Every Kanaka Has
One Particular Friend, Whom He Considers Himself Bound To Do
Everything For, And With Whom He Has A Sort Of Contract, - An
Alliance Offensive And Defensive, - And For Whom He Will Often Make
The Greatest Sacrifices.
This friend they call aikane; and for such
did Hope adopt me.
I do not believe I could have wanted anything
which he had, that he would not have given me. In return for this,
I was always his friend among the Americans, and used to teach
him letters and numbers; for he left home before he had learned
how to read. He was very curious about Boston (as they call the
United States); asking many questions about the houses, the people,
etc., and always wished to have the pictures in books explained to
him. They were all astonishingly quick in catching at explanations,
and many things which I had thought it utterly impossible to make
them understand, they often seized in an instant, and asked
questions which showed that they knew enough to make them wish to
go farther. The pictures of steamboats and railroad cars, in the
columns of some newspapers which I had, gave me great difficulty
to explain. The grading of the road, the rails, the construction of
the carriages, they could easily understand, but the motion produced
by steam was a little too refined for them. I attempted to show it
to them once by an experiment upon the cook's coppers, but failed;
probably as much from my own ignorance as from their want of
apprehension; and, I have no doubt, left them with about as clear
an idea of the principle as I had myself.
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