The fish, of course, are caught on the spot, but poi, water, salt, and a few beef cattle for the use of the white superintendents are carried from here.
Taro is a kind of _arum_.

It grows, unlike any other vegetable I know of unless it be rice, entirely under water.

A taro patch is surrounded by embankments; its bottom is of puddled clay; and in this the cutting, which is simply the top of the plant with a little of the tuber, is set.

The plants are set out in little clumps in long rows, and a man at work in a taro patch stands up to his knees in water.

Forty square feet of taro, it is estimated, will support a person for a year, and a square mile of taro will feed over 15,000 Hawaiians.
[Illustration: THE PALACE, HONOLULU.] By-the-way, you will hear the natives say _kalo_ when they speak of taro; and by this and other words in common use you will presently learn of a curious obliquity in their hearing.