fifteen to twenty feet wide, conversing with natives in the bright
sunshine, when suddenly a portentous roaring, “Like the sound of many
waters, or like the noise of the sea when the waves thereof roar,”
fell upon my ears, and looking up-stream, I have seen a column of
turbid waters six feet deep coming down like the flood from a broken
mill-dam. The natives would say to me, “_Awiwi! awiwi!_ o paa oe i ka
wai”--“_Quick! quick!_ or the waters will stop you.”
Rushing down the bank I would cross over, dry-shod, where in two
minutes more there was no longer any passage for man or beast. But I
rarely waited for the rivers to run by. My appointments for preaching
were all sent forward in a line for thirty or sixty miles, designating
the day, and usually the hours, when I would be at a given station, and
by breaking one of these links the whole chain would be disturbed.
It therefore seemed important that every appointment should be kept,
whatever the inconvenience might be to me. In traveling, my change of
raiment was all packed in one calabash, or large gourd, covered by the
half of another; a little food was in a second calabash. With these
gourds one may travel indefinitely in the heaviest rains while all is
dry within. Faithful natives carried my little supplies.
[Sidenote: _Foot-Touring._]
I had several ways of crossing the streams.
1st. When the waters were low, large rocks and boulders, common in all
the water-channels, were left bare, so that with a stick or pole eight
or ten feet long, I leaped from rock to rock over the giddy streams
and crossed dry-shod: these same poles helping me to climb up, and to
let myself down steep precipices, and to leap ditches six to eight
feet wide. 2d. When the streams were not too deep and too swift I
waded them; and 3d, when not too deep, but too swift, I mounted upon
the shoulders of a sturdy aquatic native, holding on to his bushy
hair, when he moved carefully down the slippery bank of the river,
leaning up-stream against a current of ten knots, and moving one foot
at a time, sideways among the slimy boulders in the bottom, and then
bringing the other foot carefully up. Thus slowly feeling his way
across, he would land me safe with a shout and a laugh on the opposite
bank. But this is a fearful way of crossing, for the cataracts are so
numerous, the waters so rapid, and the uneven bottom so slippery, that
the danger of falling is imminent, and the recovery from a fall often
impossible, the current hurrying one swiftly over a precipice into
certain destruction. Both natives and foreigners have thus lost their
lives in these streams, and among them three of the members of the Hilo
church who have traveled and labored and prayed with me.
I once crossed a full and powerful river in this way, not more than
fifty feet above a cataract of 426 feet in height, with a basin forty
feet deep below, where this little Niagara has thundered for ages. A
missionary brother of another station seeing me landed safely, and
knowing that this crossing would save about six miles of hard and muddy
walking, followed me on the shoulders of the same bold native that took
me over. But before he had reached the middle of the rushing flood,
he trembled and cried out with fear. The bearer said, “Hush! hush! be
still, or we perish together.” The brother still trembling, the native
with great difficulty managed to reach a rock in the center of the
river, and on this he seated his burden, commanding him to be quiet
and sit there until he was cool (he was already drenched with rain and
river-spray), when he would take him off, which he did in about ten
minutes and landed him safely by my side.
[Sidenote: _Crossing Torrents._]
This mode of crossing the streams, however, was too dangerous, and I
soon abandoned it.
A fourth mode was for a sufficient number of strong men to form a chain
across the river. They made a line, locking hands on the bank; with
heads bending up-stream entering the water carefully, and moving slowly
until the head of the line reached good foothold near the opposite
bank. With my hands upon the shoulders of the men I passed along this
chain of bones, sinews, and muscles and arrived in safety on the other
side.
The fifth and safest, and in fact the only possible way to cross some
of these rivers when swollen and raging, was to throw a rope across the
stream, and fasten it to trees or rocks on either side; grasping it
firmly with both hands, my feet thrown down-stream, I drew myself along
the line and gained the opposite bank. This I sometimes did without
removing shoes or garments, then walked on to my next station, and
preached in wet clothes, continuing my travels and labors until night;
when in dry wrappings I slept well, and was all ready for work the next
day.
