“But Admiral, in saying that this was the first stone thrown, and that

this precipitated the war, you have overlooked a circumstance which you

are perfectly familiar with, but which has escaped your memory. Now I

grant you that what you have stated is correct in every detail—to wit:

that on the 16th of October, 1860, two Massachusetts clergymen, named

Waite and Granger, went in disguise to the house of John Moody, in

Rockport, at dead of night, and dragged forth two southern women and

their two little children, and after tarring and feathering them

conveyed them to Boston and burned them alive in the State House square;

and I also grant your proposition that this deed is what led to the

secession of South Carolina on the 20th of December following. Very

well.” [Here the company were pleasantly surprised to hear Williams

proceed to come back at the Admiral with his own invincible

weapon—clean, pure, _manufactured history_, without a word of truth in

it.] “Very well, I say. But Admiral, why overlook the Willis and Morgan

case in South Carolina? You are too well informed a man not to know all

about that circumstance. Your arguments and your conversations have

shown you to be intimately conversant with every detail of this national

quarrel. You develop matters of history every day that show plainly that

you are no smatterer in it, content to nibble about the surface, but a

man who has searched the depths and possessed yourself of everything

that has a bearing upon the great question. Therefore, let me just

recall to your mind that Willis and Morgan case—though I see by your

face that the whole thing is already passing through your memory at this

moment. On the 12th of August, 1860, _two months_ before the Waite and

Granger affair, two South Carolina clergymen, named John H. Morgan and

Winthrop L. Willis, one a Methodist and the other an Old School Baptist,

disguised themselves, and went at midnight to the house of a planter

named Thompson—Archibald F. Thompson, Vice President under Thomas

Jefferson,—and took thence, at midnight, his widowed aunt, (a Northern

woman,) and her adopted child, an orphan named Mortimer Highie,

afflicted with epilepsy and suffering at the time from white swelling on

one of his legs, and compelled to walk on crutches in consequence; and

the two ministers, in spite of the pleadings of the victims, dragged

them to the bush, tarred and feathered them, and afterward burned them

at the stake in the city of Charleston. You remember perfectly well what

a stir it made; you remember perfectly well that even the Charleston

_Courier_ stigmatized the act as being unpleasant, of questionable

propriety, and scarcely justifiable, and likewise that it would not be

matter of surprise if retaliation ensued. And you remember also, that

this thing was the _cause_ of the Massachusetts outrage. Who, indeed,

were the two Massachusetts ministers? and who were the two Southern

women they burned? I do not need to remind _you_, Admiral, with your

intimate knowledge of history, that Waite was the nephew of the woman

burned in Charleston; that Granger was her cousin in the second degree,

and that the woman they burned in Boston was the wife of John H. Morgan,

and the still loved but divorced wife of Winthrop L. Willis. Now,

Admiral, it is only fair that you should acknowledge that the first

provocation came from the Southern preachers and that the Northern ones

were justified in retaliating. In your arguments you never yet have

shown the least disposition to withhold a just verdict or be in anywise

unfair, when authoritative history condemned your position, and

therefore I have no hesitation in asking you to take the original blame

from the Massachusetts ministers, in this matter, and transfer it to the

South Carolina clergymen where it justly belongs.”

453.jpg (44K)

The Admiral was conquered. This sweet spoken creature who swallowed his

fraudulent history as if it were the bread of life; basked in his

furious blasphemy as if it were generous sunshine; found only calm,

even-handed justice in his rampart partisanship; and flooded him with

invented history so sugarcoated with flattery and deference that there

was no rejecting it, was “too many” for him. He stammered some awkward,

profane sentences about the— — — —Willis and Morgan business having

escaped his memory, but that he “remembered it now,” and then, under

pretence of giving Fan some medicine for an imaginary cough, drew out of

the battle and went away, a vanquished man. Then cheers and laughter

went up, and Williams, the ship’s benefactor was a hero. The news went

about the vessel, champagne was ordered, and enthusiastic reception

instituted in the smoking room, and everybody flocked thither to shake

hands with the conqueror. The wheelman said afterward, that the Admiral

stood up behind the pilot house and “ripped and cursed all to himself”

till he loosened the smokestack guys and becalmed the mainsail.

The Admiral’s power was broken. After that, if he began argument,

somebody would bring Williams, and the old man would grow weak and begin

to quiet down at once. And as soon as he was done, Williams in his

dulcet, insinuating way, would invent some history (referring for proof,

to the old man’s own excellent memory and to copies of “The Old Guard”

known not to be in his possession) that would turn the tables completely

and leave the Admiral all abroad and helpless. By and by he came to so

dread Williams and his gilded tongue that he would stop talking when he

saw him approach, and finally ceased to mention politics altogether, and

from that time forward there was entire peace and serenity in the ship.

CHAPTER LXIII.

On a certain bright morning the Islands hove in sight, lying low on the

lonely sea, and everybody climbed to the upper deck to look. After two

thousand miles of watery solitude the vision was a welcome one. As we

approached, the imposing promontory of Diamond Head rose up out of the

ocean its rugged front softened by the hazy distance, and presently the

details of the land began to make themselves manifest: first the line of

beach; then the plumed coacoanut trees of the tropics; then cabins of

the natives; then the white town of Honolulu, said to contain between

twelve and fifteen thousand inhabitants spread over a dead level; with

streets from twenty to thirty feet wide, solid and level as a floor,

most of them straight as a line and few as crooked as a corkscrew.

455.jpg (98K)

The further I traveled through the town the better I liked it. Every

step revealed a new contrast—disclosed something I was unaccustomed to.

In place of the grand mud-colored brown fronts of San Francisco, I saw

dwellings built of straw, adobies, and cream-colored pebble-and-shell-

conglomerated coral, cut into oblong blocks and laid in cement; also a

great number of neat white cottages, with green window-shutters; in

place of front yards like billiard-tables with iron fences around them,

I saw these homes surrounded by ample yards, thickly clad with green

grass, and shaded by tall trees, through whose dense foliage the sun

could scarcely penetrate; in place of the customary geranium, calla

lily, etc., languishing in dust and general debility, I saw luxurious

banks and thickets of flowers, fresh as a meadow after a rain, and

glowing with the richest dyes; in place of the dingy horrors of San

Francisco’s pleasure grove, the “Willows,” I saw huge-bodied, wide-

spreading forest trees, with strange names and stranger appearance—trees

that cast a shadow like a thunder-cloud, and were able to stand alone

without being tied to green poles; in place of gold fish, wiggling

around in glass globes, assuming countless shades and degrees of

distortion through the magnifying and diminishing qualities of their

transparent prison houses, I saw cats—Tom-cats, Mary Ann cats, long-

tailed cats, bob-tailed cats, blind cats, one-eyed cats, wall-eyed cats,

cross-eyed cats, gray cats, black cats, white cats, yellow cats, striped

cats, spotted cats, tame cats, wild cats, singed cats, individual cats,

groups of cats, platoons of cats, companies of cats, regiments of cats,

armies of cats, multitudes of cats, millions of cats, and all of them

sleek, fat, lazy and sound asleep. I looked on a multitude of people,

some white, in white coats, vests, pantaloons, even white cloth shoes,

made snowy with chalk duly laid on every morning; but the majority of

the people were almost as dark as negroes—women with comely features,

fine black eyes, rounded forms, inclining to the voluptuous, clad in a

single bright red or white garment that fell free and unconfined from

shoulder to heel, long black hair falling loose, gypsy hats, encircled

with wreaths of natural flowers of a brilliant carmine tint; plenty of

dark men in various costumes, and some with nothing on but a battered

stove-pipe hat tilted on the nose, and a very scant breech-

clout;—certain smoke-dried children were clothed in nothing but

sunshine—a very neat fitting and picturesque apparel indeed.

456.jpg (25K)

In place of roughs and rowdies staring and blackguarding on the corners,

I saw long-haired, saddle-colored Sandwich Island maidens sitting on the

ground in the shade of corner houses, gazing indolently at whatever or

whoever happened along; instead of wretched cobble-stone pavements, I

walked on a firm foundation of coral, built up from the bottom of the

sea by the absurd but persevering insect of that name, with a light

layer of lava and cinders overlying the coral, belched up out of

fathomless perdition long ago through the seared and blackened crater

that stands dead and harmless in the distance now; instead of cramped

and crowded street-cars, I met dusky native women sweeping by, free as

the wind, on fleet horses and astride, with gaudy riding-sashes,

streaming like banners behind them; instead of the combined stenches of

Chinadom and Brannan street slaughter-houses, I breathed the balmy

fragrance of jessamine, oleander, and the Pride of India; in place of

the hurry and bustle and noisy confusion of San Francisco, I moved in

the midst of a Summer calm as tranquil as dawn in the Garden of Eden; in

place of the Golden City’s skirting sand hills and the placid bay, I saw

on the one side a frame-work of tall, precipitous mountains close at

hand, clad in refreshing green, and cleft by deep, cool, chasm-like

valleys—and in front the grand sweep of the ocean: a brilliant,

transparent green near the shore, bound and bordered by a long white

line of foamy spray dashing against the reef, and further out the dead

blue water of the deep sea, flecked with “white caps,” and in the far

horizon a single, lonely sail—a mere accent-mark to emphasize a

slumberous calm and a solitude that were without sound or limit. When

the sun sunk down—the one intruder from other realms and persistent in

suggestions of them—it was tranced luxury to sit in the perfumed air and

forget that there was any world but these enchanted islands.

457.jpg (43K)

It was such ecstacy to dream, and dream—till you got a bite. A scorpion

bite. Then the first duty was to get up out of the grass and kill the

scorpion; and the next to bathe the bitten place with alcohol or brandy;

and the next to resolve to keep out of the grass in future. Then came an

adjournment to the bed-chamber and the pastime of writing up the day’s

journal with one hand and the destruction of mosquitoes with the other—a

whole community of them at a slap. Then, observing an enemy

approaching,—a hairy tarantula on stilts—why not set the spittoon on

him? It is done, and the projecting ends of his paws give a luminous

idea of the magnitude of his reach. Then to bed and become a promenade

for a centipede with forty-two legs on a side and every foot hot enough

to burn a hole through a raw-hide. More soaking with alcohol, and a

resolution to examine the bed before entering it, in future. Then wait,

and suffer, till all the mosquitoes in the neighborhood have crawled in

under the bar, then slip out quickly, shut them in and sleep peacefully

on the floor till morning. Meantime it is comforting to curse the

tropics in occasional wakeful intervals.

We had an abundance of fruit in Honolulu, of course. Oranges, pine-

apples, bananas, strawberries, lemons, limes, mangoes, guavas, melons,

and a rare and curious luxury called the chirimoya, which is

deliciousness itself. Then there is the tamarind. I thought tamarinds

were made to eat, but that was probably not the idea. I ate several, and

it seemed to me that they were rather sour that year. They pursed up my

lips, till they resembled the stem-end of a tomato, and I had to take my

sustenance through a quill for twenty-four hours.

They sharpened my teeth till I could have shaved with them, and gave

them a “wire edge” that I was afraid would stay; but a citizen said “no,

it will come off when the enamel does”—which was comforting, at any

rate. I found, afterward, that only strangers eat tamarinds—but they

only eat them once.

458.jpg (145K)

CHAPTER LXIV.

In my diary of our third day in Honolulu, I find this:

I am probably the most sensitive man in Hawaii to-night—especially about

sitting down in the presence of my betters. I have ridden fifteen or

twenty miles on horse-back since 5 P.M. and to tell the honest truth, I

have a delicacy about sitting down at all.

An excursion to Diamond Head and the King’s Coacoanut Grove was planned

to-day—time, 4:30 P.M.—the party to consist of half a dozen gentlemen

and three ladies. They all started at the appointed hour except myself.

I was at the Government prison, (with Captain Fish and another

whaleship-skipper, Captain Phillips,) and got so interested in its

examination that I did not notice how quickly the time was passing.

Somebody remarked that it was twenty minutes past five o’clock, and that

woke me up. It was a fortunate circumstance that Captain Phillips was

along with his “turn out,” as he calls a top-buggy that Captain Cook

brought here in 1778, and a horse that was here when Captain Cook came.

Captain Phillips takes a just pride in his driving and in the speed of

his horse, and to his passion for displaying them I owe it that we were

only sixteen minutes coming from the prison to the American Hotel—a

distance which has been estimated to be over half a mile. But it took

some fearful driving. The Captain’s whip came down fast, and the blows

started so much dust out of the horse’s hide that during the last half

of the journey we rode through an impenetrable fog, and ran by a pocket

compass in the hands of Captain Fish, a whaler of twenty-six years

experience, who sat there through the perilous voyage as self-possessed

as if he had been on the euchre-deck of his own ship, and calmly said,

“Port your helm—port,” from time to time, and “Hold her a little

free—steady—so—so,” and “Luff—hard down to starboard!” and never once

lost his presence of mind or betrayed the least anxiety by voice or

manner. When we came to anchor at last, and Captain Phillips looked at

his watch and said, “Sixteen minutes—I told you it was in her! that’s

over three miles an hour!” I could see he felt entitled to a compliment,

and so I said I had never seen lightning go like that horse. And I never

had.

