[Illustration: GIRL WEEDING IN FRONT OF OUR HOUSE. VAIALA, SAMOA]
REMINISCENCES OF THE SOUTH SEAS
BY
JOHN LAFARGE
Author of “The Higher Life in Art,” “Great Masters,”
“One Hundred Masterpieces of Painting,” Etc.
WITH 48 ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PAINTINGS AND DRAWINGS
MADE BY THE AUTHOR IN 1890-91
[Illustration: colophon]
GARDEN CITY NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1916
COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY THE CENTURY CO.
_Copyright, 1912, by_
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
_All rights reserved, including that of
translation into foreign languages
including the Scandinavian_
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
and thanks are due the following owners, who were kind enough to lend
their original drawings or paintings, for reproduction in this volume:
MISS HARRIET E. ANDERSON
DR. WM. STURGIS BIGELOW
MISS GERTRUDE BARNES
MISS GRACE EDITH BARNES
FRANKLIN W. M. CUTCHEON, ESQ.
A. A. HEALY, ESQ.
JAMES J. HILL, ESQ.
JAMES NORMAN HILL, ESQ.
MRS. GEO. LEWIS HEINS
MRS. CHARLES J. HARDY
COL. HENRY L. HIGGINSON
MRS. EDWIN CHASE HOYT
AUGUST F. JACCACI, ESQ.
WILLIAM MACBETH, ESQ.
MRS. MONTGOMERY SEARS
EDW. P. SLEVIN, ESQ.
GEO. W. STEVENS, ESQ.
TOLEDO MUSEUM
MISS MARY L. WARE
MRS. PAYNE WHITNEY
DR. W. WALLACE WALKER
ESTATE OF JOHN LAFARGE
PREFATORY NOTE
This record of travel in the South Seas was designed by Mr. La Farge as
a continuous narrative, but some of his most valuable impressions were
embodied in letters written from the Islands to his son, Mr. Bancel La
Farge, or jotted down at the moment in his journal. Since it was his
intention to introduce this material into the book, it has with
scrupulous care been drawn upon for that purpose.
G. E. B.
CONTENTS
PAGE
EN ROUTE
ON BOARD, 26TH AUGUST, 1890 3
HONOLULU 12
HAWAII 33
KILAUEA--THE VOLCANO 46
RIDE FROM HILO AROUND THE EAST OF
ISLAND OF HAWAII 53
SAMOA 68
OFF THE ISLAND OF TUTUILA, ON BOARD
THE CUTTER CARRYING MAIL, OCTOBER 7 68
AN ACCOUNT OF RESIDENCE AT VAIALA 142
A MALAGA IN SEUMANU’S BOAT, OCTOBER 25 155
PALOLO 212
ANOTHER SAMOAN MALAGA 229
AT SEA FROM SAMOA TO TAHITI 288
TAHITI 301
STORY OF THE LIMITS OF THE TEVAS 323
LAMENT OF AROMAITERAI 331
THE ORIGIN OF THE TEVAS 353
THE STORY OF TAURUA, OR THE LOAN OF
A WIFE 364
TAHITI TO FIJI 387
FIJI 395
THE STORY OF THE FISH-HOOK WAR 411
AN EXPEDITION INTO THE MOUNTAINS OF
VITI LEVU 422
EPILOGUE 478
ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR
GIRL WEEDING IN FRONT OF OUR HOUSE, VAIALA, SAMOA _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
TREES IN MOONLIGHT. HONOLULU, HAWAII 12
BEGINNING OF DESERT, ISLAND OF HAWAII 34
CENTRAL CONE OF VOLCANO OF KILAUEA, HAWAII 48
CRATER OF KILAUEA AND THE LAVA BED. HAWAII 52
MEN BATHING IN THE RIVER NEAR THE SEA. ONOMEA, ISLAND OF HAWAII 58
FAYAWAY SAILS HER BOAT. SAMOA 68
THE FLUTE PLAYER. SAMOA 86
BOY IN CANOE PASSING IN FRONT OF OUR HOUSE. VAIALA, SAMOA 98
MATAAFA’S COOK HOUSE. FROM OUR HUT AT VAIALA, SAMOA 110
SAMOAN COURTSHIP 120
SOLDIERS BRINGING PRESENTS OF FOOD IN MILITARY ORDER. IVA, IN SAVAII,
SAMOA 182
TAUPO AND ATTENDANTS DANCING IN OPEN AIR. IVA, IN SAVAII, SAMOA 184
PRESENTATION OF GIFTS OF FOOD AT IVA, IN SAVAII, SAMOA 186
SOUTH SEA SEATED DANCE AT NIGHT. SAMOA 188
BUTTRESSES OF THE FIRST CHRISTIAN CHURCH AND TOMB OF SIGA IN THE
REEF. SAPAPALI, SAMOA 198
THE BOY SOPO. SAMOA 208
THE PAPA-SEEA, OR SLIDING ROCK. FAGALO SLIDING WATERFALL. VAIALA,
SAMOA 210
GIRL SLIDING DOWN WATERFALL. SAMOA 212
SAMOAN GIRL CARRYING PALM BRANCH 246
FROM OUR HUT AT VAO-VAI, SAMOA 258
MAUA. STUDY OF ONE OF OUR BOAT CREW. APIA, SAMOA 286
STUDY OF SURF BREAKING ON OUTSIDE REEF. TAUTIRA, TAIARAPU, TAHITI 302
THE DIADEM MOUNTAIN. TAHITI 308
PEAK OF MAUA ROA, ISLAND OF MOOREA, SOCIETY ISLANDS, TAHITI 338
EDGE OF THE AORAI MOUNTAIN COVERED WITH CLOUD, MIDDAY. PAPEETE,
TAHITI 354
CHIEFS IN WAR DRESS AND PAINT. “DEVIL” COUNTRY. VITI LEVU, FIJI 396
TONGA GIRL WITH FAN 418
EDGE OF VILLAGE OF NASOGO IN MOUNTAIN OF THE NORTHEAST OF VITI LEVU,
FIJI 434
STUDY OF HUTS AT END OF VILLAGE. MATAKULA, FIJI 452
BEGINNING OF VILLAGE--DAWN. MATAKULA. FIJI 456
MOUNTAIN HUT OR HOUSE AT WAIKUMBUKUMBU, FIJI 460
ILLUSTRATIONS IN BLACK AND WHITE
PAGE
SIFA DANCING THE SITTING SIVA 84
UATEA DANCING THE SITTING SIVA 90
SWIMMING DANCE. SAMOA 166
AITUTAGATA. THE HEREDITARY ASSASSINS OF KING MALIETOA. SAPAPALI,
SAVAII, SAMOA 196