I was once three hours in crossing one river. The day was cold and
rainy, and I was soaked before I entered the stream. This was so wide
at the only possible crossing point, that we were unable to throw a
line across, even with a weight attached to the end of it. The raging,
roaring, and tossing of the waters were fearful, and the sight of
it made me shudder. Kind natives collected on both banks by scores,
with ropes and courage to help. The fearful rapids, running probably
twenty miles an hour, were before us. Fifty feet below us was a fall
of some twenty feet, and about 100 yards further down was a thundering
cataract, where the river was compressed within a narrow gorge with a
clear plunge of about eighty feet.
Our natives tried all their skill and strength, but could not throw
the line across. At length a daring man went up-stream close to a
waterfall, took the end of the rope in his teeth, mounted a rock,
calculated his chances of escape from the cataracts below, and leaped
into the flood; down, down he went quivering and struggling till he
reached the opposite shore only a few feet above the fall, over which
it must have been a fatal plunge had he gone. But by his temerity,
which I should have forbidden, had I known it in season, a passage was
provided for me.
After years had passed, and a little had been done toward making
roads, I purchased a horse, and tried to get him over these streams by
swimming or hauling him over with ropes. Twice when I attempted to go
over in the saddle, his foot caught between two rocks in the middle
of the stream, and horse and rider were saved only by the energy and
fidelity of the natives.
[Sidenote: _Canoe-Trips._]
Once in going up a steep precipice in a narrow pass between a rocky
height on one hand and a stream close on the other, my horse fell over
backward and lay with his head down and his feet in the air, so wedged
and so wounded that he could never have escaped from his position,
had not a company of natives for whom I sent came to the rescue and
extricated the poor, faithful animal from his rocky bed. I escaped
instant death by sliding out of the saddle upon the narrow bank of the
stream, before the back of my horse struck between the rocks. He was so
hurt that I was obliged to leave him to recover.
In order to save time and escape the weariness of the road and the
dangers of the rivers, I sometimes took a canoe at the end of my tours
to return home by the water. This trip required six to eight hours, and
was usually made in the night.
On three occasions my peril was great. One description will suffice
for all; for although the difficulties and escapes were at different
points along a precipitous and lofty sea-wall, yet the causes of
danger were the same, viz.: stormy winds, raging billows, and want of
landing-places.
About midway between our starting-place and Hilo harbor, we were met
by a strong head-wind, with pouring rain and tumultuous waves in a
dark midnight. We were half a mile from land, but could hear the roar
and see the flashing of the white surf as it dashed against the rocky
walls. We could not land, we could not sail, we could not row forward
or backward. All we could do was to keep the prow of the canoe to the
wind, and bail. Foaming seas dashed against our frail cockleshell,
pouring in buckets of brine. Thus we lay about five hours, anxious
as they “who watch for the morning.” At length it dawned; we looked
through the misty twilight to the rock-bound shore where “the waves
dashed high.” A few doors of native huts opened and men crawled out. We
called, but no echo came. We made signals of distress. We were seen and
numbers came down to the cliffs and gazed at us. We waved our garments
for them to come off to our help. They feared, they hesitated. We were
opposite the mouth of a roaring river, where the foam of breakers
dashed in wild fury. At last four naked men came down from the cliff,
plunged into the sea, dived under one towering wave after another,
coming out to breathe between the great rolling billows, and thus
reached our canoe. Ordering the crew to swim to the land, they took
charge of the canoe themselves because they knew the shore. Meanwhile
men stood on the high bluffs with kapa cloth in hand to signal to the
boat-men when to strike for the mouth of the river. They waited long
and watched the tossing waves as they rolled in and thundered upon the
shore, and when at last a less furious wave came behind us, the shore
men waved the signals and cried out, “_Hoi! hoi!_” and as the waves
lifted the stern of our canoe, all the paddles struck the water, while
the steerer kept the canoe straight on her course, and thus mounted on
this crested wave as on an ocean chariot, with the feathery foam flying
around us, we rode triumphantly into the mouth of the river, where we
were received with shouts of gladness by the throng who had gathered to
witness our escape. Then two rows of strong men waded into the surf up
to their arm-pits to receive our canoe and bear it in triumph to the
shore.
