The Hawaiian Archipelago - Six Months Among The Palm Groves, Coral Reefs, And Volcanoes Of The Sandwich Islands By Isabella L. Bird
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The Men Were Very
Active, And Cooked The Fowl In About The Same Time That It Takes To
Pluck One At Home.
They spread the finest mat I have seen in the
centre of the floor as a tablecloth, and put down on it bowls
containing the fowl and sweet potatoes, and the unfailing calabash
of poi.
Tea, coffee and milk were not procurable, and as the water
is slimy and brackish, I offered a boy a dime to get me a cocoanut,
and presently eight great, misshapen things were rolled down at the
door. The outside is a smooth buff rind, underneath which is a
fibrous covering, enormously strong and about an inch thick, which
when stripped off reveals the nut as we see it, but of a very pale
colour. Those we opened were quite young, and each contained nearly
three tumblers of almost effervescent, very sweet, slightly
acidulated, perfectly limpid water, with a strong flavour of
cocoanut. It is a delicious beverage. The meat was so thin and
soft that it could have been spooned out like the white of an egg if
we had had any spoons. We all sat cross-legged round our meal, and
all Laupahoehoe crowded into the room and verandah with the most
persistent, unwinking, gimleting stare I ever saw. It was really
unpleasant, not only to hear a Babel of talking, of which, judging
from the constant repetition of the words wahine haole, I was the
subject, but to have to eat under the focussed stare of twenty pair
of eyes.
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