the spot, but poi, water, salt,
and a few beef cattle for the use of the white superintendents are carried
from here.

Taro is a kind of _arum_. It grows, unlike any other vegetable I know of
unless it be rice, entirely under water. A taro patch is surrounded by
embankments; its bottom is of puddled clay; and in this the cutting, which
is simply the top of the plant with a little of the tuber, is set. The
plants are set out in little clumps in long rows, and a man at work in a
taro patch stands up to his knees in water. Forty square feet of taro, it
is estimated, will support a person for a year, and a square mile of
taro will feed over 15,000 Hawaiians.

[Illustration: THE PALACE, HONOLULU.]

By-the-way, you will hear the natives say _kalo_ when they speak of taro;
and by this and other words in common use you will presently learn of
a curious obliquity in their hearing. A Hawaiian does not notice any
difference in the sounds of _r_ and _l_, of _k_ and _t_, or of _b_, _p_,
and _f_. Thus the Pali, or precipice near Honolulu, is spoken of as the
Pari; the island of Kauai becomes to a resident of it Tauwai, though a
native of Oahu calls it Kauai; taro is almost universally called _kalo_;
and the common salutation, _Aloha_, which means "Love to you," and is the
national substitute for "How do you do?" is half the time _Aroha_; Lanai
is indifferently called Ranai; and Mauna Loa is in the mouths of most
Hawaiians Mauna Roa. Indeed, in the older charts the capital of the
kingdom is called Honoruru.

Society in Honolulu possesses some peculiar features, owing in part to the
singularly isolated situation of this little capital, and partly to the
composition of the social body. Honolulu is a capital city unconnected
with any other place in the world by telegraph, having a mail once a month
from San Francisco and New Zealand, and dependent during the remainder of
the month upon its own resources. To a New Yorker, who gets his news hot
and hot all day and night, and can't go to sleep without first looking
in at the Fifth Avenue Hotel to hear the latest item, this will seem
deplorable enough; but you have no idea how charming, how pleasant, how
satisfactory it is for a busy or overworked man to be thus for a while
absolutely isolated from affairs; to feel that for a month at least the
world must get on without your interfering hand; and though you may dread
beforehand this enforced separation from politics and business, you wil