[Sidenote: _Puna District._]
Praising the Lord for His goodness, and thanking the kind natives for
their agency in delivering me, I walked the rest of the way home.
The district of Puna lies east and south of Hilo, and its physical
features are remarkably different from those of the neighboring
district.
Its shore line, including its bends and flexures, is more than seventy
miles in extent. For three miles inland from the sea it is almost a
dead level, with a surface of pahoehoe or field lava, and _a-a_ or
scoriaceous lava, interspersed with more or less rich volcanic soil
and tropical verdure, and sprinkled with sand-dunes and a few cone
and pit-craters. Throughout its length it is marked with ancient lava
streams, coming down from Kilauea and entering the sea at different
points along the coast. These lava streams vary in width from half a
mile to two or three miles. From one to three miles from the shore the
land rises rapidly into the great volcanic dome of Mauna Loa (Long
Mountain). The highlands are mostly covered with woods and jungle, and
scarred with rents, pits, and volcanic cones. Everywhere the marks
of terrible volcanic action are visible. The whole district is so
cavernous, so rent with fissures, and so broken by fiery agencies,
that not a single stream of water keeps above-ground to reach the sea.
All the rain-fall is swallowed by the 10,000 crevices, and disappears,
except the little that is held in small pools and basins, waiting for
evaporation. The rains are abundant, and subterranean fountains and
streams are numerous, carrying the waters down to the sea level, and
filling caverns, and bursting up along the shore in springs and rills,
even far out under the sea. Some of these waters are very cold, some
tepid, and some stand at blood heat, furnishing excellent warm baths.
There are large caves near the sea where we enter by dark and crooked
passages, and bathe by torchlight, far underground, in deep and limpid
water.
Puna has many beautiful groves of the cocoa-palm, also breadfruit,
pandanus, and ohia, and where there is soil it produces under
cultivation, besides common vegetables, arrowroot, sugar-cane, coffee,
cotton, oranges, citrons, limes, grapes, and other fruits. On the
highlands, grow wild strawberries, cape gooseberries, and the ohelo, a
delicious berry resembling our whortleberry.
[Sidenote: _Outlying Villages._]
On the shore line of the eastern part of Kau, adjoining Puna, were
several villages, containing from 500 to 700 inhabitants, separated
from the inhabited central and western portions of the district by a
desert of unwatered lava about 15 miles wide, without a single house
or human being. These villages were occasionally visited by the Rev.
Mr. Forbes, then stationed in South Kona; but to reach them required a
long, weary walk over the fields of burning lava, and at his request, I
took them under my charge, thus extending the shore line of my parish
ten miles westward.
IV.
_First Tours in Hilo and Puna--The Work of 1837-38--Spontaneous
Church-building--The Great Awakening--The Volcanic Wave--Pastoral
Experiences and Methods--The Ingathering._
I made my first tours of Hilo and Puna during the latter part of my
first half year on Hawaii. In 1836 I had gained so much in the language
as to be able to converse, preach, and pray with comfort and with
apparent effect on my audiences.
On my arrival in Hilo, the number of church members was twenty-three,
all living in the town. A considerable portion of our time was then
devoted to the schools. Mr. and Mrs. Lyman were heartily engaged in
the boys’ boarding-school. Mrs. Coan was already teaching a day-school
of 140 children, and I a training-school of 90 teachers to supply the
schools of Hilo and Puna.
Giving a vacation to my pupils, I set off Nov. 29, 1836, on a tour
around the island. This was made on foot, with the exception of a
little sailing in a canoe down the coast of Kona. My companions were
two or three natives, to act as guides and porters. On reaching the
western coast of Kau, I visited all the villages along the shore,
preaching and exhorting everywhere. The people came out, men, women,
and children, in crowds, and listened with great attention. Here I
preached three, four, and five times a day, and had much personal
conversation with the natives on things pertaining to the kingdom of
God.
