Page:Twenty years before the mast - Charles Erskine, 1896.djvu/193

 July 4. The commodore allowed us to celebrate the Glorious Fourth by visiting the springs. There were quite a number of them, eleven on the beach above high-water mark, some below, and some on the hillside, from  which flowed a streamlet, three feet wide, of delicious  cold water. This streamlet flowed in such close proximity to the springs that a person could place one hand in the cold water and the other in the hot at the same  time.

The latter experiment one would scarcely care to try, as the water was so hot that the yams and taro which  we boiled in one of them were cooked through in twenty  minutes; and the natives do all their cooking in them. They vary somewhat in size, but are about three feet in diameter. The largest was held sacred by the natives, and was used only for cooking human flesh. In the neighborhood we saw piles of the bleached bones of  their victims.

The coral beach was so hot that we could not walk on it with our bare feet. While we were at the springs many people came to do their cooking. They were all young people. On inquiring for their old people we were told that they were all buried. These natives appeared very friendly, though the young men were wild and savage-looking fellows. The women were much more prepossessing in appearance than those at the other  islands.

While here we mastered much of their language and had many social chats with them. They favored us with the K. K. U. dance, which was very pleasing.

After the dance was over they chanted the following,