llustration: THE TARO PLANT.]

NOTES.

[Additions by the translator are inclosed in brackets.]

(1.) The name of Alapai is not found in the genealogy published by David
Malo. Nevertheless, we have positive information from our old man and
other distinguished natives that Alapai was supreme chief of Hawaii
immediately before Kalaniopuu.

(2.) Poi is a paste made of the tuberous root of the kalo (_Colocasia
antiquorum_, var. _esculenta_, Schott.). More than thirty varieties of
kalo are cultivated on the Hawaiian Islands, most of them requiring a
marshy soil, but a few will grow in the dry earth of the mountains. The
tubers of all the kinds are acrid, except one, which is so mild that it
may be eaten raw. After it is freed from acridity by baking, the kalo is
pounded until reduced to a kind of paste which is eaten cold, under the
name of poi. It is the principal food of the natives, with whom it takes
the place of bread. The kalo leaves are eaten like spinach (_luau_), and
the flowers (spathe and spadix), cooked in the leaves of the cordyline
(_C. terminalis_, H.B.K.), form a most delicious dish. It is not only as
poi that the tubers are eaten; they are sliced and fried like potatoes,
or baked whole upon hot stones. It is in this last form that I have eaten
them in my expeditions. A tuber which I carried in my pocket has often
been my only provision for the day.

In Algeria, a kind of kalo is cultivated under the name of _chou caraibe_,
whose tubers are larger, but less feculent. [In China, smaller and much
less delicately flavored tubers are common in the markets.]

(3.) The Hawaiians have always been epicures in the article of dog-meat.
The kind they raise for their feasts is small and easily fatted, like pig.
They are fed only on vegetables, especially kalo, to make their flesh more
tender and delicately flavored. Sometimes these dogs are suckled by the
women at the expense of their infants. The ones that have been thus fed at
a woman's breast are called _ilio poli_, and are most esteemed.

(4.) The Kahualii are still genuine parasites in the Hawaiian nation. They
are, to use the language of a Catholic missionary, the Cretans of whom
Paul speaks: "Evil beasts, slow bellies;" a race wholly in subjection to
their appetite, living from day to day, always reclining on the mat, or
else riding horses furiously; having no more serious occupation than to
drink, eat, sleep, dance, tell stories; giving themselves up,