Western Kansas world., 1914-04-25

are closing
Uncle Heck says this batching
business is all right : except the
cooking and eating, washing dishes,
general housekeeping and living a.
lone.
DICK TAaRAPH.
Lasaina, Hawaii.
Editor of the World
Dear Sir:
Hoping that some of your read
ers would like to hear about the Ha-
waiian Islands, I take pleasure in
writing to you
When l reached the Islands last
winter. on Christmas, day in fact, it
was as warm and pleasant as a June
day at home Some friends and /
went out to the beach and bathed in
the warm sea water. The water is
at a temperature of about 70F in
the sea the year round. Honolulu is a
large city with large business blocks,
fine houses, wide streets, and good
street car lines.
The scenery is especially charming.
The city. is situated on bay at the
known plant and tree is native
or has been brought here, and
the long avenues of Royal Palms,
hedged with tropical plants and
beautiful flowers and f1anked by green
lawns, shaded by the stately cocoa
nut palms, and other beautiful trees,
make a picture long to be remem-
bered.
In walk through the streets you
will meet people of many races. Here
walks the almond eyed Chinese, with
his loose shirt and full trousers, with
his wife, wearing the short skirt and
blue or white trousers of their race,
stepping daintHy by his side on her
tiny feet shod in leather shoes; next
may be a japanese man or woman
wearing the Towing kimono, ciatter-
ing down the street on their wooden
here comes a white man in
ordinary business suit, or perhaps a
white linen suit, and panama hat, ac-
companied by his wife in the latest
fashion of Paris creations; next may
be a pretty, brown Hawaiian girl,
dressed in white, and wearing "leis"
or wreaths of flowers about her neck.
1t is city of contrasts, from the
tiny Chinese stores and shops to the
luxurious hotels; from the heavy two
wheeled carts, to the fine open street
cars.
Many of the shops are kept by
Chinese, and at almost every corner
is fruit stall where you can pur-
chase fruit of all kinds for small
sum-
Most of the tillable land on the
Islands is devoted to sugar cane, but
rice, coffee, pineapples, bananas and
other fruits are grown. The principal
food of the natives is ''poi,' which is
a paste made from the root of the
Taro plant, which grows in the water
much like the water lily. The root
is first pounded to paste and then
left until slightly fermented. 1 have
learned to like poi, but prefer
it fresh and sweetened with a little
sugar. The native way of eating it
is to have the whole family gather a.
d OOHI VI POis dA0 OoShA AZ eOA II
dips the first two fingers of his hand
into the paste, and then conveys the
food to his mouth
The natives are fond of outdoor
sports and they have good baseball,
football and tennis teams. They are
also fine swimmers and riders, some
of the girls being especially good
The Islands are of volcanic origin
and the sofi is red with iron oxide
and lava dust. The soil is quite thin,
lava rocks protruding everywhere
This makes farming with ordinary
tools impossible in many places, and
most of the work is done by Japanese
laborers, of VIII om every plantation
has several villages on the estate.
Each plantation also has its sugar
mill, where the juice is pressed from
the cane and then boiled and clarified
by machinery. The product is a
brown sugar which is sent to San
Francisco to be refined.
The climate here is delightful. 1t
rarely goes below 55 degrees and sell
dom above 85 degrees. The western
side of the island is very rainy, but
the eastern side is dry. The islands