When they have been sufficiently dried, he prepares for his most difficult task by stripping himself of his cotton shirt and trousers. You remember that the climate here is a warm one, and when the man is working hard he suffers much from the heat.
He now takes the baked taro and puts it on a wooden platter and beats it with a heavy stone pestle. From time to time he dips his hands into water as they grow sticky from handling the pasty mass. After he has pounded it for a long time, he puts it into calabashes, adds water, and sets it away for several days to ferment.
He grows very tired before his work is over, but does it gladly, rather than do without his favourite food. It would not suit us, I fear, as it tastes very much like sour buckwheat paste. In Hawaii white people often eat the taro root sliced and boiled or baked, but they seldom touch it when prepared in the native fashion.
Now let us return to Auwae's dinner-table. The food is quickly eaten, after which the little girl passes a calabash of water around among the company. It is to serve as a finger-bowl. Does this surprise you? Ah! but you must remember these Hawaiians ate with their fingers. These same fingers are now sticky with poi, and as the people are natural lovers of water, they are fond of having every part of their bodies spotless.
A pipe and tobacco are passed around for a smoke. These people, so cleanly in some other ways, do not object to using the one pipe in common. The women put away the food, and the company prepare for a picnic at the shore but a short distance from the house. They will spend the afternoon in surf-bathing, and all of them will perform feats in the water that would astonish the best swimmers in other countries.
CHAPTER III.
SURF-RIDING
Auwae has a loved playmate, Upa, a boy a little older than herself. He goes with the party to the beach. Carrying their surf-boards under their arms, the two children hurry ahead to the beach of shining white coral sand. Look! The broad Pacific now stretches out before their eyes. How blue are the waters, reaching out in the distance till they seem to meet a sky just as blue and clear of a passing cloud! How the hot sunshine beats down upon the sand! Yet Auwae does not seem to mind it. She stoops to pick a wild morning-glory growing almost at the water's edge, and then dances about, saying to Upa:
"Hurrah! The waves are just fine to-day for bathing, aren't they?"
We almost hold our breath at the thought of these children trusting themselves out in the high waves rushing in from the coral reef a quarter of a mile outside. Then, too, we know there are sharks in these waters; and what a terrible death would be Auwae's if one of these creatures should grind her between his many teeth!
As to the sharks, we need not fear, as they never venture nearer than the coral reefs, which seem to be a wall beyond which they dare not pass. And as for the water! why, when we have once seen Auwae swim, we can no longer fear for her safety. It seems as though water, instead of land, must be her natural abiding-place.
But now the rest of the party have arrived, bringing with them their surf-boards, or wave-sliding-boards, as we might call them.
For those living on Hawaii's shore, much of the pleasure of life depends on these pieces of wood so carefully prepared. They are made from the strong, tough trunk of the breadfruit-tree, are highly polished, and about two feet wide. They look very much like coffin lids, and are long enough for one to stretch at length upon them.
It takes but a few moments to remove their clothing and put on their bathing-costumes. For the men, it is the malo, a piece of cloth wound about the loins and between the legs, and, before the white people came, the only garment worn by them at any time.
All are now ready for the sport. They wade out into deep water with the surf-boards under their arms. Then, pushing them in front, they swim out till they reach the breakers, when they suddenly dive and disappear from view.
There is no sign of them for several moments. Now look far out and you can see their black heads bobbing about in the smooth water beyond the waves. Watch them carefully as they wait for that great roller about to turn toward the shore. They leap upon its crest, lying flat upon their boards, and are borne to the beach with the speed of the wind.
It must be grand sport, once they know just how and when to take advantage of the incoming wave, as well as the still greater skill in riding on that wave without being swallowed by it. It is harder to succeed than one imagines before trying the experiment himself, for the swimmers are obliged to use their hands and feet constantly to keep themselves in place.
Some of them do not even rest on the shore before swimming out for another wave slide; and as the afternoon passes they rival each other in more and more daring feats. See those two men no longer lying flat on their boards as they rush onward in the water! They only kneel, and wave their arms and shout in glee to their companions. But most daring of all is Auwae's father, who actually stands erect as he is borne toward the shore on the crest of a huge wave. He travels at a rate sufficient to deprive one of breath.
The kind man takes time during the afternoon to give Auwae lessons in riding her own board, which he has lately made for her. Up to this time she has had to be content with swimming only, and in this, as I told you, she is already wonderfully skilful and graceful.
The hours pass only too quickly, and night suddenly shuts down upon the happy people. The moon comes out in such beauty as is seen only in the tropics. It bathes sea and shore in a soft, sweet light, so pleasant after the dazzling brightness of the sun. Auwae and Upa once more lead the party as they wander slowly homeward and again enter the shadow of the tall palm-trees.
The children look toward the mountains behind the village reaching up so grandly till their tops are lost in the clouds, and Upa says:
"Auwae, do you know that my father is going to Kilauea next week, and he says I may go with him. Ask your father if you may go, too. It will be such fun!"
Auwae has wished a long, long time for such a chance as this. She claps her hands in delight, as she feels quite sure of her parents' consent.
Kilauea! She has heard so much about the mighty crater. Even now she can see a faint reddish gleam light up the sky in the distance. The largest active volcano in the world is showing that it is still alive and using the mighty forces directed from the very bowels of the earth.1
It would almost seem as if Auwae would feel fear at living in the shadow of a volcano. Is she not sometimes awakened in the night by the low rumbling sound coming to her through the clear air? And does she not then lie trembling at the thought that she may sometime be swallowed up in a tremendous flow of lava? Other children in towns like hers have met such a fate in the years that are gone. Why should she not fear?
But Auwae was born here, and has always lived where she could see the light from that huge furnace of Nature. She is so used to it that she does not dread its power. She lives in the joy of the present, and does not consider that which might possibly come to her.
Think of it! This home of hers and its sister islands are the children of volcanoes, for they were born of fierce explosions of lava, thrown above the surrounding waters from the floor of the sea. Foot by foot Hawaii has been built up out of the water. Layer after layer of lava has been poured, one above the other; then, cooling and crumbling, a soil has been formed on which the beautiful plants and trees of the tropics have taken root.
But this is not the whole story of the island, for tiny creatures of the sea have given what was in their power. The coral reefs lying along the shore have been built up by the growth of millions of polyps, and the shining white sand is composed of finely ground coral, which once formed the skeletons of similar polyps.
What curious helpers Mother Nature sometimes chooses! Think of the coral polyps and their strange lives, leaving when they die a foundation upon which men and animals shall afterward have a home! Upa often dives for the sprays of coral, pink or white. He sells them to the white people in the village, who send them as curiosities to other countries.
Auwae and Upa bid each other good night at the garden wall. The little girl stops for a moment at the pond in the garden where many goldfish are moving about in the moonlight. She loves her beautiful fish; she feeds them every day, and often thinks how kind her father was to make the pond for her delight.