[Sidenote: _The Hearers._]
On reaching the western boundaries of Puna, my labors became more
abundant. I had visited this people before, and had noticed a hopeful
interest in a number of them. Now they rallied in masses, and were
eager to hear the Word. Many listened with tears, and after the
preaching, when I supposed they would return to their homes and give
me rest, they remained and crowded around me so earnestly, that I had
no time to eat, and in places where I spent my nights they filled the
house to its entire capacity, leaving scores outside who could not
enter. All wanted to hear more of the “Word of Life.” At ten or eleven
o’clock I would advise them to go home and to sleep. Some would retire,
but more remain until midnight. At cock-crowing the house would be
again crowded, with as many more outside.
At one place before I reached the point where I was to spend a Sabbath,
there was a line of four villages not more than half a mile apart.
Every village begged for a sermon and for personal conversation.
Commencing at daylight I preached in three of them before breakfast, at
10 +A.M.+ When the meeting closed at one village, most of the people
ran on to the next, and thus my congregation increased rapidly from
hour to hour. Many were “pricked in their hearts” and were inquiring
what they should do to be saved.
Sunday came and I was now in the most populous part of Puna. Multitudes
came out to hear the Gospel. The blind were led; the maimed, the aged
and decrepit, and many invalids were brought on the backs of their
friends. There was great joy and much weeping in the assembly. Two
days were spent in this place, and ten sermons preached, while almost
all the intervals between the public services were spent in personal
conversation with the crowds which pressed around me.
Many of the people who then wept and prayed proved true converts to
Christ; most of them have died in the faith, and a few still live as
steadfast witnesses to the power of the Gospel.
Among these converts was the High Priest of the volcano. He was more
than six feet high and of lofty bearing. He had been an idolater, a
drunkard, an adulterer, a robber, and a murderer. For their _kapas_,
for a pig or a fowl he had killed men on the road, whenever they
hesitated to yield to his demands. But he became penitent, and appeared
honest and earnest in seeking the Lord.
His sister was more haughty and stubborn. She was High Priestess of the
volcano. She, too, was tall and majestic in her bearing. For a long
time she refused to bow to the claims of the Gospel; but at length she
yielded, confessed herself a sinner and under the authority of a higher
Power, and with her brother became a docile member of the church.
[Sidenote: _Growing Interest._]
During this tour of thirty days I examined twenty schools with an
aggregate of 1,200 pupils.
After my return, congregations at the center increased in numbers and
in interest. Meetings for parents, for women, for church members, for
children, were frequent and full. Soon scores and hundreds who had
heard the Gospel in Kau, Puna, and Hilo, came into the town to hear
more. During all the years of 1837-8, Hilo was crowded with strangers;
whole families and whole villages in the country were left, with the
exception of a few of the old people, and in some instances even
the aged and the feeble were brought in on litters from a distance
of thirty or fifty miles. Little cabins studded the place like the
camps of an army, and we estimated that our population was increased
to 10,000 souls. Those who remained some time, fished, and planted
potatoes and taro for food. Our great native house of worship, nearly
200 feet long, by about eighty-five feet wide, with a lofty roof of
thatch, was crowded almost to suffocation, while hundreds remained
outside unable to enter. This sea of faces, all hushed except when
sighs and sobs burst out here and there, was a scene to melt the
heart. The word fell with power, and sometimes as the feeling deepened,
the vast audience was moved and swayed like a forest in a mighty wind.
The word became like the “fire and the hammer” of the Almighty, and it
pierced like a two-edged sword. Hopeful converts were multiplied and
“there was great joy in the city.”
Finding the place of our worship “too strait” for the increasing
multitudes, our people, of their own accord and without the knowledge
of their teachers, went up into the forest three to five miles, with
axes, and with ropes made of vines and bark of the hibiscus, cut down
trees of suitable size and length for posts, rafters, etc., and hauled
them down through mud and jungle, and over streams and hillocks to the
town. Seeing a very large heap of this timber, I inquired what this
meant. The reply was, “We will build a second house of worship so that
the people may all be sheltered from sun and rain on the Sabbath. And
this is our thought; all of the people of Hilo shall meet in the larger
house, where you will preach to them in the morning, during which time
the people of Puna and Kau will meet for prayer in the smaller house,
and in the afternoon these congregations shall exchange places, and
you will preach to the Puna and Kau people; thus all will hear the
minister.”
