(13.) The islanders, who admire and honor great eaters, have generally stomachs of a prodigious capacity.  Here is an example:  To compensate my servants, some seven in number, for the hardships I had made them endure on Mauna Kea, I presented them with an ox that weighed five hundred pounds uncooked.  They killed him in the morning, and the next evening there was not a morsel left.  One will be less astonished at this when I say that these ogres, when completely stuffed, promote vomitings by introducing their fingers into their throats, and return again to the charge. [It is equally true that the Kanakas will go for a long time without much food, and it can not be said they are a race of gluttons.]

(14.) Awa (Piper methysticum) grows spontaneously in the mountains of the Hawaiian group.  The natives formerly cultivated it largely [and since the removal of the strict prohibition on its culture fields are not uncommon].  From the roots the natives prepare a very warm and slightly narcotic intoxicating drink.  It is made thus:  women chew the roots, and having well masticated them, spit them, well charged with saliva, into a calabash used for the purpose.  They add a small portion of water, and press the juice from the chewed roots by squeezing them in their hands.  This done, the liquid is strained through cocoa-nut fibres to separate all the woody particles it may contain, and the awa is in a drinkable state.  The quantity drunk by each person varies from a quarter to half a litre (two to four gills).  This liquor is taken just before supper, or immediately after.  The taste is very nauseous, disagreeable to the last degree.  One would suppose he was drinking thick dish-water of a greenish-yellow color.  But its effects are particularly pleasant.  An irresistible sleep seizes you, and lasts twelve, twenty-four hours, or even more, according to the dose, and the temperament of the individual.  Delicious dreams charm this long torpor.

Often when the dose is too great or too small, sleep does not follow; but in its place an intoxication, accompanied by fantastic ideas, and a strong desire to skip about, although one can not for a moment balance himself on his legs.  I felt these last symptoms for sixty hours the first time I tasted this Polynesian liquor.  The effects of awa on the constitution of habitual drinkers are disastrous.  The body becomes emaciated, and the skin is covered, as in leprosy, with large scales, which fall off, and leave lasting white spots, which often become ulcers.

(15.) This usage still exists in certain families toward great personages or people they wish especially to honor; but it is disappearing every day.  Formerly when a Kanaka received a visit from a friend of a remote district, women were always comprised in the exchange of presents on that occasion.  To fail in this was regarded as an unpardonable insult.  The thing was so inwrought in their customs, that the wife of the visitor did not wait the order of her husband to surrender her person to her host.