PRACTISING THE SEATED DANCE AT NIGHT. SAMOA 200
TWO TAUPOS DANCING A “GAME OF BALL.” SAMOA 256
TULAFALES SPEECH-MAKING. VAO-VAI, SAMOA 262
TAUPO DANCING THE STANDING SIVA. SAMOA 264
FAGALO AND SUE WRESTLING. VAIALA, SAMOA 274
YOUNG TAHITIAN GIRL 336
SUN COMING OVER MOUNTAIN. EARLY MORNING, UPONOHU 348
MEKKE-MEKKE. A STORY DANCE. THE MUSICIANS AT REVA, FIJI 404
THE DANCE OF WAR. FIJI 406
JOLI BUTI--TEACHER. FIJI 408
FIJIAN BOY 450
RATU MANDRAE--FIJIAN CHIEF 454
REMINISCENCES OF THE SOUTH SEAS
REMINISCENCES OF THE SOUTH SEAS
EN ROUTE
ON BOARD, 26th August, 1890.
San Francisco was the same place, with the same curious feeling of its
being cold while one felt the heat; but there was neither place, time
nor anything for me; there were things to buy and replace--all sorts of
things had been forgotten, and now more than ever I realize that it is
well to be overloaded--even if I believe that later I should feel it.
What I want I want badly, and San Francisco is not a place to get it in.
And then there was a pleasant club, with the usual hideous decoration,
but very comfortable and with such a good table, and such a _real_
one--meats that were _meats_, and fish that was _fish_, and fruits in
quantity, and fruits are not fruits for pleasure unless they be in
quantity; and good wine and champagne of a kind that is not ours; and a
Mr. Cutler who took us there and talked of things he had done or would
do, that were interesting, and the contrast between the smoothness of
life there, and the apparent difficulties outside. I say apparent
because many of them are based upon a feeling of indifference or “look
out for yourself” in any event outside. Yes, the Union Club was a good
waster of time. And then I am not yet well recovered at all from the
strain of the beginning of the month; and I felt as if I had sea-legs
and gait from the motion of the car. So that I shall say nothing of the
great bay, nor its mountainsides, that look at this time as if they were
nothing but those we have seen all along, but with the sea rolling in.
We got off on Saturday, not at noon as stated, but waiting for a couple
of hours in dock, the little steamer filled with people and with very
pretty girls, who, alas! were not to accompany us. But we have a circus
troupe “_à la_ Buffalo Bill”; an impresario with the nose and figure
head of the “boy,” and his wife, or lady, the usual “variety blonde” to
match, joining, like the telegraph, (through the seas and continent of
America), furthest Australia and the Singing Hall of London. Long-haired
cowboys see them off, one of them fair-haired and boyish and
“sixty-two.” There are Indians, one long-haired, saturnine, and yet
smiling, with the usual length of jaw and hair (so that his back runs up
from his waist to his hat), who sits with some female, perhaps a dancer,
and talks sentiment evidently, in his way, to my great delight--and
hers, too, whatever she might say. They sit with one blanket around
them, and he points gracefully, and puts things in her hair--and draws
presents out of his pockets, wrapped up in paper, and puts them back to
pull them out again. She sits against him, and smiles at him
ironically, and laughs, and generally looks like a pretty cat lapping
cream.
The cowboys meander about and go to the bar-room too frequently,
especially one, a fair-haired one, who feels the first attack of
sea-sickness, and sits with his head on his hand--and resents his
comrades’ begging him to come below, telling them that they have
mistaken the man he is, that he is a Pawnee medicine man, he is, and
that he will wipe the floor with them; and then he subsides again--so
that my expected row does not occur.
Then everybody subsides, even the cheerful young Englishmen and old
Englishmen, and the middle-aged Englishmen, who pervade a good part of
the ship and utter all their small stock of remarks with slowness and
power. There are others--the teacher going back for her vacation, to the
seminary at Hawaii--the young German I suspect of being an R.C. priest,
and the Scotchman who has carefully talked for the last hour on the
advantage of our system of “checking” baggage, which as he says allows
you to go on without getting off at any station to see if the “guard”
has the things all right. But as he remarks, for the hand luggage, a
“mon” can take care of that himself, otherwise he would not be fit to
take care of MONEY!!