The landlord of the American said the party had been gone nearly an

hour, but that he could give me my choice of several horses that could

overtake them. I said, never mind—I preferred a safe horse to a fast

one—I would like to have an excessively gentle horse—a horse with no

spirit whatever—a lame one, if he had such a thing. Inside of five

minutes I was mounted, and perfectly satisfied with my outfit. I had no

time to label him “This is a horse,” and so if the public took him for a

sheep I cannot help it. I was satisfied, and that was the main thing. I

could see that he had as many fine points as any man’s horse, and so I

hung my hat on one of them, behind the saddle, and swabbed the

perspiration from my face and started. I named him after this island,

“Oahu” (pronounced O-waw-hee). The first gate he came to he started in;

I had neither whip nor spur, and so I simply argued the case with him.

He resisted argument, but ultimately yielded to insult and abuse. He

backed out of that gate and steered for another one on the other side of

the street. I triumphed by my former process. Within the next six

hundred yards he crossed the street fourteen times and attempted

thirteen gates, and in the meantime the tropical sun was beating down

and threatening to cave the top of my head in, and I was literally

dripping with perspiration. He abandoned the gate business after that

and went along peaceably enough, but absorbed in meditation. I noticed

this latter circumstance, and it soon began to fill me with

apprehension. I said to my self, this creature is planning some new

outrage, some fresh deviltry or other—no horse ever thought over a

subject so profoundly as this one is doing just for nothing. The more

this thing preyed upon my mind the more uneasy I became, until the

suspense became almost unbearable and I dismounted to see if there was

anything wild in his eye—for I had heard that the eye of this noblest of

our domestic animals is very expressive.

461.jpg (86K)

I cannot describe what a load of anxiety was lifted from my mind when I

found that he was only asleep. I woke him up and started him into a

faster walk, and then the villainy of his nature came out again. He

tried to climb over a stone wall, five or six feet high. I saw that I

must apply force to this horse, and that I might as well begin first as

last. I plucked a stout switch from a tamarind tree, and the moment he

saw it, he surrendered. He broke into a convulsive sort of a canter,

which had three short steps in it and one long one, and reminded me

alternately of the clattering shake of the great earthquake, and the

sweeping plunging of the _Ajax_ in a storm.

And now there can be no fitter occasion than the present to pronounce a

left-handed blessing upon the man who invented the American saddle.

There is no seat to speak of about it—one might as well sit in a

shovel—and the stirrups are nothing but an ornamental nuisance. If I

were to write down here all the abuse I expended on those stirrups, it

would make a large book, even without pictures. Sometimes I got one

foot so far through, that the stirrup partook of the nature of an

anklet; sometimes both feet were through, and I was handcuffed by the

legs; and sometimes my feet got clear out and left the stirrups wildly

dangling about my shins. Even when I was in proper position and

carefully balanced upon the balls of my feet, there was no comfort in

it, on account of my nervous dread that they were going to slip one way

or the other in a moment. But the subject is too exasperating to write

about.

A mile and a half from town, I came to a grove of tall cocoanut trees,

with clean, branchless stems reaching straight up sixty or seventy feet

and topped with a spray of green foliage sheltering clusters of cocoa-

nuts—not more picturesque than a forest of collossal ragged parasols,

with bunches of magnified grapes under them, would be.

I once heard a gouty northern invalid say that a cocoanut tree might be

poetical, possibly it was; but it looked like a feather-duster struck by

lightning. I think that describes it better than a picture—and yet,

without any question, there is something fascinating about a cocoa-nut

tree—and graceful, too.

462.jpg (29K)

About a dozen cottages, some frame and the others of native grass,

nestled sleepily in the shade here and there. The grass cabins are of a

grayish color, are shaped much like our own cottages, only with higher

and steeper roofs usually, and are made of some kind of weed strongly

bound together in bundles. The roofs are very thick, and so are the

walls; the latter have square holes in them for windows. At a little

distance these cabins have a furry appearance, as if they might be made

of bear skins. They are very cool and pleasant inside. The King’s flag

was flying from the roof of one of the cottages, and His Majesty was

probably within. He owns the whole concern thereabouts, and passes his

time there frequently, on sultry days “laying off.” The spot is called

“The King’s Grove.”

Near by is an interesting ruin—the meagre remains of an ancient heathen

temple—a place where human sacrifices were offered up in those old

bygone days when the simple child of nature, yielding momentarily to sin

when sorely tempted, acknowledged his error when calm reflection had

shown it him, and came forward with noble frankness and offered up his

grandmother as an atoning sacrifice—in those old days when the luckless

sinner could keep on cleansing his conscience and achieving periodical

happiness as long as his relations held out; long, long before the

missionaries braved a thousand privations to come and make them

permanently miserable by telling them how beautiful and how blissful a

place heaven is, and how nearly impossible it is to get there; and

showed the poor native how dreary a place perdition is and what

unnecessarily liberal facilities there are for going to it; showed him

how, in his ignorance he had gone and fooled away all his kinfolks to no

purpose; showed him what rapture it is to work all day long for fifty

cents to buy food for next day with, as compared with fishing for

pastime and lolling in the shade through eternal Summer, and eating of

the bounty that nobody labored to provide but Nature. How sad it is to

think of the multitudes who have gone to their graves in this beautiful

island and never knew there was a hell!

This ancient temple was built of rough blocks of lava, and was simply a

roofless inclosure a hundred and thirty feet long and seventy

wide—nothing but naked walls, very thick, but not much higher than a

man’s head. They will last for ages no doubt, if left unmolested. Its

three altars and other sacred appurtenances have crumbled and passed

away years ago. It is said that in the old times thousands of human

beings were slaughtered here, in the presence of naked and howling

savages. If these mute stones could speak, what tales they could tell,

what pictures they could describe, of fettered victims writhing under

the knife; of massed forms straining forward out of the gloom, with

ferocious faces lit up by the sacrificial fires; of the background of

ghostly trees; of the dark pyramid of Diamond Head standing sentinel

over the uncanny scene, and the peaceful moon looking down upon it

through rifts in the cloud-rack!

When Kamehameha (pronounced Ka-may-ha-may-ah) the Great—who was a sort

of a Napoleon in military genius and uniform success—invaded this island

of Oahu three quarters of a century ago, and exterminated the army sent

to oppose him, and took full and final possession of the country, he

searched out the dead body of the King of Oahu, and those of the

principal chiefs, and impaled their heads on the walls of this temple.

Those were savage times when this old slaughter-house was in its prime.

The King and the chiefs ruled the common herd with a rod of iron; made

them gather all the provisions the masters needed; build all the houses

and temples; stand all the expenses, of whatever kind; take kicks and

cuffs for thanks; drag out lives well flavored with misery, and then

suffer death for trifling offences or yield up their lives on the

sacrificial altars to purchase favors from the gods for their hard

rulers. The missionaries have clothed them, educated them, broken up the

tyrannous authority of their chiefs, and given them freedom and the

right to enjoy whatever their hands and brains produce with equal laws

for all, and punishment for all alike who transgress them. The contrast

is so strong—the benefit conferred upon this people by the missionaries

is so prominent, so palpable and so unquestionable, that the frankest

compliment I can pay them, and the best, is simply to point to the

condition of the Sandwich Islanders of Captain Cook’s time, and their

condition to-day.

Their work speaks for itself.

CHAPTER LXV.

By and by, after a rugged climb, we halted on the summit of a hill which

commanded a far-reaching view. The moon rose and flooded mountain and

valley and ocean with a mellow radiance, and out of the shadows of the

foliage the distant lights of Honolulu glinted like an encampment of

fireflies. The air was heavy with the fragrance of flowers. The halt was

brief.—Gayly laughing and talking, the party galloped on, and I clung to

the pommel and cantered after. Presently we came to a place where no

grass grew—a wide expanse of deep sand. They said it was an old battle

ground. All around everywhere, not three feet apart, the bleached bones

of men gleamed white in the moonlight. We picked up a lot of them for

mementoes. I got quite a number of arm bones and leg bones—of great

chiefs, may be, who had fought savagely in that fearful battle in the

old days, when blood flowed like wine where we now stood—and wore the

choicest of them out on Oahu afterward, trying to make him go. All sorts

of bones could be found except skulls; but a citizen said, irreverently,

that there had been an unusual number of “skull-hunters” there lately—a

species of sportsmen I had never heard of before.

Nothing whatever is known about this place—its story is a secret that

will never be revealed. The oldest natives make no pretense of being

possessed of its history. They say these bones were here when they were

children. They were here when their grandfathers were children—but how

they came here, they can only conjecture. Many people believe this spot

to be an ancient battle-ground, and it is usual to call it so; and they

believe that these skeletons have lain for ages just where their

proprietors fell in the great fight. Other people believe that

Kamehameha I. fought his first battle here. On this point, I have heard

a story, which may have been taken from one of the numerous books which

have been written concerning these islands—I do not know where the

narrator got it. He said that when Kamehameha (who was at first merely a

subordinate chief on the island of Hawaii), landed here, he brought a

large army with him, and encamped at Waikiki. The Oahuans marched

against him, and so confident were they of success that they readily

acceded to a demand of their priests that they should draw a line where

these bones now lie, and take an oath that, if forced to retreat at all,

they would never retreat beyond this boundary. The priests told them

that death and everlasting punishment would overtake any who violated

the oath, and the march was resumed. Kamehameha drove them back step by

step; the priests fought in the front rank and exhorted them both by

voice and inspiriting example to remember their oath—to die, if need be,

but never cross the fatal line. The struggle was manfully maintained,

but at last the chief priest fell, pierced to the heart with a spear,

and the unlucky omen fell like a blight upon the brave souls at his

back; with a triumphant shout the invaders pressed forward—the line was

crossed—the offended gods deserted the despairing army, and, accepting

the doom their perjury had brought upon them, they broke and fled over

the plain where Honolulu stands now—up the beautiful Nuuanu

Valley—paused a moment, hemmed in by precipitous mountains on either

hand and the frightful precipice of the Pari in front, and then were

driven over—a sheer plunge of six hundred feet!

The story is pretty enough, but Mr. Jarves’ excellent history says the

Oahuans were intrenched in Nuuanu Valley; that Kamehameha ousted them,

routed them, pursued them up the valley and drove them over the

precipice. He makes no mention of our bone-yard at all in his book.

Impressed by the profound silence and repose that rested over the

beautiful landscape, and being, as usual, in the rear, I gave voice to

my thoughts. I said:

“What a picture is here slumbering in the solemn glory of the moon! How

strong the rugged outlines of the dead volcano stand out against the

clear sky! What a snowy fringe marks the bursting of the surf over the

long, curved reef! How calmly the dim city sleeps yonder in the plain!

How soft the shadows lie upon the stately mountains that border the

dream-haunted Mauoa Valley! What a grand pyramid of billowy clouds

towers above the storied Pari! How the grim warriors of the past seem

flocking in ghostly squadrons to their ancient battlefield again—how the

wails of the dying well up from the—”

At this point the horse called Oahu sat down in the sand. Sat down to

listen, I suppose. Never mind what he heard, I stopped apostrophising

and convinced him that I was not a man to allow contempt of Court on the

part of a horse. I broke the back-bone of a Chief over his rump and set

out to join the cavalcade again.

467.jpg (33K)

Very considerably fagged out we arrived in town at 9 o’clock at night,

myself in the lead—for when my horse finally came to understand that he

was homeward bound and hadn’t far to go, he turned his attention

strictly to business.

This is a good time to drop in a paragraph of information. There is no

regular livery stable in Honolulu, or, indeed, in any part of the

Kingdom of Hawaii; therefore unless you are acquainted with wealthy

residents (who all have good horses), you must hire animals of the

wretchedest description from the Kanakas. (i.e. natives.) Any horse you

hire, even though it be from a white man, is not often of much account,

because it will be brought in for you from some ranch, and has

necessarily been leading a hard life. If the Kanakas who have been

caring for him (inveterate riders they are) have not ridden him half to

death every day themselves, you can depend upon it they have been doing

the same thing by proxy, by clandestinely hiring him out. At least, so I

am informed. The result is, that no horse has a chance to eat, drink,

rest, recuperate, or look well or feel well, and so strangers go about

the Islands mounted as I was to-day.

