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Updated: September 30, 2025
As we emerged on the broad road which leads up the Nuuanu Valley to the mountains, we saw many patches of this kalo, a very handsome tropical plant, with large leaves of a bright tender green. Each plant was growing on a small hillock, with water round it.
When four hours' journey from Onomea, Kaluna's horse broke down, and he left us to get another, and we rode a mile out of our way to visit Deborah's grandparents. Her uncle carried us across some water to their cook-house, where, happily, a kalo baking had just been accomplished, in a hole in the ground, lined with stones, among which the embers were still warm.
I have discarded, owing to their weight, all the well-meant luxuries which were bestowed upon me, such as drinking cups, flasks, etnas, sandwich cases, knife cases, spoons, pocket mirrors, etc. The inside of a watchcase makes a sufficient mirror, and I make a cup from a kalo leaf. All cases are a mistake, at least I think so, as I contemplate my light equipment with complacency.
It was a far less attractive meal than that which the serene steward served below. The calabashes, which contained the pale pink poi, were of highly polished kou wood, but there were no foreign refinements. The other dishes were several kinds of raw fish, dried devil-fish, boiled kalo, sweet potatoes, bananas, and cocoa-nut milk.
Each gulch opens on a velvet lawn close to the sea, and most of them have space for a few grass houses, with cocoanut trees, bananas, and kalo patches. There are sixty-nine of these extraordinary chasms within a distance of thirty miles! I think we came through eleven, fording the streams in all but two. The descent into some of them is quite alarming.
At Kerepunu he took on board the teacher, his wife and two children, and one native youth. The party then proceeded to Kalo. During the interval of waiting there, the chief and pretended friend of the Kalo teacher got into the boat for a chat. On the arrival of Matatuhi and the Kalo teacher, along with his wife and two children, the chief stepped out of the boat.
Concerning a river of specially black lava, which runs into the sea to the south of this house, the following legend is told: "A withered old woman stopped to ask food and hospitality at the house of a dweller on this promontory, noted for his penuriousness. His kalo patches flourished, cocoa-nuts and bananas shaded his hut, nature was lavish of her wealth all round him.
It is said that this valley had 2000 inhabitants forty years ago, but they have dwindled to 117. The former estimate is probably not an excessive one, for nearly the whole valley is suitable for the culture of kalo, and a square mile of kalo will feed 15,000 natives for a year.
I fear we are not altogether free from blame; the teachers are often very indiscreet in their dealings with the natives, and not over-careful in what they say; there has also, perhaps, sometimes been a niggard regard to expense on our part. A very few pounds spent at a station like Kalo in the first years would, I believe, prevent much trouble, and probably murder.
People will ask you, "What is the food?" We have everywhere bread and biscuit made of California flour, griddle cakes with molasses, and often cracked wheat, butter not very good, sweet potatoes, boiled kalo, Irish potatoes, and poi. I have not seen fish on any table except at the Honolulu Hotel, or any meat but beef, which is hard and dry as compared with ours.
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