But the weather is disappointing, very cold (so that ulsters are
convenient), dark and grey, and there is a heavy coast sea, which I
didn’t like until yesterday, since when it has been warm, and we have
had blue sky in large patches through rents in the violet silveriness of
the clouds. It is the exquisite clearness of the blue of the Pacific, a
butterfly blue, _laid_ on as it were between the clouds, and shading
down to white faintness in the far distance, where the haze of ocean
covers up the turquoise. The sea has the blue for a long time, but dark
and reflecting the grey sky. This morning (Thursday) it has been blue
like a sapphire, dark to look at except near by, but when you look down
to it, and see it framed in the openings of the windows or the gangways,
blue light pours out of it, and I realize that my blue sketches of four
years ago are no exaggeration. When the clouds open somewhat, the blue
light pours down and makes the shadows of the clouds violet, except when
this fog against the warm sky looks red and rosy. Even the shadows of
the blue sea look at moments reddish, when they reflect the opposite
grey cloud. But we are not yet quite in the _sun_ seas--this is not the
season yet nor the place. There is all the time a veil of cloud, a veil
so heavy as to make great cumulus clouds bunch out in extreme modelling.
But when it is grey, all in silver--there is a light--a lilac grey, a
silver, not known to the other side; and it is only when the distant
smoke of the steamer goes over the grey clouds that I realize that they
become like those of the north Atlantic.
This is Thursday afternoon. On Saturday at dawn, or before it, we shall
sight at first the island of Molokai, the leper’s island, where Father
Damien lived, then Oahu and its capes and Honolulu.
Friday, 29th August.
Last night the sun set in those silver tones that I associate with the
Pacific and with Japan. The horizon was enclosed everywhere, but through
it every here and there the pink and rose of sunset came out and in the
east lit up the highest of the clouds in every variety of pink and lilac
and purple and rose, shut in with grey. But the moon, “O Tsuki San,” had
her turn--then I realized where we were. All was so dark that the
horizon was quite veiled, but the light of the moon, in its full, and
high up, poured down on what seemed a wall-embroidery of molten silver
slanting to the horizon. Itself was partly wrapped in clouds or veils or
wraps like those that protect some big jewel, and when unveiled or
partly covered, it had the roundness--the nearness of some great crystal
“with white fire laden.” The clearness was so great at places open
through the clouds, that I thought I could see Jupiter’s satellites, and
decided it was he by this additional glitter. There is no way of
telling you all that the moon did, for she seemed to arrange the clouds,
to place them about her or drive them away, to veil herself with one
hand of cloud. It was like a great heavenly play--and played in such
lovely air! If I could write on for pages I could only say that I had no
idea of what the moon could be, nor of the persistence of colour that
she could hold in all the silveriness.
When I went to bed, blue light poured in by reflection from the waves
that had looked dark and colourless from the deck. It was the same
contrast as by daylight, when the dark sea, isolated from the sky, takes
a blue like Oriental satin, and is fired with light.
To-night again the moon gave a play--no longer in the great pomp of a
simple spread of silver forms of cloud, but like an opera of colour and
shadow, far in front of it, hung at times, a cloud so dense as to seem
as dark as our bulwarks or “roofing”--but usually a cloud of blue,
perhaps by contrast with the warmth of the clouds behind, all lit up and
modelled and graded tier on tier. No Rembrandt could have more
_indication_ of grading and of dark than these clouds had in _reality_.
No possible palette could approximate the degrees of dark and of light,
for the moon, when she uncovered entirely, was the same transparent
silver vase out of which poured light. It seemed impossible--the
electric light alongside of us was no brighter apparently than the
bright markings of the light on the deck, on the edges of the bulwarks,
and on the brass of the railings. Imagine the electric light, in say our
Fifth Avenue, really turned on everything around you. It is a stupid
simile, but I wish you to believe in what I am saying. I took a coloured
print into the moonlight to try, and could make out the colours--fairly
of course--moonily, but there they were all, all but the violet. We
could read, poorly, but we could read. But this is not the point, it is
that we could see far away to the moon, and that it made a centre of
light for every dark, for every half-tint, curtain upon curtain hung in
front of it--all the foregrounds of sky you could wish for in that
possibility of fog cloud.
Never shall I think again of the moon as a pale imitation. Of course its
representation began when the sun was gone. Why it was like a sun one
could look at without wincing, and canopied itself with colours that did
not imitate, but were merely the iridescent spectrum that belongs to the
great sun. These colours, by their arrangement in the prismatic sequence
seemed to make more light, to arrange it and dispose it, as if art was
recalling nature. All this must seem unintelligible. It would to me if I
dared reread it. But this is at least what we came for--the moon and the
Pacific.
To-morrow morning, Honolulu.
There was the profile of Oahu at seven this morning. Earlier, Molokai
was a long cloud on our port. Now Oahu becomes clearer, and is
distinctly violet or plum colour. The sea in front of it is blue, and
dashed with white foam. Above, the clouds are in the more delicate greys
and violets, and far up is a little rift of blue. To the right a large
white triangular patch--an extinct volcano cone. Near the base of the
mountains all is mist.
It is now 7:30. Birds, swallows, and sea-mews meet us; the swallows came
early this morning. But until yesterday, for two days, there was no life
except the flying fish.
