Page:Voyages in the Northern Pacific - 1896.djvu/135

Rh baked, they pound it up in an old canoe kept for that purpose, mixing water with it, and leaving it to ferment for several days. Their stills are formed out of iron pots, which they procure from ships that call here.—These they can enlarge to any size, by fixing calabashes, or gourds, with the bottom cut off and made to fit close on the pot, cemented well with a sort of clay, called paroro (palolo). A copper cone is also affixed, with which an old gun-barrel is connected, and goes through a calabash of cold water, which cools the spirit. The stills are commonly placed by a stream of water, and they continue to take the warm water out of the cooler and put in cold; by which simple process a spirit is produced, not unlike whiskey, only not so strong, and much more pleasant. It is called by the natives Y-wer'a (wai wela), which signifies warm-water, or luma, trying to imitate the word rum. A man, by the name of Wm. Stephenson, was the first who introduced distilling; he was a convict who had escaped from New South Wales, and lived on the islands for many years. He has left a large family behind him. John Young claims the right of first discovering this mode of distilling; but, in my opinion, neither of them deserves great credit for the introduction.

Mr. Manning (Don Marin), a Spaniard, who left Nootka Sound, on the N. W. coast of America, at the time the Spaniards formed an establishment at that place, has cultivated the grape and peach here. From the former, he makes very good wine, and, from the latter, good peach brandy,