Such a taro patch oftenest contains a sixteenth, less frequently an eighth of an acre. It consists of soil painfully brought down from above, and secured by means of substantial stone walls, plastered with mud and covered with grass, strong enough to resist the force of the torrent. Each little patch or flat is so laid that a part of the stream shall flow over it without carrying away the soil; indeed, it is expected to leave some sediment. And as you look up such a valley you see terrace after terrace of taro rising before you, the patches often fifty or sixty feet above the brawling stream, but each receiving its proper proportion of water.
Near by or among these small holdings stand the grass houses of the proprietors, and you may see them and their wives, their clothing tucked up, standing over their knees in water, planting or cultivating the crop. Here the Hawaiian is at home. His horse finds its scanty living on the grass which fringes the taro patches; indeed, you may see horses here standing belly deep in fresh water, and feeding on the grasses which grow on the bottom; and again you find horses raised in the drier parts of the islands that do not know what water is, never having drunk any thing wetter than the dew on the grass. Among the taro patches the house place is as narrow as a fishing schooner’s deck—“two steps and overboard.” If you want to walk, it must be on the dikes within which the taro land is confined; and if you ride, it must be in the middle of the rapid mountain torrent, or along a narrow bridle-path high up on the precipitous side of the mountain.
Down near the shore are fish ponds, with wicker gates which admit the small fry from the sea, but keep in the large fish. Many of these ponds are hundreds of acres in area, and from them the Hawaiian draws one of his favorite dishes. Then there may be cocoa-nuts; there are sure to be bananas and guavas. Beef costs but a trifle, and hogs fatten on taro. The pandanus furnishes him material for his mats, and of mats he makes his bed, as well as the floor of his house.
In short, such a gorge or valley as I have tried to describe to you furnishes in its various parts, including the sea-shore, all that is needed to make the Hawaiian prosperous; and I have not seen one which had not its neatly kept school-house and church, and half a dozen framed houses scattered among the humbler grass huts, to mark the greater wealth of some—for the Hawaiian holds that the wooden house is a mark of thrift and respectability.
But the same valley which now supports twenty or thirty native families in comfort and happiness, and which, no doubt, once yielded food and all the appliances of life in abundance to one or two hundred, would not tempt any white man of any nation in the world to live in it, and a thousand such gorges would not add materially to the prosperity of any white nation. That is to say, the country is admirably adapted to its native people. It favors, as it doubtless compelled and formed, all their habits and customs. But it would repel any one else, and an American farmer would not give a hundred dollars for the whole Wailuku Valley—if he had to live in it and work it—though it would be worth many thousands to the natives if it were once more populous as of old.