish is "pig and poi," and on all state occasions-births, deaths and marriages, and, indeed, every "great time," the black pig must walk in and die! If they like you very much, they will give you one, always. I had, unfortunately, no place to keep them, or I might have competed with Chicago in the trade. We all know that a black cat is "good luck," but when I got to Hawaii, I found it was the "black pig," and the black cat did not fare any better than the white. It was a shock to my nerves to have my childhood's belief swept away, and I did not take kindly to the black pig. But this I can say, that the perfection of art is used in cooking