The Evenings
We Generally Spent At One Another's Houses, And I Often Went Up And
Spent An Hour Or So
At the oven; which was called the "Kanaka Hotel,"
and the "Oahu Coffee-house." Immediately after dinner we usually
took
A short siésta to make up for our early rising, and spent the
rest of the afternoon according to our own fancies. I generally
read, wrote, and made or mended clothes; for necessity, the mother
of invention, had taught me these two latter arts. The Kanakas went
up to the oven, and spent the time in sleeping, talking, and smoking;
and my messmate, Nicholas, who neither knew how to read or write,
passed away the time by a long siésta, two or three smokes with
his pipe, and a paséo to the other houses. This leisure time is
never interfered with, for the captains know that the men earn it
by working hard and fast, and that if they interfered with it,
the men could easily make their twenty-five hides apiece last
through the day. We were pretty independent, too, for the master
of the house - "capitan de la casa" - had nothing to say to us,
except when we were at work on the hides, and although we could
not go up to the town without his permission, this was seldom or
never refused.
The great weight of the wet hides, which we were obliged to roll
about in wheelbarrows; the continual stooping upon those which
were pegged out to be cleaned; and the smell of the vats, into which
we were often obliged to get, knee-deep, to press down the hides;
all made the work disagreeable and fatiguing; - but we soon got
hardened to it, and the comparative independence of our life
reconciled us to it; for there was nobody to haze us and find fault;
and when we got through, we had only to wash and change our clothes,
and our time was our own.
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