I
can't imagine in what way this furniture was brought here. Our
bedroom opens from this, and it actually has a four-post bedstead
with mosquito bars, a lounge and two chairs, and the floor is
covered with native matting. The washing apparatus is rather an
anomaly, for it consists of a basin and crash towel placed in the
verandah, in full view of fifteen people. The natives all bathe in
the river.
Halemanu has a cook house and native cook, and an eating-room, where
I was surprised to find everything in foreign style--chairs, a table
with a snow white cover, and table napkins, knives, forks, and even
salt-cellars. I asked him to eat with us, and he used a knife and
fork quite correctly, never, for instance, putting the knife into
his mouth. I was amused to see him afterwards, sitting on a mat
among his family and dependants, helping himself to poi from a
calabash with his fingers. He gave us for supper delicious river
fish fried, boiled kalo, and Waipio coffee with boiled milk.
It is very annoying only to be able to converse with this man
through an interpreter; and Deborah, as is natural, is rather
unwilling to be troubled to speak English, now that she is among her
own people.
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