In hiring a horse from a Kanaka, you must have all your eyes about you,

because you can rest satisfied that you are dealing with a shrewd

unprincipled rascal. You may leave your door open and your trunk

unlocked as long as you please, and he will not meddle with your

property; he has no important vices and no inclination to commit robbery

on a large scale; but if he can get ahead of you in the horse business,

he will take a genuine delight in doing it. This trait is

characteristic of horse jockeys, the world over, is it not? He will

overcharge you if he can; he will hire you a fine-looking horse at night

(anybody’s—may be the King’s, if the royal steed be in convenient view),

and bring you the mate to my Oahu in the morning, and contend that it is

the same animal. If you make trouble, he will get out by saying it was

not himself who made the bargain with you, but his brother, “who went

out in the country this morning.” They have always got a “brother” to

shift the responsibility upon. A victim said to one of these fellows one

day:

“But I know I hired the horse of you, because I noticed that scar on

your cheek.”

The reply was not bad: “Oh, yes—yes—my brother all same—we twins!”

469.jpg (81K)

A friend of mine, J. Smith, hired a horse yesterday, the Kanaka

warranting him to be in excellent condition.

Smith had a saddle and blanket of his own, and he ordered the Kanaka to

put these on the horse. The Kanaka protested that he was perfectly

willing to trust the gentleman with the saddle that was already on the

animal, but Smith refused to use it. The change was made; then Smith

noticed that the Kanaka had only changed the saddles, and had left the

original blanket on the horse; he said he forgot to change the blankets,

and so, to cut the bother short, Smith mounted and rode away. The horse

went lame a mile from town, and afterward got to cutting up some

extraordinary capers. Smith got down and took off the saddle, but the

blanket stuck fast to the horse—glued to a procession of raw places. The

Kanaka’s mysterious conduct stood explained.

470.jpg (33K)

Another friend of mine bought a pretty good horse from a native, a day

or two ago, after a tolerably thorough examination of the animal. He

discovered to-day that the horse was as blind as a bat, in one eye. He

meant to have examined that eye, and came home with a general notion

that he had done it; but he remembers now that every time he made the

attempt his attention was called to something else by his victimizer.

One more instance, and then I will pass to something else. I am informed

that when a certain Mr. L., a visiting stranger, was here, he bought a

pair of very respectable-looking match horses from a native. They were

in a little stable with a partition through the middle of it—one horse

in each apartment. Mr. L. examined one of them critically through a

window (the Kanaka’s “brother” having gone to the country with the key),

and then went around the house and examined the other through a window

on the other side. He said it was the neatest match he had ever seen,

and paid for the horses on the spot. Whereupon the Kanaka departed to

join his brother in the country. The fellow had shamefully swindled L.

There was only one “match” horse, and he had examined his starboard side

through one window and his port side through another! I decline to

believe this story, but I give it because it is worth something as a

fanciful illustration of a fixed fact—namely, that the Kanaka horse-

jockey is fertile in invention and elastic in conscience.

You can buy a pretty good horse for forty or fifty dollars, and a good

enough horse for all practical purposes for two dollars and a half. I

estimate “Oahu” to be worth somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty-five

cents. A good deal better animal than he is was sold here day before

yesterday for a dollar and seventy-five cents, and sold again to-day for

two dollars and twenty-five cents; Williams bought a handsome and lively

little pony yesterday for ten dollars; and about the best common horse

on the island (and he is a really good one) sold yesterday, with Mexican

saddle and bridle, for seventy dollars—a horse which is well and widely

known, and greatly respected for his speed, good disposition and

everlasting bottom.

You give your horse a little grain once a day; it comes from San

Francisco, and is worth about two cents a pound; and you give him as

much hay as he wants; it is cut and brought to the market by natives,

and is not very good; it is baled into long, round bundles, about the

size of a large man; one of them is stuck by the middle on each end of a

six foot pole, and the Kanaka shoulders the pole and walks about the

streets between the upright bales in search of customers. These hay

bales, thus carried, have a general resemblance to a colossal capital

‘H.’

471.jpg (59K)

The hay-bundles cost twenty-five cents apiece, and one will last a horse

about a day. You can get a horse for a song, a week’s hay for another

song, and you can turn your animal loose among the luxuriant grass in

your neighbor’s broad front yard without a song at all—you do it at

midnight, and stable the beast again before morning. You have been at no

expense thus far, but when you come to buy a saddle and bridle they will

cost you from twenty to thirty-five dollars. You can hire a horse,

saddle and bridle at from seven to ten dollars a week, and the owner

will take care of them at his own expense.

It is time to close this day’s record—bed time. As I prepare for sleep,

a rich voice rises out of the still night, and, far as this ocean rock

is toward the ends of the earth, I recognize a familiar home air. But

the words seem somewhat out of joint:

“Waikiki lantoni oe Kaa hooly hooly wawhoo.”

Translated, that means “When we were marching through Georgia.”

472.jpg (28K)

CHAPTER LXVI.

Passing through the market place we saw that feature of Honolulu under

its most favorable auspices—that is, in the full glory of Saturday

afternoon, which is a festive day with the natives. The native girls by

twos and threes and parties of a dozen, and sometimes in whole platoons

and companies, went cantering up and down the neighboring streets

astride of fleet but homely horses, and with their gaudy riding habits

streaming like banners behind them. Such a troop of free and easy

riders, in their natural home, the saddle, makes a gay and graceful

spectacle. The riding habit I speak of is simply a long, broad scarf,

like a tavern table cloth brilliantly colored, wrapped around the loins

once, then apparently passed between the limbs and each end thrown

backward over the same, and floating and flapping behind on both sides

beyond the horse’s tail like a couple of fancy flags; then, slipping the

stirrup-irons between her toes, the girl throws her chest forward, sits

up like a Major General and goes sweeping by like the wind.

474.jpg (88K)

The girls put on all the finery they can on Saturday afternoon—fine

black silk robes; flowing red ones that nearly put your eyes out; others

as white as snow; still others that discount the rainbow; and they wear

their hair in nets, and trim their jaunty hats with fresh flowers, and

encircle their dusky throats with home-made necklaces of the brilliant

vermillion-tinted blossom of the _ohia_; and they fill the markets and

the adjacent street with their bright presences, and smell like a rag

factory on fire with their offensive cocoanut oil.

Occasionally you see a heathen from the sunny isles away down in the

South Seas, with his face and neck tatooed till he looks like the

customary mendicant from Washoe who has been blown up in a mine. Some

are tattooed a dead blue color down to the upper lip—masked, as it

were—leaving the natural light yellow skin of Micronesia unstained from

thence down; some with broad marks drawn down from hair to neck, on both

sides of the face, and a strip of the original yellow skin, two inches

wide, down the center—a gridiron with a spoke broken out; and some with

the entire face discolored with the popular mortification tint, relieved

only by one or two thin, wavy threads of natural yellow running across

the face from ear to ear, and eyes twinkling out of this darkness, from

under shadowing hat-brims, like stars in the dark of the moon.

Moving among the stirring crowds, you come to the poi merchants,

squatting in the shade on their hams, in true native fashion, and

surrounded by purchasers. (The Sandwich Islanders always squat on their

hams, and who knows but they may be the old original “ham sandwiches?”

The thought is pregnant with interest.) The poi looks like common flour

paste, and is kept in large bowls formed of a species of gourd, and

capable of holding from one to three or four gallons. Poi is the chief

article of food among the natives, and is prepared from the _taro_

plant.

475.jpg (33K)

The _taro_ root looks like a thick, or, if you please, a corpulent sweet

potato, in shape, but is of a light purple color when boiled. When

boiled it answers as a passable substitute for bread. The buck Kanakas

bake it under ground, then mash it up well with a heavy lava pestle, mix

water with it until it becomes a paste, set it aside and let if ferment,

and then it is poi—and an unseductive mixture it is, almost tasteless

before it ferments and too sour for a luxury afterward. But nothing is

more nutritious. When solely used, however, it produces acrid humors, a

fact which sufficiently accounts for the humorous character of the

Kanakas. I think there must be as much of a knack in handling poi as

there is in eating with chopsticks. The forefinger is thrust into the

mess and stirred quickly round several times and drawn as quickly out,

thickly coated, just as if it were poulticed; the head is thrown back,

the finger inserted in the mouth and the delicacy stripped off and

swallowed—the eye closing gently, meanwhile, in a languid sort of

ecstasy. Many a different finger goes into the same bowl and many a

different kind of dirt and shade and quality of flavor is added to the

virtues of its contents.

Around a small shanty was collected a crowd of natives buying the _awa_

root. It is said that but for the use of this root the destruction of

the people in former times by certain imported diseases would have been

far greater than it was, and by others it is said that this is merely a

fancy. All agree that poi will rejuvenate a man who is used up and his

vitality almost annihilated by hard drinking, and that in some kinds of

diseases it will restore health after all medicines have failed; but all

are not willing to allow to the _awa_ the virtues claimed for it. The

natives manufacture an intoxicating drink from it which is fearful in

its effects when persistently indulged in. It covers the body with dry,

white scales, inflames the eyes, and causes premature decripitude.

Although the man before whose establishment we stopped has to pay a

Government license of eight hundred dollars a year for the exclusive

right to sell _awa_ root, it is said that he makes a small fortune every

twelve-month; while saloon keepers, who pay a thousand dollars a year

for the privilege of retailing whiskey, etc., only make a bare living.

We found the fish market crowded; for the native is very fond of fish,

and _eats the article raw and alive_! Let us change the subject.

In old times here Saturday was a grand gala day indeed. All the native

population of the town forsook their labors, and those of the

surrounding country journeyed to the city. Then the white folks had to

stay indoors, for every street was so packed with charging cavaliers and

cavalieresses that it was next to impossible to thread one’s way through

the cavalcades without getting crippled.

At night they feasted and the girls danced the lascivious _hula hula_—a

dance that is said to exhibit the very perfection of educated notion of

limb and arm, hand, head and body, and the exactest uniformity of

movement and accuracy of “time.” It was performed by a circle of girls

with no raiment on them to speak of, who went through an infinite

variety of motions and figures without prompting, and yet so true was

their “time,” and in such perfect concert did they move that when they

were placed in a straight line, hands, arms, bodies, limbs and heads

waved, swayed, gesticulated, bowed, stooped, whirled, squirmed, twisted

and undulated as if they were part and parcel of a single individual;

and it was difficult to believe they were not moved in a body by some

exquisite piece of mechanism.

Of late years, however, Saturday has lost most of its quondam gala

features. This weekly stampede of the natives interfered too much with

labor and the interests of the white folks, and by sticking in a law

here, and preaching a sermon there, and by various other means, they

gradually broke it up. The demoralizing _hula hula_ was forbidden to be

performed, save at night, with closed doors, in presence of few

spectators, and only by permission duly procured from the authorities

and the payment of ten dollars for the same. There are few girls now-a-

days able to dance this ancient national dance in the highest perfection

of the art.

The missionaries have christianized and educated all the natives. They

all belong to the Church, and there is not one of them, above the age of

eight years, but can read and write with facility in the native tongue.

It is the most universally educated race of people outside of China.

They have any quantity of books, printed in the Kanaka language, and all

the natives are fond of reading. They are inveterate church-

goers—nothing can keep them away. All this ameliorating cultivation has

at last built up in the native women a profound respect for chastity—in

other people. Perhaps that is enough to say on that head. The national

sin will die out when the race does, but perhaps not earlier.—But

doubtless this purifying is not far off, when we reflect that contact

with civilization and the whites has reduced the native population from

four hundred thousand (Captain Cook’s estimate,) to _fifty-five

thousand_ in something over eighty years!

Society is a queer medley in this notable missionary, whaling and

governmental centre. If you get into conversation with a stranger and

experience that natural desire to know what sort of ground you are

treading on by finding out what manner of man your stranger is, strike

out boldly and address him as “Captain.” Watch him narrowly, and if you

see by his countenance that you are on the wrong tack, ask him where he

preaches. It is a safe bet that he is either a missionary or captain of

a whaler. I am now personally acquainted with seventy-two captains and

ninety-six missionaries. The captains and ministers form one-half of the

population; the third fourth is composed of common Kanakas and

mercantile foreigners and their families, and the final fourth is made

up of high officers of the Hawaiian Government. And there are just about

cats enough for three apiece all around.

A solemn stranger met me in the suburbs the other day, and said:

“Good morning, your reverence. Preach in the stone church yonder, no

doubt?”

“No, I don’t. I’m not a preacher.”

“Really, I beg your pardon, Captain. I trust you had a good season. How

much oil”—

“Oil? What do you take me for? I’m not a whaler.”

“Oh, I beg a thousand pardons, your Excellency.

“Major General in the household troops, no doubt? Minister of the

Interior, likely? Secretary of war? First Gentleman of the Bed-chamber?

Commissioner of the Royal”—

“Stuff! I’m no official. I’m not connected in any way with the

Government.”

“Bless my life! Then, who the mischief are you? what the mischief are

you? and how the mischief did you get here, and where in thunder did you

come from?”

“I’m only a private personage—an unassuming stranger—lately arrived from

America.”