We are very close, so close that I cannot draw except in panorama. All
looks like cinders as we go on. Lovely cloud effects on the
hills--rainbows--and the furthest edge of everything in this promontory
daring all.
Then, as we round this, _with our first turn perhaps since we left_, we
can see more mountains and hills--for the first time, right on the blue
sea, a fringe of green (not yellowish)--the first time I have seen a
fringe of green to deep blue sea.
Later we see beneath the great hills or mountains, that look like
cinders, green bushes of trees, and houses looking pretty enough and
cool--but we are still far off--and then behind this grey mountain with
fringe of green we begin to feel Honolulu.
Big mountains, green valleys and slopes far back, a fringe of trees,
some large buildings, a steamer’s smoke from some place, here and there
masts--all this spread for miles, like an edging. As the space unfolds
we see an immensely long beach (Waikiki) running at the base of the
hills around a bay, and far off in the haze many masts. “White water”
edges the sea everywhere, even before the line of ships. The water has
calmed on which we now slip. There is no motion to it; no more,
apparently, than would make a fringe of foam to a lake. A narrow channel
in the surf, and we see the shipping and the port: steamships and
sailing vessels, an English and an American warship, and we are in, and
I am interrupted for the keys of the trunks.
HONOLULU
Sunday morning, Nuuanu,
Nuuanu Valley, Honolulu.
Last night, after having tried the Hawaiian Hotel, we came up here and
took possession of Judge Hartwell’s house, which we had seen in the
afternoon.
We sat in the verandah, looking out toward the sea, I should say about
two miles from us, with the same brilliant moonlight we had had the
night before. The two palm trees in front of the house were gradually
illuminated as if the whole air had been a stage scene, through the
smoothly shining trunks glistening like silver, where the lower green
stem of the bole leaf or branch of the tree beneath the branches
separates from the lower cylinder. Behind them spread sky and ocean, for
we are just on the summit of a hill, the sea-line spreading distinctly
and the air being clear enough, (even when a slight drift of rain came
down across the picture), to see the surf far out, and the lines of a
great bar (to the right), which made a long hooked bend into the sea.
Lights shone red on board of two English and American war vessels. Far
off a few azure clouds on the horizon; and occasionally a white patch of
cloud floated
[Illustration: TREES IN MOONLIGHT. HONOLULU, HAWAII]
like gauze over the palms, then sank away into the space shining far
off--a little darker now than the sky, and warm and rather red in
colour.
Meanwhile, the palm branches tossed up and down in the intermittent gale
which blew from behind us in the great hills. The landscape was all
below us, lying at the very foot of the palms which edge the hill upon
which we are. Across the grass the moonlight came sometimes, as if a
lamp had suddenly been brought in--and the colour of the half-yellow
grass, which was not lost in the moonlight, urged on this delusion. Even
the violet of the two pillars of palm and its silveriness were strong
enough to make greener the colour of the sky.
When I walked out behind the house the hills were covered with cloud--I
say covered, but rather the cloud rested upon them, and poured up into
the sky, in large masses of white; the moon shining through most of the
time, out of an opening more blue than the blue sky, itself an opaline
circle of greenish blue light, with variant iridescent redness in the
cloud edges. Against it the heavy trees looked as dark as green can be,
and now and again the branches of other palms were like waves of grass
against this dark, or against the sky all shining and brilliant.
Occasionally it rained, as it did in the afternoon; the edges of the
great cloud blew upon us like a little sprinkle of wet dust, and later,
as it came thicker, the rustle of the palms was increased by the rustle
of the rain. The grass of the hills shone as with moisture, but the
grass outside, near us, was so dry that the hand put down to it felt no
wet.
And I went off to bed under mosquito nettings, in a room that smelt of
sandalwood, to sleep late and feel the gusts of wind blow through the
open windows, and to think that it rained because I heard the palms.
Yesterday it rained very often. As we landed, the rain had begun, and
the air was difficult to breathe with the quantity of moisture. All was
wet, underfoot, though the wet, by the afternoon, had dried in this
volcanic soil. We had been taken up to the home of Mr. Smith, Judge
Hartwell’s brother-in-law, and decided at once upon going to
housekeeping, for which we had to drive into town quite late; and we
made out of our business a form of skylarking, I think to the
astonishment of our guide and friend, who may have thought that persons
who had been able to discuss seriously in the afternoon with himself and
a member of the former cabinet, Mr. Thurston, the question of the sugar
tariff, and its relation to the Force bill and the position of Mr.
Blaine and of the Pennsylvania senators, should not be people to waste
their minds on the dress of Hawaiian girls and the fashion of wearing
flowers about the neck.
But the ride was full of enjoyment and novelty. Honolulu streets are
amusing. The blocks of houses are tropical, with most reasonable
lowness, and are of cement in facings; and the great number of Chinese
shops and of Chinese, with some pretty Chinese girl faces and children’s
faces, enliven the streets. And there are so many horses, small, with
much mustang blood and good action and good heads, and ridden
freely--too freely, for we saw a labourer ridden down by some cowboyish
fellow. Hawaiian women rode about in their divided skirts; they had, as
well as many of the men, flowers around their waists and their necks,
and among their delights, peacock-feather bands around their hats. Many
of them were pretty, I thought, with animated faces, talking to mild and
fierce men of similar adornments. And as I said, there was much Chinese,
and dresses of much colour--for men and women--and trees with flowers,
like the Bougainvillia purplish rose coloured; grey palm trunks, and
many plants of big leaves like the banana; yellow limes, and fiercely
green acacias.
