In Some Of The Other Islands Of Polynesia, On Festive Occasions, When The Chewed Root Is Placed In The Calabash, And The Water Is Poured On, The Whole Assemblage Sings Appropriate Songs In Its Praise; And This Is Kept Up Until The Decoction Has Been Strained To Its Dregs.

But here, as the using it as a beverage is an illicit process, a great mystery attends it.

It is said that awa drinking is again on the increase, and with the illicit distillation of unwholesome spirits, and the illicit sale of imported spirits and the opium smoking, the consumption of stimulants and narcotics on the islands is very considerable. {295}

To turn from drink to climate. It is strange that with such a heavy rainfall, dwellings built on the ground and never dried by fires should be so perfectly free from damp as they are. On seeing the houses here and in Honolulu, buried away in dense foliage, my first thought was, "how lovely in summer, but how unendurably damp in winter," forgetting that I arrived in the nominal winter, and that it is really summer all the year. Lest you should think that I am perversely exaggerating the charms of the climate, I copy a sentence from a speech made by Kamehameha IV., at the opening of an Hawaiian agricultural society: -

"Who ever heard of winter on our shores? Where among us shall we find the numberless drawbacks which, in less favoured countries, the labourer has to contend with?

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