Several thousands, both men and women, took hold of the work, and in
about three weeks from the commencement of the hauling of the timber,
the house was finished and a joyful crowd of about 2,000 filled it on
the Sabbath.
[Sidenote: _The Congregations._]
Neither of the houses had floors or seats. The ground was beaten hard
and covered from week to week with fresh grass.
When we wished to economize room, or seat the greatest possible number,
skilled men were employed to arrange the people standing in compact
rows as tight as it was possible to crowd them, the men and women being
separated, and when the house was thus filled with these compacted
ranks, the word was given them to _sit down_, which they did, a mass of
living humanity, such perhaps as was never seen except on Hawaii.
During these years my tours through the extended parish were not given
up. Nearly every person left in the villages came to the preaching
stations. There were places along the routes where there were no houses
near the trail, but where a few families were living half a mile or
more inland. In such places, the few dwellers would come down to the
path leading their blind, and carrying their sick and aged upon their
backs, and lay them down under a tree if there was one near, or upon
the naked rocks, that they might hear of a Saviour. It was often
affecting to see these withered and trembling hands reached out to
grasp the hand of the teacher, and to hear the palsied, the blind, and
the lame begging him to stop awhile and tell them the story of Jesus.
These pleas could not be resisted, for the thought would instantly
arise, “This may be the _last time_.” And so it often was, for on my
next tour some of them had gone never to return. It was a comforting
thought that they had been told of “the Lamb of God who taketh away the
sin of the world,” and to feel a sweet assurance from their tears of
joy and eager reception of the truth that they had found “Him of whom
Moses and the Prophets wrote.”
Time swept on; the work deepened and widened. Thousands on thousands
thronged the courts of the Lord. All eastern and southern Hawaii was
like a sea in motion. Waimea, Hamakua, Kohala, Kona, and the other
islands of the group, were moved. Reporting and inquiring letters
circulated from post to post, and from island to island. One asked
another, “What do these things mean?” and the reply was, “What
indeed?” Some said that the Hawaiians were a peculiar people, and very
hypocritical, so debased in mind and heart that they could not receive
any true conception of the true God, or of spiritual things; even their
language was wanting in terms to convey ideas of sacred truth; we
must not hope for evangelical conversions among them. But most of the
laborers redoubled their efforts, were earnest in prayer, and worked on
in faith. Everywhere the trumpet of jubilee sounded long and loud, and
“as clouds and as doves to their windows,” so ransomed sinners flocked
to Christ.
[Sidenote: _Revival Interest._]
I had seen great and powerful awakenings under the preaching of
Nettleton and Finney, and like doctrines, prayers, and efforts seemed
to produce like fruits among this people.
My precious wife, whose soul was melted with love and longings for the
weeping natives, felt that to doubt it was the work of the Spirit, was
to grieve the Holy Ghost and to provoke Him to depart from us.
On some occasions there were physical demonstrations which commanded
attention. Among the serious and anxious inquirers who came to our
house by day and by night, there were individuals who, while listening
to a very plain and kind conversation, would begin to tremble and soon
fall helpless to the floor. At one time, when I was holding a series of
outdoor meetings in a populous part of Puna, a remarkable manifestation
of this kind occurred. A very large concourse were seated on the grass,
and I was standing in the center preaching “Repentance toward God and
faith in the Lord Jesus.” Of a sudden, a man who had been gazing with
intense interest at the preacher, burst out in a fervent prayer, with
streaming tears, saying: “Lord, have mercy on me; I am dead in sin.”
His weeping was so loud, and his trembling so great, that the whole
congregation was moved as by a common sympathy. Many wept aloud, and
many commenced praying together. The scene was such as I had never
before witnessed. I stood dumb in the midst of this weeping, wailing,
praying multitude, not being able to make myself heard for about twenty
minutes. When the noise was hushed, I continued my address with words
of caution, lest they should feel that this kind of demonstration
atoned for their sins, and rendered them acceptable before God. I
assured them that all the Lord required was godly sorrow for the past,
present faith in Christ, and henceforth faithful, filial, and cheerful
obedience. A calm came over the multitude, and we felt that “the Lord
was there.”