“No? Not a missionary! Not a whaler! not a member of his Majesty’s

Government! not even Secretary of the Navy! Ah, Heaven! it is too

blissful to be true; alas, I do but dream. And yet that noble, honest

countenance—those oblique, ingenuous eyes—that massive head, incapable

of—of—anything; your hand; give me your hand, bright waif. Excuse these

tears. For sixteen weary years I have yearned for a moment like this,

and”—

478.jpg (67K)

Here his feelings were too much for him, and he swooned away. I pitied

this poor creature from the bottom of my heart. I was deeply moved. I

shed a few tears on him and kissed him for his mother. I then took what

small change he had and “shoved”.

479.jpg (31K)

CHAPTER LXVII.

I still quote from my journal:

I found the national Legislature to consist of half a dozen white men

and some thirty or forty natives. It was a dark assemblage. The nobles

and Ministers (about a dozen of them altogether) occupied the extreme

left of the hall, with David Kalakaua (the King’s Chamberlain) and

Prince William at the head. The President of the Assembly, His Royal

Highness M. Kekuanaoa, [Kekuanaoa is not of the blood royal. He derives

his princely rank from his wife, who was a daughter of Kamehameha the

Great. Under other monarchies the male line takes precedence of the

female in tracing genealogies, but here the opposite is the case—the

female line takes precedence. Their reason for this is exceedingly

sensible, and I recommend it to the aristocracy of Europe: They say it

is easy to know who a man’s mother was, but, etc., etc.] and the Vice

President (the latter a white man,) sat in the pulpit, if I may so term

it. The President is the King’s father. He is an erect, strongly built,

massive featured, white-haired, tawny old gentleman of eighty years of

age or thereabouts. He was simply but well dressed, in a blue cloth coat

and white vest, and white pantaloons, without spot, dust or blemish upon

them. He bears himself with a calm, stately dignity, and is a man of

noble presence. He was a young man and a distinguished warrior under

that terrific fighter, Kamehameha I., more than half a century ago. A

knowledge of his career suggested some such thought as this: “This man,

naked as the day he was born, and war-club and spear in hand, has

charged at the head of a horde of savages against other hordes of

savages more than a generation and a half ago, and reveled in slaughter

and carnage; has worshipped wooden images on his devout knees; has seen

hundreds of his race offered up in heathen temples as sacrifices to

wooden idols, at a time when no missionary’s foot had ever pressed this

soil, and he had never heard of the white man’s God; has believed his

enemy could secretly pray him to death; has seen the day, in his

childhood, when it was a crime punishable by death for a man to eat with

his wife, or for a plebeian to let his shadow fall upon the King—and now

look at him; an educated Christian; neatly and handsomely dressed; a

high-minded, elegant gentleman; a traveler, in some degree, and one who

has been the honored guest of royalty in Europe; a man practiced in

holding the reins of an enlightened government, and well versed in the

politics of his country and in general, practical information. Look at

him, sitting there presiding over the deliberations of a legislative

body, among whom are white men—a grave, dignified, statesmanlike

personage, and as seemingly natural and fitted to the place as if he had

been born in it and had never been out of it in his life time. How the

experiences of this old man’s eventful life shame the cheap inventions

of romance!”

The christianizing of the natives has hardly even weakened some of their

barbarian superstitions, much less destroyed them. I have just referred

to one of these. It is still a popular belief that if your enemy can get

hold of any article belonging to you he can get down on his knees over

it and _pray you to death_. Therefore many a native gives up and dies

merely because he _imagines_ that some enemy is putting him through a

course of damaging prayer. This praying an individual to death seems

absurd enough at a first glance, but then when we call to mind some of

the pulpit efforts of certain of our own ministers the thing looks

plausible.

482.jpg (33K)

In former times, among the Islanders, not only a plurality of wives was

customary, but a _plurality of husbands_ likewise. Some native women of

noble rank had as many as six husbands. A woman thus supplied did not

reside with all her husbands at once, but lived several months with each

in turn. An understood sign hung at her door during these months. When

the sign was taken down, it meant “NEXT.”

In those days woman was rigidly taught to “know her place.” Her place

was to do all the work, take all the cuffs, provide all the food, and

content herself with what was left after her lord had finished his

dinner. She was not only forbidden, by ancient law, and under penalty of

death, to eat with her husband or enter a canoe, but was debarred, under

the same penalty, from eating bananas, pine-apples, oranges and other

choice fruits at any time or in any place. She had to confine herself

pretty strictly to “poi” and hard work. These poor ignorant heathen seem

to have had a sort of groping idea of what came of woman eating fruit in

the garden of Eden, and they did not choose to take any more chances.

But the missionaries broke up this satisfactory arrangement of things.

They liberated woman and made her the equal of man.

The natives had a romantic fashion of burying some of their children

alive when the family became larger than necessary. The missionaries

interfered in this matter too, and stopped it.

To this day the natives are able to _lie down and die whenever they want

to_, whether there is anything the matter with them or not. If a Kanaka

takes a notion to die, that is the end of him; nobody can persuade him

to hold on; all the doctors in the world could not save him.

A luxury which they enjoy more than anything else, is a large funeral.

If a person wants to get rid of a troublesome native, it is only

necessary to promise him a fine funeral and name the hour and he will be

on hand to the minute—at least his remains will.

All the natives are Christians, now, but many of them still desert to

the Great Shark God for temporary succor in time of trouble. An

irruption of the great volcano of Kilauea, or an earthquake, always

brings a deal of latent loyalty to the Great Shark God to the surface.

It is common report that the King, educated, cultivated and refined

Christian gentleman as he undoubtedly is, still turns to the idols of

his fathers for help when disaster threatens. A planter caught a shark,

and one of his christianized natives testified his emancipation from the

thrall of ancient superstition by assisting to dissect the shark after a

fashion forbidden by his abandoned creed. But remorse shortly began to

torture him. He grew moody and sought solitude; brooded over his sin,

refused food, and finally said he must die and ought to die, for he had

sinned against the Great Shark God and could never know peace any more.

He was proof against persuasion and ridicule, and in the course of a day

or two took to his bed and died, although he showed no symptom of

disease. His young daughter followed his lead and suffered a like fate

within the week. Superstition is ingrained in the native blood and bone

and it is only natural that it should crop out in time of distress.

Wherever one goes in the Islands, he will find small piles of stones by

the wayside, covered with leafy offerings, placed there by the natives

to appease evil spirits or honor local deities belonging to the

mythology of former days.

In the rural districts of any of the Islands, the traveler hourly comes

upon parties of dusky maidens bathing in the streams or in the sea

without any clothing on and exhibiting no very intemperate zeal in the

matter of hiding their nakedness. When the missionaries first took up

their residence in Honolulu, the native women would pay their families

frequent friendly visits, day by day, not even clothed with a blush. It

was found a hard matter to convince them that this was rather

indelicate. Finally the missionaries provided them with long, loose

calico robes, and that ended the difficulty—for the women would troop

through the town, stark naked, with their robes folded under their arms,

march to the missionary houses and then proceed to dress!—

484.jpg (63K)

The natives soon manifested a strong proclivity for clothing, but it was

shortly apparent that they only wanted it for grandeur. The missionaries

imported a quantity of hats, bonnets, and other male and female wearing

apparel, instituted a general distribution, and begged the people not to

come to church naked, next Sunday, as usual. And they did not; but the

national spirit of unselfishness led them to divide up with neighbors

who were not at the distribution, and next Sabbath the poor preachers

could hardly keep countenance before their vast congregations. In the

midst of the reading of a hymn a brown, stately dame would sweep up the

aisle with a world of airs, with nothing in the world on but a

“stovepipe” hat and a pair of cheap gloves; another dame would follow,

tricked out in a man’s shirt, and nothing else; another one would enter

with a flourish, with simply the sleeves of a bright calico dress tied

around her waist and the rest of the garment dragging behind like a

peacock’s tail off duty; a stately “buck” Kanaka would stalk in with a

woman’s bonnet on, wrong side before—only this, and nothing more; after

him would stride his fellow, with the legs of a pair of pantaloons tied

around his neck, the rest of his person untrammeled; in his rear would

come another gentleman simply gotten up in a fiery neck-tie and a

striped vest.

485.jpg (90K)

The poor creatures were beaming with complacency and wholly unconscious

of any absurdity in their appearance. They gazed at each other with

happy admiration, and it was plain to see that the young girls were

taking note of what each other had on, as naturally as if they had

always lived in a land of Bibles and knew what churches were made for;

here was the evidence of a dawning civilization. The spectacle which the

congregation presented was so extraordinary and withal so moving, that

the missionaries found it difficult to keep to the text and go on with

the services; and by and by when the simple children of the sun began a

general swapping of garments in open meeting and produced some

irresistibly grotesque effects in the course of re-dressing, there was

nothing for it but to cut the thing short with the benediction and

dismiss the fantastic assemblage.

In our country, children play “keep house;” and in the same high-

sounding but miniature way the grown folk here, with the poor little

material of slender territory and meagre population, play “empire.”

There is his royal Majesty the King, with a New York detective’s income

of thirty or thirty-five thousand dollars a year from the “royal civil

list” and the “royal domain.” He lives in a two-story frame “palace.”

486.jpg (35K)

And there is the “royal family”—the customary hive of royal brothers,

sisters, cousins and other noble drones and vagrants usual to

monarchy,—all with a spoon in the national pap-dish, and all bearing

such titles as his or her Royal Highness the Prince or Princess So-and-

so. Few of them can carry their royal splendors far enough to ride in

carriages, however; they sport the economical Kanaka horse or “hoof it”

with the plebeians.

Then there is his Excellency the “royal Chamberlain”—a sinecure, for his

majesty dresses himself with his own hands, except when he is ruralizing

at Waikiki and then he requires no dressing.

Next we have his Excellency the Commander-in-chief of the Household

Troops, whose forces consist of about the number of soldiers usually

placed under a corporal in other lands.

Next comes the royal Steward and the Grand Equerry in Waiting—high

dignitaries with modest salaries and little to do.

Then we have his Excellency the First Gentleman of the Bed-chamber—an

office as easy as it is magnificent.

Next we come to his Excellency the Prime Minister, a renegade American

from New Hampshire, all jaw, vanity, bombast and ignorance, a lawyer of

“shyster” calibre, a fraud by nature, a humble worshipper of the sceptre

above him, a reptile never tired of sneering at the land of his birth or

glorifying the ten-acre kingdom that has adopted him—salary, $4,000 a

year, vast consequence, and no perquisites.

Then we have his Excellency the Imperial Minister of Finance, who

handles a million dollars of public money a year, sends in his annual

“budget” with great ceremony, talks prodigiously of “finance,” suggests

imposing schemes for paying off the “national debt” (of $150,000,) and

does it all for $4,000 a year and unimaginable glory.

Next we have his Excellency the Minister of War, who holds sway over the

royal armies—they consist of two hundred and thirty uniformed Kanakas,

mostly Brigadier Generals, and if the country ever gets into trouble

with a foreign power we shall probably hear from them. I knew an

American whose copper-plate visiting card bore this impressive legend:

“Lieutenant-Colonel in the Royal Infantry.” To say that he was proud of

this distinction is stating it but tamely. The Minister of War has also

in his charge some venerable swivels on Punch-Bowl Hill wherewith royal

salutes are fired when foreign vessels of war enter the port.

Next comes his Excellency the Minister of the Navy—a nabob who rules the

“royal fleet,” (a steam-tug and a sixty-ton schooner.)

And next comes his Grace the Lord Bishop of Honolulu, the chief

dignitary of the “Established Church”—for when the American Presbyterian

missionaries had completed the reduction of the nation to a compact

condition of Christianity, native royalty stepped in and erected the

grand dignity of an “Established (Episcopal) Church” over it, and

imported a cheap ready-made Bishop from England to take charge. The

chagrin of the missionaries has never been comprehensively expressed, to

this day, profanity not being admissible.

Next comes his Excellency the Minister of Public Instruction.

Next, their Excellencies the Governors of Oahu, Hawaii, etc., and after

them a string of High Sheriffs and other small fry too numerous for

computation.

Then there are their Excellencies the Envoy Extraordinary and Minister

Plenipotentiary of his Imperial Majesty the Emperor of the French; her

British Majesty’s Minister; the Minister Resident, of the United States;

and some six or eight representatives of other foreign nations, all with

sounding titles, imposing dignity and prodigious but economical state.

488.jpg (94K)

Imagine all this grandeur in a play-house “kingdom” whose population

falls absolutely short of sixty thousand souls!

The people are so accustomed to nine-jointed titles and colossal

magnates that a foreign prince makes very little more stir in Honolulu

than a Western Congressman does in New York.

And let it be borne in mind that there is a strictly defined “court

costume” of so “stunning” a nature that it would make the clown in a

circus look tame and commonplace by comparison; and each Hawaiian

official dignitary has a gorgeous vari-colored, gold-laced uniform

peculiar to his office—no two of them are alike, and it is hard to tell

which one is the “loudest.” The King had a “drawing-room” at stated

intervals, like other monarchs, and when these varied uniforms

congregate there—weak-eyed people have to contemplate the spectacle

through smoked glass. Is there not a gratifying contrast between this

latter-day exhibition and the one the ancestors of some of these

magnates afforded the missionaries the Sunday after the old-time

distribution of clothing? Behold what religion and civilization have

wrought!

