satisfactory.

To oblige him, we at last took a sip of his "arva tee," and found it
very crude, and strong as Lucifer. Curious to know whence it was
obtained, we questioned him; when, lighting up with pleasure, he
seized the taper, and led us outside the hut, bidding us follow.

After going some distance through the woods, we came to a dismantled
old shed of boughs, apparently abandoned to decay. Underneath,
nothing was to be seen but heaps of decaying leaves and an immense,
clumsy jar, wide-mouthed, and by some means, rudely hollowed out from
a ponderous stone.

Here, for a while, we were left to ourselves; the old man placing the
light in the jar, and then disappearing. He returned, carrying a
long, large bamboo, and a crotched stick. Throwing these down, he
poked under a pile of rubbish, and brought out a rough block of wood,
pierced through and through with a hole, which was immediately
clapped on the top of the jar. Then planting the crotched stick
upright about two yards distant, and making it sustain one end of the
bamboo, he inserted the other end of the latter into the hole in the
block: concluding these arrangements by placing an old calabash under
the farther end of the bamboo.

Coming up to us now with a sly, significant look, and pointing
admiringly at his apparatus, he exclaimed, "Ah, karhowree, ena
hannahanna arva tee!" as much as to say, "This, you see, is the way
it's done."

His contrivance was nothing less than a native still, where he
manufactured his island "poteen." The disarray in which we found it
was probably intentional, as a security against detection. Before we
left the shed, the old fellow toppled the whole concern over, and
dragged it away piecemeal.

His disclosing his secret to us thus was characteristic of the "Tootai
Owrees," or contemners of the missionaries among the natives; who,
presuming that all foreigners are opposed to the ascendancy of the
missionaries, take pleasure in making them confidants, whenever the
enactments of their rulers are secretly set at nought.

The substance from which the liquor is produced is called "Tee," which
is a large, fibrous root, something like yam, but smaller. In its
green state, it is exceedingly acrid; but boiled or baked, has the
sweetness of the sugar-cane. After being subjected to the fire,
macerated and reduced to a certain stage of fermentation, the "Tee"
is stirred up with water, and is then ready for distillation.

On returning t