_Poi_ is made from taro root, and tastes mouldy. It is
exceedingly nasty--nobody would want two dips.
The stores were just like those of the United States, and the
only commercial novelties which we discovered were chains made of
exquisitely tinted shells, which came from somewhere down in the South
Seas, and other chains made of coral and of a berry which is hard and
red and looks like coral. At the Bishop Museum, however, we found
an interesting collection of Malaysian curios and products--birds,
beasts, fishes, weapons, dress, and domestic utensils. Among the
dress exhibits were cloaks made of yellow feathers, quite priceless
(I forget how many thousand birds were killed to make each cloak);
and among the household utensils were wooden bowls inlaid with human
teeth. It was a humorous conceit on the part of former Hawaiian kings
thus to compliment a defunct enemy.
There was a dance that night at the Hawaiian Hotel in honor of
our passengers, most of whom attended, leaving me almost a solitary
passenger aboard. Those happy sinners from Radcliffe went off in their
best frocks. I lay in a steamer chair on the afterdeck, scanning
the heavens for the Southern Cross. I counted, as nearly as I can
remember, about eight arrangements of stars that might have been
said to resemble crosses. Not one of them was it, however. Later,
I made acquaintance with the Cross, and I must say it has been much
overrated by adjective-burdened literature.
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