489.jpg (40K)

CHAPTER LXVIII.

While I was in Honolulu I witnessed the ceremonious funeral of the

King’s sister, her Royal Highness the Princess Victoria. According to

the royal custom, the remains had lain in state at the palace _thirty

days_, watched day and night by a guard of honor. And during all that

time a great multitude of natives from the several islands had kept the

palace grounds well crowded and had made the place a pandemonium every

night with their howlings and wailings, beating of tom-toms and dancing

of the (at other times) forbidden “hula-hula” by half-clad maidens to

the music of songs of questionable decency chanted in honor of the

deceased. The printed programme of the funeral procession interested me

at the time; and after what I have just said of Hawaiian grandiloquence

in the matter of “playing empire,” I am persuaded that a perusal of it

may interest the reader:

After reading the long list of dignitaries, etc., and remembering the

sparseness of the population, one is almost inclined to wonder where the

material for that portion of the procession devoted to “Hawaiian

Population Generally” is going to be procured:

490.jpg (34K) 491.jpg (105K)

Undertaker. Royal School. Kawaiahao School. Roman Catholic School.

Maemae School. Honolulu Fire Department. Mechanics’ Benefit Union.

Attending Physicians. Knonohikis (Superintendents) of the Crown Lands,

Konohikis of the Private Lands of His Majesty Konohikis of the Private

Lands of Her late Royal Highness. Governor of Oahu and Staff. Hulumanu

(Military Company). Household Troops. The Prince of Hawaii’s Own

(Military Company). The King’s household servants. Servants of Her late

Royal Highness. Protestant Clergy. The Clergy of the Roman Catholic

Church. His Lordship Louis Maigret, The Right Rev. Bishop of Arathea,

Vicar-Apostolic of the Hawaiian Islands. The Clergy of the Hawaiian

Reformed Catholic Church. His Lordship the Right Rev. Bishop of

Honolulu. Her Majesty Queen Emma’s Carriage. His Majesty’s Staff.

Carriage of Her late Royal Highness. Carriage of Her Majesty the Queen

Dowager. The King’s Chancellor. Cabinet Ministers. His Excellency the

Minister Resident of the United States. H. B. M’s Commissioner. H. B.

M’s Acting Commissioner. Judges of Supreme Court. Privy Councillors.

Members of Legislative Assembly. Consular Corps. Circuit Judges. Clerks

of Government Departments. Members of the Bar. Collector General,

Custom-house Officers and Officers of the Customs. Marshal and Sheriffs

of the different Islands. King’s Yeomanry. Foreign Residents. Ahahui

Kaahumanu. Hawaiian Population Generally. Hawaiian Cavalry. Police

Force.

I resume my journal at the point where the procession arrived at the

royal mausoleum:

As the procession filed through the gate, the military deployed

handsomely to the right and left and formed an avenue through which the

long column of mourners passed to the tomb. The coffin was borne through

the door of the mausoleum, followed by the King and his chiefs, the

great officers of the kingdom, foreign Consuls, Embassadors and

distinguished guests (Burlingame and General Van Valkenburgh). Several

of the kahilis were then fastened to a frame-work in front of the tomb,

there to remain until they decay and fall to pieces, or, forestalling

this, until another scion of royalty dies. At this point of the

proceedings the multitude set up such a heart-broken wailing as I hope

never to hear again.

492.jpg (90K)

The soldiers fired three volleys of musketry—the wailing being

previously silenced to permit of the guns being heard. His Highness

Prince William, in a showy military uniform (the “true prince,”

this—scion of the house over-thrown by the present dynasty—he was

formerly betrothed to the Princess but was not allowed to marry her),

stood guard and paced back and forth within the door. The privileged few

who followed the coffin into the mausoleum remained sometime, but the

King soon came out and stood in the door and near one side of it. A

stranger could have guessed his rank (although he was so simply and

unpretentiously dressed) by the profound deference paid him by all

persons in his vicinity; by seeing his high officers receive his quiet

orders and suggestions with bowed and uncovered heads; and by observing

how careful those persons who came out of the mausoleum were to avoid

“crowding” him (although there was room enough in the doorway for a

wagon to pass, for that matter); how respectfully they edged out

sideways, scraping their backs against the wall and always presenting a

front view of their persons to his Majesty, and never putting their hats

on until they were well out of the royal presence.

He was dressed entirely in black—dress-coat and silk hat—and looked

rather democratic in the midst of the showy uniforms about him. On his

breast he wore a large gold star, which was half hidden by the lapel of

his coat. He remained at the door a half hour, and occasionally gave an

order to the men who were erecting the kahilis [Ranks of long-handled

mops made of gaudy feathers—sacred to royalty. They are stuck in the

ground around the tomb and left there.] before the tomb. He had the good

taste to make one of them substitute black crape for the ordinary hempen

rope he was about to tie one of them to the frame-work with. Finally he

entered his carriage and drove away, and the populace shortly began to

drop into his wake. While he was in view there was but one man who

attracted more attention than himself, and that was Harris (the Yankee

Prime Minister). This feeble personage had crape enough around his hat

to express the grief of an entire nation, and as usual he neglected no

opportunity of making himself conspicuous and exciting the admiration of

the simple Kanakas. Oh! noble ambition of this modern Richelieu!

It is interesting to contrast the funeral ceremonies of the Princess

Victoria with those of her noted ancestor Kamehameha the Conqueror, who

died fifty years ago—in 1819, the year before the first missionaries

came.

“On the 8th of May, 1819, at the age of sixty-six, he died, as he had

lived, in the faith of his country. It was his misfortune not to have

come in contact with men who could have rightly influenced his religious

aspirations. Judged by his advantages and compared with the most eminent

of his countrymen he may be justly styled not only great, but good. To

this day his memory warms the heart and elevates the national feelings

of Hawaiians. They are proud of their old warrior King; they love his

name; his deeds form their historical age; and an enthusiasm everywhere

prevails, shared even by foreigners who knew his worth, that constitutes

the firmest pillar of the throne of his dynasty.

“In lieu of human victims (the custom of that age), a sacrifice of three

hundred dogs attended his obsequies—no mean holocaust when their

national value and the estimation in which they were held are

considered. The bones of Kamehameha, after being kept for a while, were

so carefully concealed that all knowledge of their final resting place

is now lost. There was a proverb current among the common people that

the bones of a cruel King could not be hid; they made fish-hooks and

arrows of them, upon which, in using them, they vented their abhorrence

of his memory in bitter execrations.”

The account of the circumstances of his death, as written by the native

historians, is full of minute detail, but there is scarcely a line of it

which does not mention or illustrate some by-gone custom of the country.

In this respect it is the most comprehensive document I have yet met

with. I will quote it entire:

“When Kamehameha was dangerously sick, and the priests were unable to

cure him, they said: ‘Be of good courage and build a house for the god’

(his own private god or idol), that thou mayest recover.’ The chiefs

corroborated this advice of the priests, and a place of worship was

prepared for Kukailimoku, and consecrated in the evening. They proposed

also to the King, with a view to prolong his life, that human victims

should be sacrificed to his deity; upon which the greater part of the

people absconded through fear of death, and concealed themselves in

hiding places till the _tabu_ [Tabu (pronounced tah-boo,) means

prohibition (we have borrowed it,) or sacred. The _tabu_ was sometimes

permanent, sometimes temporary; and the person or thing placed under

_tabu_ was for the time being sacred to the purpose for which it was set

apart. In the above case the victims selected under the _tabu_ would be

sacred to the sacrifice] in which destruction impended, was past. It is

doubtful whether Kamehameha approved of the plan of the chiefs and

priests to sacrifice men, as he was known to say, ‘The men are sacred

for the King;’ meaning that they were for the service of his successor.

This information was derived from Liholiho, his son.

“After this, his sickness increased to such a degree that he had not

strength to turn himself in his bed. When another season, consecrated

for worship at the new temple (heiau) arrived, he said to his son,

Liholiho, ‘Go thou and make supplication to thy god; I am not able to

go, and will offer my prayers at home.’ When his devotions to his

feathered god, Kukailimoku, were concluded, a certain religiously

disposed individual, who had a bird god, suggested to the King that

through its influence his sickness might be removed. The name of this

god was Pua; its body was made of a bird, now eaten by the Hawaiians,

and called in their language alae. Kamehameha was willing that a trial

should be made, and two houses were constructed to facilitate the

experiment; but while dwelling in them he became so very weak as not to

receive food. After lying there three days, his wives, children and

chiefs, perceiving that he was very low, returned him to his own house.

In the evening he was carried to the eating house, where he took a

little food in his mouth which he did not swallow; also a cup of water.

The chiefs requested him to give them his counsel; but he made no reply,

and was carried back to the dwelling house; but when near midnight—ten

o’clock, perhaps—he was carried again to the place to eat; but, as

before, he merely tasted of what was presented to him. Then Kaikioewa

addressed him thus: ‘Here we all are, your younger brethren, your son

Liholiho and your foreigner; impart to us your dying charge, that

Liholiho and Kaahumanu may hear.’ Then Kamehameha inquired, ‘What do you

say?’ Kaikioewa repeated, ‘Your counsels for us.’

“He then said, ‘Move on in my good way and—.’ He could proceed no

further. The foreigner, Mr. Young, embraced and kissed him. Hoapili also

embraced him, whispering something in his ear, after which he was taken

back to the house. About twelve he was carried once more to the house

for eating, into which his head entered, while his body was in the

dwelling house immediately adjoining. It should be remarked that this

frequent carrying of a sick chief from one house to another resulted

from the _tabu_ system, then in force. There were at that time six

houses (huts) connected with an establishment—one was for worship, one

for the men to eat in, an eating house for the women, a house to sleep

in, a house in which to manufacture kapa (native cloth) and one where,

at certain intervals, the women might dwell in seclusion.

“The sick was once more taken to his house, when he expired; this was at

two o’clock, a circumstance from which Leleiohoku derived his name. As

he breathed his last, Kalaimoku came to the eating house to order those

in it to go out. There were two aged persons thus directed to depart;

one went, the other remained on account of love to the King, by whom he

had formerly been kindly sustained. The children also were sent away.

Then Kalaimoku came to the house, and the chiefs had a consultation. One

of them spoke thus: ‘This is my thought—we will eat him raw. [This

sounds suspicious, in view of the fact that all Sandwich Island

historians, white and black, protest that cannibalism never existed in

the islands. However, since they only proposed to “eat him raw” we

“won’t count that”. But it would certainly have been cannibalism if they

had cooked him.—M. T.] Kaahumanu (one of the dead King’s widows)

replied, ‘Perhaps his body is not at our disposal; that is more properly

with his successor. Our part in him—his breath—has departed; his remains

will be disposed of by Liholiho.’

“After this conversation the body was taken into the consecrated house

for the performance of the proper rites by the priest and the new King.

The name of this ceremony is uko; and when the sacred hog was baked the

priest offered it to the dead body, and it became a god, the King at the

same time repeating the customary prayers.

“Then the priest, addressing himself to the King and chiefs, said: ‘I

will now make known to you the rules to be observed respecting persons

to be sacrificed on the burial of this body. If you obtain one man

before the corpse is removed, one will be sufficient; but after it

leaves this house four will be required. If delayed until we carry the

corpse to the grave there must be ten; but after it is deposited in the

grave there must be fifteen. To-morrow morning there will be a _tabu_,

and, if the sacrifice be delayed until that time, forty men must die.’

“Then the high priest, Hewahewa, inquired of the chiefs, ‘Where shall be

the residence of King Liholiho?’ They replied, ‘Where, indeed? You, of

all men, ought to know.’ Then the priest observed, ‘There are two

suitable places; one is Kau, the other is Kohala.’ The chiefs preferred

the latter, as it was more thickly inhabited. The priest added, ‘These

are proper places for the King’s residence; but he must not remain in

Kona, for it is polluted.’ This was agreed to. It was now break of day.

As he was being carried to the place of burial the people perceived that

their King was dead, and they wailed. When the corpse was removed from

the house to the tomb, a distance of one chain, the procession was met

by a certain man who was ardently attached to the deceased. He leaped

upon the chiefs who were carrying the King’s body; he desired to die

with him on account of his love. The chiefs drove him away. He persisted

in making numerous attempts, which were unavailing. Kalaimoka also had

it in his heart to die with him, but was prevented by Hookio.

“The morning following Kamehameha’s death, Liholiho and his train

departed for Kohala, according to the suggestions of the priest, to

avoid the defilement occasioned by the dead. At this time if a chief

died the land was polluted, and the heirs sought a residence in another

part of the country until the corpse was dissected and the bones tied in

a bundle, which being done, the season of defilement terminated. If the

deceased were not a chief, the house only was defiled which became pure

again on the burial of the body. Such were the laws on this subject.

