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There are only twelve letters, but some of these are made to do double duty, as K is also T, and L is also R. The most northern island of the group, Kauai, is as often pronounced as if it began with a T, and Kalo is usually Taro. It is a very musical language. Each syllable and word ends with a vowel, and there are none of our rasping and sibilant consonants.
Taro, when baked, is an excellent and wholesome vegetable, and from its leaves is cooked a fine substitute for spinach, called luau. Poi also appears on your hotel table, being the national dish, of which many foreigners have become very fond. It is very fattening and easily digested, and is sometimes prescribed by physicians to consumptives.
In cultivating their little patches of bananas, breadfruit, cassava, and taro, however, they are pretty industrious. When the time of the royal feast comes, the natives, or "Kanakas," as they call themselves, get busy. The feast certainly is a royal one. Roast pig and roast chicken are smoking in a dozen dirt ovens.
These were collected by an attendant, and kept until the owners redeemed them by giving a present. For six hours O Hara San and Taro sat in their little box, laughing, shouting, eating, and drinking, while the play went on. Then it was over, for it was only a short play, at a cheap theatre. "Ah!" said their father, "when I was a boy we had real plays.
"No," said Pola, scornfully, adding, with a wave of his arm that took in acres of breadfruit trees, banana groves, and taro patches, "Why should I work? All this land belongs to me." Once, when Pola had been particularly adorable, I told him, in a burst of affection, that he could have anything in the world he wanted, only begging him to name it.
A fortnight or more had gone by; and the natives began to treat us more capriciously than at first. Several of them had by this time learned to row, and sometimes Dick was compelled to go out to fish by himself with a couple of natives; sometimes I was sent, while Dick was ordered to work in the taro fields.
In these districts yam is the principal food, while we find taro in the mountains of primary rock. Both are similar in taste to the potato. My next journey led me across the peninsula to the west coast of Santo. As usual, it was a very rainy day when we started, but once across the divide the air became much drier.
It was in the duchy of Parma, near the town of Fornovo, on the right bank of the Taro, an affluent of the Po, that the French and Italian armies met, on the 5th of July, 1495.
The birds were singing in the wistaria vine that grew over the porch, and two doves were cooing on the old stone lantern that stood by the little lake. They were Taro's pet doves. Taro held out his fingers. "I haven't forgotten to bring you something," he called. The doves flew down and lit upon his shoulders.
He was black, one-eyed, and of middling height; and to his great courage, as we shall see, Charles owed life upon that day. The French army, ready for the march, now took to the gravelly bed of the Taro, passing the river at a distance of about a quarter of a league from the allies. As the French left Fornovo, the light cavalry of their enemies entered the village and began to attack the baggage.
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