At any rate it was fun; we stopped and bought mangoes and oranges from
natives who smiled or grinned at us. The air grew delicious with the
wind that took away the oppression of the dampness, (we have about 80 to
83 degrees), so that if this be tropical, it is easy to bear, and the
vast feeling of air and space gives a charm even to the heat.
I walked about this morning toward the hills, of which the near ones are
covered with grass of a velvet grey in the light, and dun colour in the
shade; but behind, the higher hills are purple and lost in the base of
the cloud that has never ceased to turret them. After a while the sense
of blue air became intense.
Tuesday.
We sat up again and waited for the moon to rise, and watched her light
drown the brilliancy of the stars and of the milky way. Jupiter shone
like diamonds, and Venus was like a glittering moon herself; and beneath
her in the ocean a wide tremulousness of light broke the great belt of
water with a shine that anywhere else might have done for the reflection
of the moon. The great palms threw up their arms into a coloured sky not
quite violet nor quite green; the gale blew again from the mountains
with the same intensity; the great cloud hung again up to the same point
in the heaven until the moon began to beat its edges down, and break
them and send them in blots of white and dark into the western sky.
Then, at length, she came out again to sink behind the advancing cloud,
which again broke, over and over again, and through the trees behind us
and over the hills hung in a mass of violet grey. The wind blew more and
more violently, but never any colder; always as if at the beginning of
a storm, not as if any more than a long gust. And when the moon was free
in the upper sky, and the cloud rested in its accustomed place, above
the hills, we walked out into the open spaces to see the clouds lie in
white masses of snow piled up, and above them to the north, the sky of
an indefinite purple, terrible in its depth of uncertainty of colour,
with no break, no cloud whatever.
Wednesday night we had rain, though only above us. Occasionally the
clouds gained over in the southwest before us, but not entirely, and for
a time the horizon of the sea was dusty and a little uncertain, but
never at any moment did we fail to see the stars before us and the clear
light of the sky. But we had to say good-bye to the moon. She will rise
now so late that for us who are getting tired with a little more
movement, there is impatience at having to watch; and, besides, the
mosquitoes pour about us in swarms, unless we remain outdoors in the
continual gusty surge of wind that makes us more and more sleepy.
Now the sky in the night becomes more purple and more violet as we look
toward the south, instead of holding delicate blue-green, that promised
the moon; and around Venus, until her setting, there is an area of light
in this violet; and below her the sea is bright as if with a moon, and
all the stars toward the south are brilliant and fiery.
Friday.
Yesterday we drove up the valley. We ourselves are on a bank or
projection into it, though the rocks rise to our left as we look
northeast, which is the trend of the valley. Honolulu is below us,
spread by the sea, and the valley goes up from it as do others; to the
north and east there is a wide fringe or space by the sea, which is as a
big slope, and into it these valleys open, so that, as we look back on
our drive, that narrows more, we see the scene opening more and more and
further and further below us, Honolulu and its plain or lower slope
shining in light, with the sea beyond it, the surf breaking away out
from its shore, and the sea spreading over the sand in a faint wash of
greener colour; further out a purple line of reef below the water, and
then the waveless blue of distance. All is light; even the converging
hills--hills coming together in the perspective, like stage wings, but
opening out in reality--even the hills seem transparent with light. The
valley side rises generally, but our view is occasionally interrupted by
divisions of higher land, slopes from the mountainsides that run across.
And so we go for five miles. The hills and mountains, for they are high,
are steep and pointed and covered with green. Here and there black marks
indicate the volcanic rock; a cascade comes down the apparently
perpendicular side of the rock, like a snake twisting; making a
movement like a throbbing, for there is no leap, it merely glides down
the wall. Then suddenly the road rises still more, and we come to a bank
before us where the road turns; and over the bank we see distance, and
green hills like a plain under us, and red roads through the
multitudinous green, and far away a promontory out to sea, silver and
grey, for the vegetation has suddenly stopped there, and there is
nothing but the nameless aridity of mountains standing out to sea, in a
fairyland of blue and white surf, and sand between white and yellow, and
a warm emerald of shallow waves near the shore. We are on the famous
Pali, thirteen hundred feet above the hills below us. Pack mules grope
down the path, and a carriage held back by two riders on horseback goes
down the precipitous winding road. There is shouting and clicking of
stirrups and spurs and bridles, the plunges of the horses and sudden
throwing back of the men, all in a gale of heavy wind, make me feel in
this smallness even in animals the size and space before me. As we go
down the road a little, we see, looking up, the great cliffs of the Pali
to which we have driven. It makes a great cliff of walls opposite to the
sea, (over which we have broken), and to the west it stretches in
shadow, and in the west we see the marking lost in shade of unnamable
tones, as the green precipice casts its shade across the foothills and
slopes for a vast space, (it is two thousand feet high), looking as if
it had been some great sea-cliff once, and the sea had once formed the
spaces now green, and undulating with hill and valley. But the great
Pali has probably been one side of the stupendous wall of a great
crater, now partly under the sea, and the grey mountain far off to sea
has been the central cone of this ancient circle.
September 6th.