“On the morning on which Liholiho sailed in his canoe for Kohala, the

chiefs and people mourned after their manner on occasion of a chief’s

death, conducting themselves like madmen and like beasts. Their conduct

was such as to forbid description; The priests, also, put into action

the sorcery apparatus, that the person who had prayed the King to death

might die; for it was not believed that Kamehameha’s departure was the

effect either of sickness or old age. When the sorcerers set up by their

fire-places stick with a strip of kapa flying at the top, the chief

Keeaumoku, Kaahumaun’s brother, came in a state of intoxication and

broke the flag-staff of the sorcerers, from which it was inferred that

Kaahumanu and her friends had been instrumental in the King’s death. On

this account they were subjected to abuse.”

You have the contrast, now, and a strange one it is. This great Queen,

Kaahumanu, who was “subjected to abuse” during the frightful orgies that

followed the King’s death, in accordance with ancient custom, afterward

became a devout Christian and a steadfast and powerful friend of the

missionaries.

Dogs were, and still are, reared and fattened for food, by the

natives—hence the reference to their value in one of the above

paragraphs.

Forty years ago it was the custom in the Islands to suspend all law for

a certain number of days after the death of a royal personage; and then

a saturnalia ensued which one may picture to himself after a fashion,

but not in the full horror of the reality. The people shaved their

heads, knocked out a tooth or two, plucked out an eye sometimes, cut,

bruised, mutilated or burned their flesh, got drunk, burned each other’s

huts, maimed or murdered one another according to the caprice of the

moment, and both sexes gave themselves up to brutal and unbridled

licentiousness.

497.jpg (96K)

And after it all, came a torpor from which the nation slowly emerged

bewildered and dazed, as if from a hideous half-remembered nightmare.

They were not the salt of the earth, those “gentle children of the sun.”

The natives still keep up an old custom of theirs which cannot be

comforting to an invalid. When they think a sick friend is going to die,

a couple of dozen neighbors surround his hut and keep up a deafening

wailing night and day till he either dies or gets well. No doubt this

arrangement has helped many a subject to a shroud before his appointed

time.

They surround a hut and wail in the same heart-broken way when its

occupant returns from a journey. This is their dismal idea of a welcome.

A very little of it would go a great way with most of us.

CHAPTER LXIX.

Bound for Hawaii (a hundred and fifty miles distant,) to visit the great

volcano and behold the other notable things which distinguish that

island above the remainder of the group, we sailed from Honolulu on a

certain Saturday afternoon, in the good schooner Boomerang.

The Boomerang was about as long as two street cars, and about as wide as

one. She was so small (though she was larger than the majority of the

inter-island coasters) that when I stood on her deck I felt but little

smaller than the Colossus of Rhodes must have felt when he had a man-of-

war under him. I could reach the water when she lay over under a strong

breeze. When the Captain and my comrade (a Mr. Billings), myself and

four other persons were all assembled on the little after portion of the

deck which is sacred to the cabin passengers, it was full—there was not

room for any more quality folks. Another section of the deck, twice as

large as ours, was full of natives of both sexes, with their customary

dogs, mats, blankets, pipes, calabashes of poi, fleas, and other

luxuries and baggage of minor importance. As soon as we set sail the

natives all lay down on the deck as thick as negroes in a slave-pen, and

smoked, conversed, and spit on each other, and were truly sociable.

The little low-ceiled cabin below was rather larger than a hearse, and

as dark as a vault. It had two coffins on each side—I mean two bunks. A

small table, capable of accommodating three persons at dinner, stood

against the forward bulkhead, and over it hung the dingiest whale oil

lantern that ever peopled the obscurity of a dungeon with ghostly

shapes. The floor room unoccupied was not extensive. One might swing a

cat in it, perhaps, but not a long cat. The hold forward of the bulkhead

had but little freight in it, and from morning till night a portly old

rooster, with a voice like Baalam’s ass, and the same disposition to use

it, strutted up and down in that part of the vessel and crowed. He

usually took dinner at six o’clock, and then, after an hour devoted to

meditation, he mounted a barrel and crowed a good part of the night. He

got hoarser and hoarser all the time, but he scorned to allow any

personal consideration to interfere with his duty, and kept up his

labors in defiance of threatened diphtheria.

499.jpg (19K)

Sleeping was out of the question when he was on watch. He was a source

of genuine aggravation and annoyance. It was worse than useless to shout

at him or apply offensive epithets to him—he only took these things for

applause, and strained himself to make more noise. Occasionally, during

the day, I threw potatoes at him through an aperture in the bulkhead,

but he only dodged and went on crowing.

The first night, as I lay in my coffin, idly watching the dim lamp

swinging to the rolling of the ship, and snuffing the nauseous odors of

bilge water, I felt something gallop over me. I turned out promptly.

However, I turned in again when I found it was only a rat. Presently

something galloped over me once more. I knew it was not a rat this time,

and I thought it might be a centipede, because the Captain had killed

one on deck in the afternoon. I turned out. The first glance at the

pillow showed me repulsive sentinel perched upon each end of

it—cockroaches as large as peach leaves—fellows with long, quivering

antennae and fiery, malignant eyes. They were grating their teeth like

tobacco worms, and appeared to be dissatisfied about something. I had

often heard that these reptiles were in the habit of eating off sleeping

sailors’ toe nails down to the quick, and I would not get in the bunk

any more. I lay down on the floor. But a rat came and bothered me, and

shortly afterward a procession of cockroaches arrived and camped in my

hair. In a few moments the rooster was crowing with uncommon spirit and

a party of fleas were throwing double somersaults about my person in the

wildest disorder, and taking a bite every time they struck. I was

beginning to feel really annoyed. I got up and put my clothes on and

went on deck.

The above is not overdrawn; it is a truthful sketch of inter-island

schooner life. There is no such thing as keeping a vessel in elegant

condition, when she carries molasses and Kanakas.

It was compensation for my sufferings to come unexpectedly upon so

beautiful a scene as met my eye—to step suddenly out of the sepulchral

gloom of the cabin and stand under the strong light of the moon—in the

centre, as it were, of a glittering sea of liquid silver—to see the

broad sails straining in the gale, the ship heeled over on her side, the

angry foam hissing past her lee bulwarks, and sparkling sheets of spray

dashing high over her bows and raining upon her decks; to brace myself

and hang fast to the first object that presented itself, with hat jammed

down and coat tails whipping in the breeze, and feel that exhilaration

that thrills in one’s hair and quivers down his back bone when he knows

that every inch of canvas is drawing and the vessel cleaving through the

waves at her utmost speed. There was no darkness, no dimness, no

obscurity there. All was brightness, every object was vividly defined.

Every prostrate Kanaka; every coil of rope; every calabash of poi; every

puppy; every seam in the flooring; every bolthead; every object; however

minute, showed sharp and distinct in its every outline; and the shadow

of the broad mainsail lay black as a pall upon the deck, leaving

Billings’s white upturned face glorified and his body in a total

eclipse.

501.jpg (93K)

Monday morning we were close to the island of Hawaii. Two of its high

mountains were in view—Mauna Loa and Hualaiai. The latter is an imposing

peak, but being only ten thousand feet high is seldom mentioned or heard

of. Mauna Loa is said to be sixteen thousand feet high. The rays of

glittering snow and ice, that clasped its summit like a claw, looked

refreshing when viewed from the blistering climate we were in. One could

stand on that mountain (wrapped up in blankets and furs to keep warm),

and while he nibbled a snowball or an icicle to quench his thirst he

could look down the long sweep of its sides and see spots where plants

are growing that grow only where the bitter cold of Winter prevails;

lower down he could see sections devoted to production that thrive in

the temperate zone alone; and at the bottom of the mountain he could see

the home of the tufted cocoa-palms and other species of vegetation that

grow only in the sultry atmosphere of eternal Summer. He could see all

the climes of the world at a single glance of the eye, and that glance

would only pass over a distance of four or five miles as the bird flies!

502.jpg (162K)

By and by we took boat and went ashore at Kailua, designing to ride

horseback through the pleasant orange and coffee region of Kona, and

rejoin the vessel at a point some leagues distant. This journey is well

worth taking. The trail passes along on high ground—say a thousand feet

above sea level—and usually about a mile distant from the ocean, which

is always in sight, save that occasionally you find yourself buried in

the forest in the midst of a rank tropical vegetation and a dense growth

of trees, whose great bows overarch the road and shut out sun and sea

and everything, and leave you in a dim, shady tunnel, haunted with

invisible singing birds and fragrant with the odor of flowers. It was

pleasant to ride occasionally in the warm sun, and feast the eye upon

the ever-changing panorama of the forest (beyond and below us), with its

many tints, its softened lights and shadows, its billowy undulations

sweeping gently down from the mountain to the sea. It was pleasant also,

at intervals, to leave the sultry sun and pass into the cool, green

depths of this forest and indulge in sentimental reflections under the

inspiration of its brooding twilight and its whispering foliage. We rode

through one orange grove that had ten thousand trees in it! They were

all laden with fruit.

At one farmhouse we got some large peaches of excellent flavor. This

fruit, as a general thing, does not do well in the Sandwich Islands. It

takes a sort of almond shape, and is small and bitter. It needs frost,

they say, and perhaps it does; if this be so, it will have a good

opportunity to go on needing it, as it will not be likely to get it. The

trees from which the fine fruit I have spoken of, came, had been planted

and replanted _sixteen times_, and to this treatment the proprietor of

the orchard attributed his success.

We passed several sugar plantations—new ones and not very extensive. The

crops were, in most cases, third rattoons. [NOTE.—The first crop is

called “plant cane;” subsequent crops which spring from the original

roots, without replanting, are called “rattoons.”] Almost everywhere on

the island of Hawaii sugar-cane matures in twelve months, both rattoons

and plant, and although it ought to be taken off as soon as it tassels,

no doubt, it is not absolutely necessary to do it until about four

months afterward. In Kona, the average yield of an acre of ground is

_two tons_ of sugar, they say. This is only a moderate yield for these

islands, but would be astounding for Louisiana and most other sugar

growing countries. The plantations in Kona being on pretty high

ground—up among the light and frequent rains—no irrigation whatever is

required.

503.jpg (55K)

CHAPTER LXX.

We stopped some time at one of the plantations, to rest ourselves and

refresh the horses. We had a chatty conversation with several gentlemen

present; but there was one person, a middle aged man, with an absent

look in his face, who simply glanced up, gave us good-day and lapsed

again into the meditations which our coming had interrupted. The

planters whispered us not to mind him—crazy. They said he was in the

Islands for his health; was a preacher; his home, Michigan. They said

that if he woke up presently and fell to talking about a correspondence

which he had some time held with Mr. Greeley about a trifle of some

kind, we must humor him and listen with interest; and we must humor his

fancy that this correspondence was the talk of the world.

505.jpg (46K)

It was easy to see that he was a gentle creature and that his madness

had nothing vicious in it. He looked pale, and a little worn, as if with

perplexing thought and anxiety of mind. He sat a long time, looking at

the floor, and at intervals muttering to himself and nodding his head

acquiescingly or shaking it in mild protest. He was lost in his thought,

or in his memories. We continued our talk with the planters, branching

from subject to subject. But at last the word “circumstance,” casually

dropped, in the course of conversation, attracted his attention and

brought an eager look into his countenance. He faced about in his chair

and said:

“Circumstance? What circumstance? Ah, I know—I know too well. So you

have heard of it too.” [With a sigh.] “Well, no matter—all the world has

heard of it. All the world. The whole world. It is a large world, too,

for a thing to travel so far in—now isn’t it? Yes, yes—the Greeley

correspondence with Erickson has created the saddest and bitterest

controversy on both sides of the ocean—and still they keep it up! It

makes us famous, but at what a sorrowful sacrifice! I was so sorry when

I heard that it had caused that bloody and distressful war over there in

Italy. It was little comfort to me, after so much bloodshed, to know

that the victors sided with me, and the vanquished with Greeley.—It is

little comfort to know that Horace Greeley is responsible for the battle

of Sadowa, and not me.

“Queen Victoria wrote me that she felt just as I did about it—she said

that as much as she was opposed to Greeley and the spirit he showed in

the correspondence with me, she would not have had Sadowa happen for

hundreds of dollars. I can show you her letter, if you would like to see

it. But gentlemen, much as you may think you know about that unhappy

correspondence, you cannot know the _straight_ of it till you hear it

from my lips. It has always been garbled in the journals, and even in

history. Yes, even in history—think of it! Let me—_please_ let me, give

you the matter, exactly as it occurred. I truly will not abuse your

confidence.”

