amined
the substance taken from the banana, and found that it was blue vitriol
and corrosive sublimate. The presence of such substances in a banana was
far from natural. I took other bunches of my supply, and found in several
bananas the same poisons, which had been skillfully introduced under the
skin. After some inquiries I found, from Fortin's own wife, that similar
drugs had been sometimes seen in the hands of Lilihae, who had bought them
of a druggist in Honolulu for the treatment of syphilis. The riddle was at
once completely solved. A few days passed, and Lilihae killed himself by
poison, convinced that all his attempts could not kill me. In his native
superstition, he was satisfied that the gods would not forgive his
indiscretion, since they withheld from him the power of taking my
life; and he could devise no simpler way to escape their anger, and the
vengeance of my own God, than to take himself the poison against which
I had rebelled. It was discovered that Lilihae had, in the first place,
tried native poisons on me, and finding them ineffective, he thought that
my foreign nature might require exotic poisons, which he had accordingly
served in the bananas destined for my table. He went, without my
knowledge, into the cook-house where my native servants kept my
provisions, and, under pretext of chatting with them, found means to
poison my food. The unfortunate kahuna died fully persuaded that I was
a more powerful sorcerer than he. It was to be feared that, when he
discovered his impotency, he would intrust the execution of his designs
to his fellows, as is common among sorcerers; but his suicide fortunately
removed this sword of Damocles which hung over my head.

(11.) At the present day, useless old men are no longer destroyed, nor are
the children, whom venereal diseases have rendered very rare, suffocated;
but they do eat lice, fleas, and grasshoppers. Flies inspire the same
disgust, and the women still give their breasts to dogs, pigs, and young
kids.

(12.) [This operation is certainly still practiced extensively, if not
universally; and the ancient form of _kakiomaka_, or slitting the prepuce,
has given way, generally, to the _okipoepoe_, or the complete removal of
the foreskin. The operation in a case that came under my notice on the
island of Oahu was performed with a bamboo, and attended with a feast and
rejoicings; the subject was about nine years old.]

(13.) The islanders, who admire and honor g