We had to-day a very Hawaiian afternoon; we tasted of the
delights--perhaps it would be better to say the comforts--of _poi_;
eaten with relishes, squid and salt fish, and fish baked in _ti_ leaves,
and also of some introduced things, such as the guava, which is spooned
out from its rind. But all this is known to you. And this was
two-fingered _poi_. When fully stiff it is one-fingered, the
three-fingered being effeminate, and coming to-day more in use with
general degeneracy. And we see later old _poi_-dishes with an edge
running in, upon which to wipe the finger or fingers. And as the talk
went on, turning always more or less to ancient habits and traditions,
we heard much more than I can remember. As a shuttle through the web of
the conversation ran the personality of the King; interesting, in many
ways, because of his race, and of its exact relation to the _pure_ race,
and of his caring for the old traditions and probably superstitions. He
collects, or has collected; but is little addicted to the civilized
habits of curators of museums, and is fond of arranging his remains and
fragments, placing them and setting them occasionally in gold, and
remaking old idols which are fragmentary, not without surmises of his
taking more than an outside scientific or artistic interest in them. And
no wonder! there must remain every reason of inheritance in mind. The
christianizing of the native mind can be represented by the supposition
of an acceptance of a Jehovah who ruled in great matters, and over the
soul, but whose attention was not directed to little things; so that
there might be essences that controlled ordinary life, good to invoke in
time of danger, and for usual help, at any rate of good omen, or to be
propitiated for fear of harm. And so often the native in great distress,
as when death threatens, resorts to old forms, as invalids all over the
world look to remedies out of the regular way--the good woman’s
doctorings and the help of the quack, who may not perhaps be _all_ out
in some matters. And so it is possible to hear that this personage has
rebuilt a _heiau_ or temple--a fishing temple of propitiation near his
summer residence, upon the old lines of the former one;--and to listen
to the singular anecdote, which gives him as consulting an old crone
when age is on her in the full of a hundred, and who remembered the
erection of the old temple now destroyed. When consulted by us she was
still able to work, though so very old, and was found seated under some
hut or shelter, scraping twigs for mats, with a sharp-edged shell, as
she had done when a child of ten. Much could not be obtained from her,
as she had no consecutive thread of talk, but she was able to show where
the cornerstone of the old temple lay, and beneath it the bones of the
human being sacrificed as a propitiatory and necessary part of the
foundation--a habit and tradition common to all races, as we know. The
King could not, of course, sacrifice a human being to-day, so that a pig
was the propitiation, and the new _heiau_ is built. The first offering
from fishing is thrown there and success established.
Another pig comes in a more curious and fantastic way, and forms part of
a possible picture, conjured up in the story. For some old priest or
_kahuna_ assured the King, anxious to discover the remains of the great
Kamehameha, that they could be traced by divination. The pig, filled
with the spirit (_ahu_), was let loose, and an old priest and less old
but heavy chieftain careered after him, until the animal passed, and
began to circle about in convulsions. Then they dug and lo! a skull,
which the King now keeps as the remains of the great head of the
sovereignty, from whom his predecessors were descended, as was, for
example, the wife of our Mr. Bishop the banker--for the present King is
not of that lofty strain. This difficulty of finding what was left of
the great tyrant and hero was owing to the Hawaiian (and Polynesian),
habit of hiding the remains of the great; sometimes even they were
eaten; the people were not cannibals--they did not kill to eat, but it
was necessary to protect the remains from insult. No one would wish to
have his chief’s bones serve for fishhooks, nor to make arrowheads to
shoot mice with, nor I suppose even to make ornamental circles in the
sticks of the _kahili_, the beautiful plumed stick of honour, originally
a fly-brush, I suppose (like the old Egyptian fan), which was the
attribute of power, and which is still carried about royalty, or stands
at their coffin or place of burial. Consequently every precaution was
taken to hide the bones, which were tied together and put in some
inaccessible secret place.
Another _kahuna_ or priest told the King how to have access to the
terrible hiding-place where were deposited the remains of some chief
that Kalakaua wished to have, to give them finally some resting-place of
honour. The only way to get at this cavern was by _diving_ and when he
did so he came up into a cavern, where he found them, and also large
statues of idols and other remains. But the place was haunted, and not
for the whole of the Islands would the King again undertake such a
journey. Nor should I, even if I swam well enough. Can you imagine
making a hit-or-miss entrance through the surf into some narrow hole,
from which one would emerge into hollow and drier darkness; and then to
have to make light and grope about for things in themselves of a spooky
and doubtful influence--and things that should _resent_ the _hand of the
intruder_!
For it is even hinted that many of the present tombs in the royal
mausoleum are empty or not authentically filled; for instance, King
Lunalilo is certainly not there. In old days some devoted friend of the
chief’s would have hunted about and found some man looking like him, and
then would have incontinently massacred the more vulgar Dromio, would
have left his body in the place of the chief’s, and hidden the honoured
remains from all but most sacred knowledge, that around the priest, the
depository of holy mysteries, all power might cling. Power of priests:
power to designate who should die--killing the chief’s friend or
supporters if it were advisable to weaken him.
With their privilege of designating victims the power of the priests
must have reached into the province of politics, for a king’s or chief’s
men, precious to him but dangerous to enemies, might be chosen at any
moment so as to weaken him. The _men_ of the _priest_ could be saved
from such a terror. The man to die might be put an end to as he entered
the temple by a blow from behind with a club or stone, or his back might
be broken, in a dexterous way known of old, or his neck might be
twisted so as to break the spine. The death at least was made as
painless as possible.