Then he leaned forward, all interest, all earnestness, and told his

story—and told it appealingly, too, and yet in the simplest and most

unpretentious way; indeed, in such a way as to suggest to one, all the

time, that this was a faithful, honorable witness, giving evidence in

the sacred interest of justice, and under oath. He said:

“Mrs. Beazeley—Mrs. Jackson Beazeley, widow, of the village of

Campbellton, Kansas,—wrote me about a matter which was near her heart—a

matter which many might think trivial, but to her it was a thing of deep

concern. I was living in Michigan, then—serving in the ministry. She

was, and is, an estimable woman—a woman to whom poverty and hardship

have proven incentives to industry, in place of discouragements. Her

only treasure was her son William, a youth just verging upon manhood;

religious, amiable, and sincerely attached to agriculture. He was the

widow’s comfort and her pride. And so, moved by her love for him, she

wrote me about a matter, as I have said before, which lay near her

heart—because it lay near her boy’s. She desired me to confer with Mr.

Greeley about turnips. Turnips were the dream of her child’s young

ambition. While other youths were frittering away in frivolous

amusements the precious years of budding vigor which God had given them

for useful preparation, this boy was patiently enriching his mind with

information concerning turnips. The sentiment which he felt toward the

turnip was akin to adoration. He could not think of the turnip without

emotion; he could not speak of it calmly; he could not contemplate it

without exaltation. He could not eat it without shedding tears. All the

poetry in his sensitive nature was in sympathy with the gracious

vegetable. With the earliest pipe of dawn he sought his patch, and when

the curtaining night drove him from it he shut himself up with his books

and garnered statistics till sleep overcame him. On rainy days he sat

and talked hours together with his mother about turnips. When company

came, he made it his loving duty to put aside everything else and

converse with them all the day long of his great joy in the turnip.

507.jpg (67K)

“And yet, was this joy rounded and complete? Was there no secret alloy

of unhappiness in it? Alas, there was. There was a canker gnawing at his

heart; the noblest inspiration of his soul eluded his endeavor—viz: he

could not make of the turnip a climbing vine. Months went by; the bloom

forsook his cheek, the fire faded out of his eye; sighings and

abstraction usurped the place of smiles and cheerful converse. But a

watchful eye noted these things and in time a motherly sympathy unsealed

the secret. Hence the letter to me. She pleaded for attention—she said

her boy was dying by inches.

“I was a stranger to Mr. Greeley, but what of that? The matter was

urgent. I wrote and begged him to solve the difficult problem if

possible and save the student’s life. My interest grew, until it partook

of the anxiety of the mother. I waited in much suspense.—At last the

answer came.

509.jpg (127K)

“I found that I could not read it readily, the handwriting being

unfamiliar and my emotions somewhat wrought up. It seemed to refer in

part to the boy’s case, but chiefly to other and irrelevant matters—such

as paving-stones, electricity, oysters, and something which I took to be

‘absolution’ or ‘agrarianism,’ I could not be certain which; still,

these appeared to be simply casual mentions, nothing more; friendly in

spirit, without doubt, but lacking the connection or coherence necessary

to make them useful.—I judged that my understanding was affected by my

feelings, and so laid the letter away till morning.

“In the morning I read it again, but with difficulty and uncertainty

still, for I had lost some little rest and my mental vision seemed

clouded. The note was more connected, now, but did not meet the

emergency it was expected to meet. It was too discursive. It appeared to

read as follows, though I was not certain of some of the words:

“Polygamy dissembles majesty; extracts redeem polarity; causes hitherto

exist. Ovations pursue wisdom, or warts inherit and condemn. Boston,

botany, cakes, folony undertakes, but who shall allay? We fear not.

Yrxwly, HEVACE EVEELOJ.’

“But there did not seem to be a word about turnips. There seemed to be

no suggestion as to how they might be made to grow like vines. There was

not even a reference to the Beazeleys. I slept upon the matter; I ate no

supper, neither any breakfast next morning. So I resumed my work with a

brain refreshed, and was very hopeful. _Now_ the letter took a different

aspect—all save the signature, which latter I judged to be only a

harmless affectation of Hebrew. The epistle was necessarily from Mr.

Greeley, for it bore the printed heading of The _Tribune_, and I had

written to no one else there. The letter, I say, had taken a different

aspect, but still its language was eccentric and avoided the issue. It

now appeared to say:

“Bolivia extemporizes mackerel; borax esteems polygamy; sausages wither

in the east. Creation perdu, is done; for woes inherent one can damn.

Buttons, buttons, corks, geology underrates but we shall allay. My

beer’s out. Yrxwly, HEVACE EVEELOJ.’

“I was evidently overworked. My comprehension was impaired. Therefore I

gave two days to recreation, and then returned to my task greatly

refreshed. The letter now took this form:

“Poultices do sometimes choke swine; tulips reduce posterity; causes

leather to resist. Our notions empower wisdom, her let’s afford while we

can. Butter but any cakes, fill any undertaker, we’ll wean him from his

filly. We feel hot. Yrxwly, HEVACE EVEELOJ.’

“I was still not satisfied. These generalities did not meet the

question. They were crisp, and vigorous, and delivered with a confidence

that almost compelled conviction; but at such a time as this, with a

human life at stake, they seemed inappropriate, worldly, and in bad

taste. At any other time I would have been not only glad, but proud, to

receive from a man like Mr. Greeley a letter of this kind, and would

have studied it earnestly and tried to improve myself all I could; but

now, with that poor boy in his far home languishing for relief, I had no

heart for learning.

“Three days passed by, and I read the note again. Again its tenor had

changed. It now appeared to say:

“Potations do sometimes wake wines; turnips restrain passion; causes

necessary to state. Infest the poor widow; her lord’s effects will be

void. But dirt, bathing, etc., etc., followed unfairly, will worm him

from his folly—so swear not. Yrxwly, HEVACE EVEELOJ.’

“This was more like it. But I was unable to proceed. I was too much

worn. The word ‘turnips’ brought temporary joy and encouragement, but my

strength was so much impaired, and the delay might be so perilous for

the boy, that I relinquished the idea of pursuing the translation

further, and resolved to do what I ought to have done at first. I sat

down and wrote Mr. Greeley as follows:

“DEAR SIR: I fear I do not entirely comprehend your kind note. It cannot

be possible, Sir, that ‘turnips restrain passion’—at least the study or

contemplation of turnips cannot—for it is this very employment that has

scorched our poor friend’s mind and sapped his bodily strength.—But if

they do restrain it, will you bear with us a little further and explain

how they should be prepared? I observe that you say ‘causes necessary to

state,’ but you have omitted to state them.

“Under a misapprehension, you seem to attribute to me interested motives

in this matter—to call it by no harsher term. But I assure you, dear

sir, that if I seem to be ‘infesting the widow,’ it is all seeming, and

void of reality. It is from no seeking of mine that I am in this

position. She asked me, herself, to write you. I never have infested

her—indeed I scarcely know her. I do not infest anybody. I try to go

along, in my humble way, doing as near right as I can, never harming

anybody, and never throwing out insinuations. As for ‘her lord and his

effects,’ they are of no interest to me. I trust I have effects enough

of my own—shall endeavor to get along with them, at any rate, and not go

mousing around to get hold of somebody’s that are ‘void.’ But do you not

see?—this woman is a widow—she has no ‘lord.’ He is dead—or pretended to

be, when they buried him. Therefore, no amount of ‘dirt, bathing,’ etc.,

etc., howsoever ‘unfairly followed’ will be likely to ‘worm him from his

folly’—if being dead and a ghost is ‘folly.’ Your closing remark is as

unkind as it was uncalled for; and if report says true you might have

applied it to yourself, sir, with more point and less impropriety. Very

Truly Yours, SIMON ERICKSON.

“In the course of a few days, Mr. Greely did what would have saved a

world of trouble, and much mental and bodily suffering and

misunderstanding, if he had done it sooner. To wit, he sent an

intelligible rescript or translation of his original note, made in a

plain hand by his clerk. Then the mystery cleared, and I saw that his

heart had been right, all the time. I will recite the note in its

clarified form:

[Translation.] ‘Potatoes do sometimes make vines; turnips remain

passive: cause unnecessary to state. Inform the poor widow her lad’s

efforts will be vain. But diet, bathing, etc. etc., followed uniformly,

will wean him from his folly—so fear not. Yours, HORACE GREELEY.’

“But alas, it was too late, gentlemen—too late. The criminal delay had

done its work—young Beazely was no more. His spirit had taken its flight

to a land where all anxieties shall be charmed away, all desires

gratified, all ambitions realized. Poor lad, they laid him to his rest

with a turnip in each hand.”

So ended Erickson, and lapsed again into nodding, mumbling, and

abstraction. The company broke up, and left him so.... But they did not

say what drove him crazy. In the momentary confusion, I forgot to ask.

CHAPTER LXXI.

At four o’clock in the afternoon we were winding down a mountain of

dreary and desolate lava to the sea, and closing our pleasant land

journey. This lava is the accumulation of ages; one torrent of fire

after another has rolled down here in old times, and built up the island

structure higher and higher. Underneath, it is honey-combed with caves;

it would be of no use to dig wells in such a place; they would not hold

water—you would not find any for them to hold, for that matter.

Consequently, the planters depend upon cisterns.

The last lava flow occurred here so long ago that there are none now

living who witnessed it. In one place it enclosed and burned down a

grove of cocoa-nut trees, and the holes in the lava where the trunks

stood are still visible; their sides retain the impression of the bark;

the trees fell upon the burning river, and becoming partly submerged,

left in it the perfect counterpart of every knot and branch and leaf,

and even nut, for curiosity seekers of a long distant day to gaze upon

and wonder at.

There were doubtless plenty of Kanaka sentinels on guard hereabouts at

that time, but they did not leave casts of their figures in the lava as

the Roman sentinels at Herculaneum and Pompeii did. It is a pity it is

so, because such things are so interesting; but so it is. They probably

went away. They went away early, perhaps. However, they had their

merits; the Romans exhibited the higher pluck, but the Kanakas showed

the sounder judgment.

Shortly we came in sight of that spot whose history is so familiar to

every school-boy in the wide world—_Kealakekua_ Bay—the place where

Captain Cook, the great circumnavigator, was killed by the natives,

nearly a hundred years ago. The setting sun was flaming upon it, a

Summer shower was falling, and it was spanned by two magnificent

rainbows. Two men who were in advance of us rode through one of these

and for a moment their garments shone with a more than regal splendor.

Why did not Captain Cook have taste enough to call his great discovery

the Rainbow Islands? These charming spectacles are present to you at

every turn; they are common in all the islands; they are visible every

day, and frequently at night also—not the silvery bow we see once in an

age in the States, by moonlight, but barred with all bright and

beautiful colors, like the children of the sun and rain. I saw one of

them a few nights ago. What the sailors call “raindogs”—little patches

of rainbow—are often seen drifting about the heavens in these latitudes,

like stained cathedral windows.

_Kealakekua_ Bay is a little curve like the last kink of a snail-shell,

winding deep into the land, seemingly not more than a mile wide from

shore to shore. It is bounded on one side—where the murder was done—by a

little flat plain, on which stands a cocoanut grove and some ruined

houses; a steep wall of lava, a thousand feet high at the upper end and

three or four hundred at the lower, comes down from the mountain and

bounds the inner extremity of it. From this wall the place takes its

name, _Kealakekua_, which in the native tongue signifies “The Pathway of

the Gods.” They say, (and still believe, in spite of their liberal

education in Christianity), that the great god _Lono_, who used to live

upon the hillside, always traveled that causeway when urgent business

connected with heavenly affairs called him down to the seashore in a

hurry.

As the red sun looked across the placid ocean through the tall, clean

stems of the cocoanut trees, like a blooming whiskey bloat through the

bars of a city prison, I went and stood in the edge of the water on the

flat rock pressed by Captain Cook’s feet when the blow was dealt which

took away his life, and tried to picture in my mind the doomed man

struggling in the midst of the multitude of exasperated savages—the men

in the ship crowding to the vessel’s side and gazing in anxious dismay

toward the shore—the—but I discovered that I could not do it.

514.jpg (93K)

It was growing dark, the rain began to fall, we could see that the

distant Boomerang was helplessly becalmed at sea, and so I adjourned to

the cheerless little box of a warehouse and sat down to smoke and think,

and wish the ship would make the land—for we had not eaten much for ten

hours and were viciously hungry.

Plain unvarnished history takes the romance out of Captain Cook’s

assassination, and renders a deliberate verdict of justifiable homicide.

Wherever he went among the islands, he was cordially received and

welcomed by the inhabitants, and his ships lavishly supplied with all

manner of food. He returned these kindnesses with insult and ill-

treatment. Perceiving that the people took him for the long vanished and

lamented god _Lono_, he encouraged them in the delusion for the sake of

the limitless power it gave him; but during the famous disturbance at

this spot, and while he and his comrades were surrounded by fifteen

thousand maddened savages, he received a hurt and betrayed his earthly

origin with a groan. It was his death-warrant. Instantly a shout went

up: “He groans!—he is not a god!” So they closed in upon him and

dispatched him.

