Page:The Boy Travellers in Australasia.djvu/39

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
UNPOPULARITY OF LABOR-SAVING MACHINERY.
15

uneducated palate, and is nauseating to the novice. Natives greatly prefer it in this form, and a good many foreigners cultivate their taste until they too would rather have their poi sour than fresh.

Soon after the islands were settled by foreigners an ingenious Yankee saw a chance for making money by importing machinery for making poi, in place of the old form of hand-crushing. Now there are factories in various parts of the island where poi is made in large quantities, chiefly for the use of planters and other large consumers. It forms quite an article of export to other islands where Polynesian labor is employed, and especially to the guano islands, where nothing can be cultivated. A former king of Hawaii established a poi factory at Honolulu, and by so doing became very unpopular with his subjects, just as has been the case with other kings who have introduced labor-saving machinery into their dominions.

HAWAIIANS AT A FEAST.

At dinner that evening Frank and Fred asked for poi and were promptly supplied. It was explained to them that the native way of eating it was to insert the forefinger in the dish, twirl it around until