The real _kahunas_ are extinct, but have many pretended successors. The
King himself claims to be _kahuna_ more or less. He claims to have a
cure for leprosy. I hear too that a leper is kept at the palace, and
another at the _boat house_, for experiments, but of course of that I
know nothing--_no more than of anything else_. The boat house is the
place where the King gives _luuaus_, Hawaiian dinner parties, and when
the _hula_ is danced there are well-known dancers who come or are
retained or sent for. They are in the photographs much dressed and
rather ugly, and some have very thick legs, monstrous to the European
eye, but I suppose that talent is not always found in the pretty shapes.
Some good people (from Minnesota), lately expressed a wish to see these
dances, and the King, who is apparently a very courteous person, kindly
consented to help them, and invited them then and there to dinner. They
came to an excellent dinner, and saw the _hula_ danced. They were
informed by the King that the custom was to give some gratuity to the
artist; so that money was thrown into a dish, the King giving two
dollars, and the others the same. When the collection at the end was
taken up after each dance (my informants giving some seven dollars
apiece) and presented as by etiquette to his majesty, he retained the
mass, giving one dollar and a half to each dancer as their proper
proportion. This reminds me of Oriental tradition, and is probably quite
consistent with a certain liberality, the Hawaiian instinct, especially
with the chiefs, being toward generous giving; so much so that many have
become impoverished from this and other forms of improvidence, in the
days of the change to civilization, when they owned a good deal that
gradually passed into the hands of those who held the mortgages.
Mrs. Dominis, the heir apparent (now the Queen), keeps also some
tenderness for superstitions and beliefs of the past, and I am told (but
not by so sure a person), that she sacrificed some time ago to Pele, the
goddess of the volcano, some pigs and hens, which were thrown into the
fire of lava. At present the account is vague and mixed to me, but I
think of it as connected with some illness of one of the late
princesses, for whom also came a portent of certain fish appearing in
quantity, a presage of death to great chiefs. Naturally one listens to
any gossip referring to the reversion of the race to any former habits,
and this I give you only for this reason.
One little touch, however, with the common people, is pretty, just what
happens anywhere, and that is the fondness for lying low, if I may so
put it; the using of the underneath of their houses (which is one way),
the cellar, or rather open space under houses, becoming, low as it is,
the residence, and the house itself being kept with its furniture and
carpets, only as a sort of show; matting being laid down on the earth
below, and the whole affair made comfortable in savage fashion. Here all
live together. Somebody was telling us how, in a trip somewhere, they
had found a family who were living under their house, and who gave them
their own unused room with a big four-post bedstead. And in the morning
a strange rustle aroused them. It was the native couple struggling to
escape unnoticed from _beneath_ the bed, under which they had passed the
night.
And also there is a peculiar use of objects which we hide, and which are
placed usually at the doorstep. I have seen them carried with great care
through the streets, and at my first purchases in a Chinese shop I
noticed the discussion of some natives upon the adornment of these
utensils which they had come to buy.
The old-fashioned house has passed away; hardly any one has now the
knowledge of how to build it. It was well suited to its use and made
with great care. It had a thatched roof which was made of bundles tied
with hibiscus bark and carefully disposed, and this whole house had to
be built according to rite, or it could not be lived in. The main
archway, or one made by say the pillars and lintel and crossbeam, had to
be of one wood, and so forth. The floor was made of stones, laid
together in different layers, growing smaller and smaller, upon which
mats were placed, one over the other; which also could be made very
fine, and which are excellent to sleep on, being very cool.
I was much struck by the shape of some skulls of natives showing a
peculiar _tent_ or _roof shape_ of head, and extreme squareness of jaw.
The heads are fine, very often, and the type massive. Man and woman tend
to fat apparently, if one may judge of the average types one sees, but
then they are seen in the street or in houses and perhaps well fed. Some
of the young women or girls have great delicacy of expression, and the
line of the jaw and chin separating from the throat is graceful and
refined. There is a pretty tendency, owing to thickness of lip,
apparently, to a shortness of the curve above, that gives a little
disdainful look quite imposing in some of the older and uglier women,
when they are not too fat. The men look like gentle bandits. But there
is a certain _sullen_ look in a great many that is unsatisfactory, and
has grown, I suppose. They probably need firm hands to govern them; and
are certainly not satisfied now; whether stirred on by agitators or by
any real grievance, I of course can’t know. In old times they sent away
to faraway islands for chiefs and rulers. From Samoa and Tahiti rulers
came, some whose names are known, for over this vast space the war
canoes went, two thousand miles and more, and the places of their
departure and arrival bore names indicating their distant relationship.
But some places or islands are missing to-day, which apparently once
rose above the surface, and now are shoals perhaps. One of their rulers,
a sort of demigod, who sailed away one day promising to return in coming
years, they took Cook to be when he appeared, and they called him Lono.
And years before him some Spaniards were left behind, in the hit-or-miss
sailing of early days, and have left certain signs, it is said, in
languages and other things.
For their great voyages the Hawaiians had a knowledge of the winds and
of many stars, six hundred of which bore names.
Wednesday night, September 11th.
