My brother Frank is a most practical boy. I may be prejudiced, but it seems to me somehow there'snothing like close personal contact with active volcanoes to teach a young fellow prudence,coolness, and adaptability to circumstances. "Tom," said he to me, as we stood and watched thequeer party on deck, devouring taro-paste as a Neapolitan swallows down long strings of macaroni:"don't you think, if we've got to live so long in a native hut, and feed on this port of thing, we mayas well use ourselves to their manners and customs, whatever they may be, at the pearliestconvenient opportunity?""Haven't you heard, my dear boy," said I, "what the naval officer wrote when he was asked to reportto the Admiralty on that very subject of the manners and customs of the South Sea Islanders?'Manners they have none,' he replied with Spartan brevity, 'and their customs are beastly.'""Not a bit of it," Frank answered quickly in his jolly way. "For my part I think this sticky, pasty stuffthey're eating with their fingers, though it's a bit stodgy, looks like real jam, and I'd much rather takemy lunch off things like that up here on deck, out of a native calabash, than go down and eat acivilized meal with a knife and fork in that hoky-poky, stuffy little cabin there."I confess, for myself, I didn't exactly like the look of it. Cosmopolitan as I am, I object to fingers asa substitute for spoons. We were on board the Royal Hawaiian mail steamer Liké Liké, 500 tonsregistered burden, from Honolulu for Hilo, in the island of Hawaii; and a quainter group than thenatives on deck I'm bound to admit, in all my wanderings, by sea or by land, I had never set eyes on.The tiny steamer was built in fact on purpose to accommodate all tastes alike, be the same savage orcivilized. Down stairs was a saloon where regular meals in the European fashion were well served bya dusky Polynesian steward in a white linen jacket, to such luxurious persons as preferred to takethem in that orthodox manner. But the unsophisticated natives, in their picturesque dress, believingfirmly in the truth of the proverb that fingers were made before forks, liked better to carry their ownsimple provisions in their baskets with them. They picnicked on deck in merry little circles, laughingand talking at the top of their voices (when they weren't sea-sick) as they squatted on their mats ofwoven grass round the family taro-bowl. From this common dish, parents and children, young menand maidens, fed all alike, each dipping his forefinger dexterously into the sticky mess, and thentwisting it round, as one might twist a lot of half-boiled toffee, till they landed it safely with a suddentwirl in their appreciative mouths. "It must be awfully good," Frank went on meditatively, eyeing thedoubtful mixture with a hungry look. "They seem to enjoy it so, or else of course they wouldn't licktheir fingers! I wish we could strike up a friendship now with some of these amiable light-colourednatives, and get them to share their lunch with us off-hand. I wonder what they call this preciousstuff of theirs?""We call it taro," one of the nearest group answered, greatly to our surprise, in perfectly good andclear English. "Would you like to taste some? It's very nice. We shall be delighted if you'll try it.