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We had Indian corn bread, and cakes made of the juice of the sugar-cane, called chancacas; potatoes, bananas, oranges, and pine-apples, and several varieties of dried meat; with a liquor also made from the sugar-cane, called guarapo: indeed we had no cause to complain of any want of provisions.
till the gold-dust is combed from the golden locks, and hoarded to buy bread; till the fast-driving youth smokes his clay-pipe on the platform of the horse-cars; till the music-grinders cease because none will pay them; till there are no peaches in the windows at twenty-four dollars a dozen, and no heaps of bananas and pine-apples selling at the street-corners; till the ten-flounced dress has but three flounces, and it is felony to drink champagne; wait till these changes show themselves, the signs of deeper wants, the preludes of exhaustion and bankruptcy; then let us talk of the Maelstrom; but till then, let us not be cowards with our purses, while brave men are emptying their hearts upon the earth for us; let us not whine over our imaginary ruin, while the reversed current of circling events is carrying us farther and farther, every hour, out of the influence of the great failing which was born of our wealth, and of the deadly sin which was our fatal inheritance!
The taste of the pumpkin will be lost in that of the lemon and sugar, and the syrup is particularly pleasant. It is eaten without cream, like preserved ginger. It may be laid on puff-paste shells, after they are baked. Pare your pine-apples, and cut them in thick slices. Weigh the slices and to each pound allow a pound of loaf-sugar.
Pine-apples are the best fruit, and oranges from the foot of the Khasia: plantains ripen imperfectly, and the mango is always acid, attacked by grubs, and having a flavour of turpentine. The violent hailstorms of the vernal equinox cut both spring and cold season flowers and vegetables, and the rains destroy all summer products.
These baskets contained four pyramids of most splendid fruit; there were Sicily pine-apples, pomegranates from Malaga, oranges from the Balearic Isles, peaches from France, and dates from Tunis. The supper consisted of a roast pheasant garnished with Corsican blackbirds; a boar's ham with jelly, a quarter of a kid with tartar sauce, a glorious turbot, and a gigantic lobster.
There were also pine-apples, wild rice, and custard-apples, some of which latter delicious fruit, being ripe, was gathered and carried back to Johnson, whom they found sound asleep and much refreshed on their return. The expedition proved that, barren though the island appeared from the sea, it contained quite enough of the good things of this life to render it a desirable abode for man.
In another place the vegetable and fruit-gatherers had piled up little mounds of bread-fruit, pine-apples, cocoa-nuts, yams, plantains, bananas, manioc-root, melons, etcetera, much of which had been gathered from regions at a considerable distance from their place of abode. Thus they had laid up store for many days, and felt somewhat elated.
The immediate agents of the Prince of the World could, of course, be no common personages; and the servants of the gardener, who some centuries before had meekly disclaimed the proffered reverence of his delighted customers, now insisted upon constant adoration from every eater of pine-apples in the island.
Then cut the pine-apples in round slices half an inch thick, and put them into a deep dish, sprinkling every slice with powdered loaf-sugar. Cover them, and let them lie in the sugar for an hour or two, before they are to be eaten. Take large fine ripe lemons, that have no blemishes. Choose those with thin, smooth rinds.
We had an abundance of fruit in Honolulu, of course. Oranges, pine-apples, bananas, strawberries, lemons, limes, mangoes, guavas, melons, and a rare and curious luxury called the chirimoya, which is deliciousness itself. Then there is the tamarind. I thought tamarinds were made to eat, but that was probably not the idea. I ate several, and it seemed to me that they were rather sour that year.
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