To-night it blows again from over the Pali and mountains, the first time
since Sunday. We have had a south wind, which has slowly come round with
rain, back to its old station. We have painted at the Pali, during the
south wind, for it did not then blow against us, and I was able to
sketch without the extreme difficulty that I had feared. We drove up
Monday afternoon in the great heat, clouds hanging over the valley
rather low, so that I feared that we should be covered. Their shadows
hung along the walls of the hills, and made dark circles around the
great spots of sunlight. All varieties of green were around us, in the
foliage and the plants, and the green of the slopes and mountains. We
came up, as before, to the edge of the Pali, suddenly, all before us a
blaze of green, and looked over. No more astounding spread of colour
could be thought of. The blue was intense enough when we saw it against
the green bank before us, imprisoned between that and the warm low
cloud, but it was still more astounding, opening to the furthest
horizon, gradually through every shade to a faint green edge, blotted in
with white clouds, bluish, with bluish shadows, and far away a long,
interminable line of cloud in a violet band (because in shadow, broken
above and below with silvery projections). The sea bluer yet than the
sky, spotted with green in the shoals, and with white in the surf, the
headland of Mokapu stretched out in brilliant grey unnamable; the sand
also of no possible colour; the last range of hills tawny grey, like a
panther-skin, warmed here and there with yellow and with green; a
brilliant oasis of green in centre, like the green of a peacock. Then
near us the intense feathery green of great hills and the billowy
valley, all of one tone, one unbroken green, as if covered with a
drapery, and the same green reflecting the blue above. Now and then red
lines of road, red as vermilion, not only because of red earth, but
because the green vegetation is so deep by contrast; and all this in
partial shadow, except the great distance and the silvery promontory.
And later, far off, half the ocean in absolute calm, repeating the high
clouds of the distance, and their shadows and lights. It was violent as
a whole, but delicate and refined almost to coldness.
Here I had the misfortune to find that the usual trick of bad work and
poor paper in my blocks would prevent my making any adequate record. (I
say adequate--what I mean is plausible.) But we both sat and worked
until sunset and after hours, each not daring to look at anything but in
one direction, there was so much to prevent one’s _doing_ anything. And
at the last moment I went down part of the road toward the base, to see
the entire distance lost as in a dream, great long streamers of mist
apparently blowing away from the face of the Pali. And we returned in
the afterglow, which now that the moon has left us, keeps the whole sky
and landscape in tones like those of some old picture clear and
apparently distinct, but intensely coloured, however colourless it may
seem, for we have no names for tones--so coloured that the lamp-light,
inside the room where I am, seems no warmer than the twilight without,
as if they were painted together, as in one picture the sky is merely a
beautiful background.
Then comes, alas! the great hum of the mosquito, if we are in the wind,
and we have to resort to burning powders if we do not sit in the draught
that blows them away.
Day after to-morrow we shall go to Hawaii in the steamer _Hall_, land on
the south coast, go to the volcano Kilauea and down from there to Hilo.
This afternoon we have heard talk of the situation politically, of the
wrongdoing of demagogues; and also we have seen one of the extraordinary
yellow and red capes that the chiefs wore, made of small rare feathers,
and each little tuft sewed on to plaited fibres and also a _lei_ or
neck-wreath of the same bird feathers, with the addition of some soft
green ones, in divisions all very rare and valuable; and a beautiful
wooden polished spittoon with handle of some exquisite wood light and
dark, which has served to preserve the exuviæ of some chief from the
great danger of capture for incantation or working harm through
sorcery.
HAWAII
Off Island of Hawaii, 13th September, 8 A.M.
We are lying off a little place, Keauhou, while people are landing in
boats from the small steamer that carries us. The shore is broken with
black lava rock, in beds that do not seem high, so flat are they on top.
It is about eight o’clock, and the impression is of full sunlight on the
green of everything. Behind the fringe of shore rises the big slope of
the mountain seen in profile, so gigantic that one only sees a slice of
it at a time; there are, of course, ravines up the hills, and trees and
grass, but from my focus of the square, between the pillars of the roof
of the upper deck, and seated by the guards I see rather shade broken
with sunlight. The sea, of course, at the shore is glittering blue, but
everything else that can cast a shade throws its edges upon the next; so
that I see a black seaside broken up by lava rocks, and near them cocoa
and palm, and some small wharves, or jetties, built out to protect the
smaller beaches, that run back between the rocks. Each break of
projection or recess has its trees, that make the fringe of shade with
patches of sun, which the eye takes in along the water.
There are a few houses strung along, half in light, half in shadow;
three of them are tall grass huts, hay-coloured in the half-shade of the
cocoanuts beside them. Above them are patches of sun on the green slope
where the upper bank or slope behind first flattens into the strong
light. In the shadow, faint whites and pinks and blacks on the dresses
of people waiting for their friends, or watching the steamer. Their
horses and mules and donkeys stand in rows along the houses--or
walls--occasionally they pass into the sunshine. One girl in red runs
(why, heaven only knows--time seems of no possible use), and as she
rises over a rock in the sand, the sun catches her brown feet and legs
and the folds of her floating gown.
These people, I am told, have many of them ridden some miles from our
last landing, at dawn, to meet us again. But there are special
deliveries of people and freight at each place--so many and so much on
board that one can hardly realize where they are stowed. Three full
boatloads at the last place, and one here, of people jammed--dark
Spanish faces, peacock feathers, and red veils on hats; coloured
neckerchiefs, and head and shoulders covered with flowers or leaves that
hang to the waist. There is loud objurgation and chattering, and keeping
the children together, and holding up odds and ends of things not sent
ashore by the other boats that carry goods and household furniture.
[Illustration: BEGINNING OF DESERT, ISLAND OF HAWAII]