His flesh was stripped from the bones and burned (except nine pounds of

it which were sent on board the ships). The heart was hung up in a

native hut, where it was found and eaten by three children, who mistook

it for the heart of a dog. One of these children grew to be a very old

man, and died in Honolulu a few years ago. Some of Cook’s bones were

recovered and consigned to the deep by the officers of the ships.

Small blame should attach to the natives for the killing of Cook. They

treated him well. In return, he abused them. He and his men inflicted

bodily injury upon many of them at different times, and killed at least

three of them before they offered any proportionate retaliation.

Near the shore we found “Cook’s Monument”—only a cocoanut stump, four

feet high and about a foot in diameter at the butt. It had lava boulders

piled around its base to hold it up and keep it in its place, and it was

entirely sheathed over, from top to bottom, with rough, discolored

sheets of copper, such as ships’ bottoms are coppered with. Each sheet

had a rude inscription scratched upon it—with a nail, apparently—and in

every case the execution was wretched. Most of these merely recorded the

visits of British naval commanders to the spot, but one of them bore

this legend:

“Near this spot fell CAPTAIN JAMES COOK, The Distinguished

Circumnavigator, who Discovered these Islands A. D. 1778.”

After Cook’s murder, his second in command, on board the ship, opened

fire upon the swarms of natives on the beach, and one of his cannon

balls cut this cocoanut tree short off and left this monumental stump

standing. It looked sad and lonely enough to us, out there in the rainy

twilight. But there is no other monument to Captain Cook. True, up on

the mountain side we had passed by a large inclosure like an ample hog-

pen, built of lava blocks, which marks the spot where Cook’s flesh was

stripped from his bones and burned; but this is not properly a monument

since it was erected by the natives themselves, and less to do honor to

the circumnavigator than for the sake of convenience in roasting him. A

thing like a guide-board was elevated above this pen on a tall pole, and

formerly there was an inscription upon it describing the memorable

occurrence that had there taken place; but the sun and the wind have

long ago so defaced it as to render it illegible.

Toward midnight a fine breeze sprang up and the schooner soon worked

herself into the bay and cast anchor. The boat came ashore for us, and

in a little while the clouds and the rain were all gone. The moon was

beaming tranquilly down on land and sea, and we two were stretched upon

the deck sleeping the refreshing sleep and dreaming the happy dreams

that are only vouchsafed to the weary and the innocent.

CHAPTER LXXII.

In the breezy morning we went ashore and visited the ruined temple of

the last god _Lono_. The high chief cook of this temple—the priest who

presided over it and roasted the human sacrifices—was uncle to Obookia,

and at one time that youth was an apprentice-priest under him. Obookia

was a young native of fine mind, who, together with three other native

boys, was taken to New England by the captain of a whaleship during the

reign of Kamehameha I, and they were the means of attracting the

attention of the religious world to their country. This resulted in the

sending of missionaries there. And this Obookia was the very same

sensitive savage who sat down on the church steps and wept because his

people did not have the Bible. That incident has been very elaborately

painted in many a charming Sunday School book—aye, and told so

plaintively and so tenderly that I have cried over it in Sunday School

myself, on general principles, although at a time when I did not know

much and could not understand why the people of the Sandwich Islands

needed to worry so much about it as long as they did not know there was

a Bible at all.

Obookia was converted and educated, and was to have returned to his

native land with the first missionaries, had he lived. The other native

youths made the voyage, and two of them did good service, but the third,

William Kanui, fell from grace afterward, for a time, and when the gold

excitement broke out in California he journeyed thither and went to

mining, although he was fifty years old. He succeeded pretty well, but

the failure of Page, Bacon & Co. relieved him of six thousand dollars,

and then, to all intents and purposes, he was a bankrupt in his old age

and he resumed service in the pulpit again. He died in Honolulu in 1864.

Quite a broad tract of land near the temple, extending from the sea to

the mountain top, was sacred to the god _Lono_ in olden times—so sacred

that if a common native set his sacrilegious foot upon it it was

judicious for him to make his will, because his time had come. He might

go around it by water, but he could not cross it. It was well sprinkled

with pagan temples and stocked with awkward, homely idols carved out of

logs of wood. There was a temple devoted to prayers for rain—and with

fine sagacity it was placed at a point so well up on the mountain side

that if you prayed there twenty-four times a day for rain you would be

likely to get it every time. You would seldom get to your Amen before

you would have to hoist your umbrella.

518.jpg (54K)

And there was a large temple near at hand which was built in a single

night, in the midst of storm and thunder and rain, by the ghastly hands

of dead men! Tradition says that by the weird glare of the lightning a

noiseless multitude of phantoms were seen at their strange labor far up

the mountain side at dead of night—flitting hither and thither and

bearing great lava-blocks clasped in their nerveless fingers—appearing

and disappearing as the pallid lustre fell upon their forms and faded

away again. Even to this day, it is said, the natives hold this dread

structure in awe and reverence, and will not pass by it in the night.

519.jpg (43K)

At noon I observed a bevy of nude native young ladies bathing in the

sea, and went and sat down on their clothes to keep them from being

stolen. I begged them to come out, for the sea was rising and I was

satisfied that they were running some risk. But they were not afraid,

and presently went on with their sport. They were finished swimmers and

divers, and enjoyed themselves to the last degree.

They swam races, splashed and ducked and tumbled each other about, and

filled the air with their laughter. It is said that the first thing an

Islander learns is how to swim; learning to walk being a matter of

smaller consequence, comes afterward. One hears tales of native men and

women swimming ashore from vessels many miles at sea—more miles, indeed,

than I dare vouch for or even mention. And they tell of a native diver

who went down in thirty or forty-foot waters and brought up an anvil! I

think he swallowed the anvil afterward, if my memory serves me. However

I will not urge this point.

I have spoken, several times, of the god _Lono_—I may as well furnish

two or three sentences concerning him.

The idol the natives worshipped for him was a slender, unornamented

staff twelve feet long. Tradition says he was a favorite god on the

Island of Hawaii—a great king who had been deified for meritorious

services—just our own fashion of rewarding heroes, with the difference

that we would have made him a Postmaster instead of a god, no doubt. In

an angry moment he slew his wife, a goddess named Kaikilani Aiii.

Remorse of conscience drove him mad, and tradition presents us the

singular spectacle of a god traveling “on the shoulder;” for in his

gnawing grief he wandered about from place to place boxing and wrestling

with all whom he met. Of course this pastime soon lost its novelty,

inasmuch as it must necessarily have been the case that when so powerful

a deity sent a frail human opponent “to grass” he never came back any

more. Therefore, he instituted games called makahiki, and ordered that

they should be held in his honor, and then sailed for foreign lands on a

three-cornered raft, stating that he would return some day—and that was

the last of _Lono_. He was never seen any more; his raft got swamped,

perhaps. But the people always expected his return, and thus they were

easily led to accept Captain Cook as the restored god.

Some of the old natives believed Cook was _Lono_ to the day of their

death; but many did not, for they could not understand how he could die

if he was a god.

Only a mile or so from _Kealakekua_ Bay is a spot of historic

interest—the place where the last battle was fought for idolatry. Of

course we visited it, and came away as wise as most people do who go and

gaze upon such mementoes of the past when in an unreflective mood.

While the first missionaries were on their way around the Horn, the

idolatrous customs which had obtained in the island, as far back as

tradition reached were suddenly broken up. Old Kamehameha I., was dead,

and his son, Liholiho, the new King was a free liver, a roystering,

dissolute fellow, and hated the restraints of the ancient _tabu_. His

assistant in the Government, Kaahumanu, the Queen dowager, was proud and

high-spirited, and hated the _tabu_ because it restricted the privileges

of her sex and degraded all women very nearly to the level of brutes. So

the case stood. Liholiho had half a mind to put his foot down, Kaahumanu

had a whole mind to badger him into doing it, and whiskey did the rest.

It was probably the rest. It was probably the first time whiskey ever

prominently figured as an aid to civilization. Liholiho came up to

Kailua as drunk as a piper, and attended a great feast; the determined

Queen spurred his drunken courage up to a reckless pitch, and then,

while all the multitude stared in blank dismay, he moved deliberately

forward and sat down with the women!

They saw him eat from the same vessel with them, and were appalled!

Terrible moments drifted slowly by, and still the King ate, still he

lived, still the lightnings of the insulted gods were withheld! Then

conviction came like a revelation—the superstitions of a hundred

generations passed from before the people like a cloud, and a shout went

up, “the _tabu_ is broken! the _tabu_ is broken!”

521.jpg (100K)

Thus did King Liholiho and his dreadful whiskey preach the first sermon

and prepare the way for the new gospel that was speeding southward over

the waves of the Atlantic.

The _tabu_ broken and destruction failing to follow the awful sacrilege,

the people, with that childlike precipitancy which has always

characterized them, jumped to the conclusion that their gods were a weak

and wretched swindle, just as they formerly jumped to the conclusion

that Captain Cook was no god, merely because he groaned, and promptly

killed him without stopping to inquire whether a god might not groan as

well as a man if it suited his convenience to do it; and satisfied that

the idols were powerless to protect themselves they went to work at once

and pulled them down—hacked them to pieces—applied the torch—annihilated

them!

The pagan priests were furious. And well they might be; they had held

the fattest offices in the land, and now they were beggared; they had

been great—they had stood above the chiefs—and now they were vagabonds.

They raised a revolt; they scared a number of people into joining their

standard, and Bekuokalani, an ambitious offshoot of royalty, was easily

persuaded to become their leader.

In the first skirmish the idolaters triumphed over the royal army sent

against them, and full of confidence they resolved to march upon Kailua.

The King sent an envoy to try and conciliate them, and came very near

being an envoy short by the operation; the savages not only refused to

listen to him, but wanted to kill him. So the King sent his men forth

under Major General Kalaimoku and the two host met at Kuamoo. The battle

was long and fierce—men and women fighting side by side, as was the

custom—and when the day was done the rebels were flying in every

direction in hopeless panic, and idolatry and the _tabu_ were dead in

the land!

The royalists marched gayly home to Kailua glorifying the new

dispensation. “There is no power in the gods,” said they; “they are a

vanity and a lie. The army with idols was weak; the army without idols

was strong and victorious!”

The nation was without a religion.

The missionary ship arrived in safety shortly afterward, timed by

providential exactness to meet the emergency, and the Gospel was planted

as in a virgin soil.

523.jpg (57K)

CHAPTER LXXIII.

At noon, we hired a Kanaka to take us down to the ancient ruins at

Honaunau in his canoe—price two dollars—reasonable enough, for a sea

voyage of eight miles, counting both ways.

The native canoe is an irresponsible looking contrivance. I cannot think

of anything to liken it to but a boy’s sled runner hollowed out, and

that does not quite convey the correct idea. It is about fifteen feet

long, high and pointed at both ends, is a foot and a half or two feet

deep, and so narrow that if you wedged a fat man into it you might not

get him out again. It sits on top of the water like a duck, but it has

an outrigger and does not upset easily, if you keep still. This

outrigger is formed of two long bent sticks like plow handles, which

project from one side, and to their outer ends is bound a curved beam

composed of an extremely light wood, which skims along the surface of

the water and thus saves you from an upset on that side, while the

outrigger’s weight is not so easily lifted as to make an upset on the

other side a thing to be greatly feared. Still, until one gets used to

sitting perched upon this knifeblade, he is apt to reason within himself

that it would be more comfortable if there were just an outrigger or so

on the other side also. I had the bow seat, and Billings sat amidships

and faced the Kanaka, who occupied the stern of the craft and did the

paddling. With the first stroke the trim shell of a thing shot out from

the shore like an arrow. There was not much to see. While we were on the

shallow water of the reef, it was pastime to look down into the limpid

depths at the large bunches of branching coral—the unique shrubbery of

the sea. We lost that, though, when we got out into the dead blue water

of the deep. But we had the picture of the surf, then, dashing angrily

against the crag-bound shore and sending a foaming spray high into the

air.

There was interest in this beetling border, too, for it was honey-combed

with quaint caves and arches and tunnels, and had a rude semblance of

the dilapidated architecture of ruined keeps and castles rising out of

the restless sea. When this novelty ceased to be a novelty, we turned

our eyes shoreward and gazed at the long mountain with its rich green

forests stretching up into the curtaining clouds, and at the specks of

houses in the rearward distance and the diminished schooner riding

sleepily at anchor. And when these grew tiresome we dashed boldly into

the midst of a school of huge, beastly porpoises engaged at their

eternal game of arching over a wave and disappearing, and then doing it

over again and keeping it up—always circling over, in that way, like so

many well-submerged wheels. But the porpoises wheeled themselves away,

and then we were thrown upon our own resources. It did not take many

minutes to discover that the sun was blazing like a bonfire, and that

the weather was of a melting temperature. It had a drowsing effect, too.

525.jpg (87K)