Mrs. A. has been ill for some time, and Mrs. S. her sister and
another friend "plotted" in a very "clandestine" manner that I
should come here for a few days in order to give her "a little
change of society," but I am quite sure that under this they only
veil a kind wish that I should see something of plantation life.
There is a plan, too, that I should take a five days' trip to a
remarkable valley called Waipio, but this is only a "castle in the
air."
Mr. A. sent in for me a capital little lean rat of a horse which by
dint of spirit and activity managed to keep within sight of two
large horses, ridden by Mr. Thompson, and a very handsome young lady
riding "cavalier fashion," who convoyed me out. Borrowed saddle-
bags, and a couple of shingles for carrying ferns formed my outfit,
and were carried behind my saddle. It is a magnificent ride here.
The track crosses the deep, still, Wailuku River on a wooden bridge,
and then after winding up a steep hill, among native houses
fantastically situated, hangs on the verge of the lofty precipices
which descend perpendicularly to the sea, dips into tremendous
gulches, loses itself in the bright fern-fringed torrents which have
cleft their way down from the mountains, and at last emerges on the
delicious height on which this house is built.
This coast looked beautiful from the deck of the Kilauea, but I am
now convinced that I have never seen anything so perfectly lovely as
it is when one is actually among its details. Onomea is 600 feet
high, and every yard of the ascent from Hilo brings one into a
fresher and purer air. One looks up the wooded, broken slopes to a
wild volcanic wilderness and the snowy peaks of Mauna Kea on one
side, and on the other down upon the calm blue Pacific, wrinkled by
the sweet trade-wind, till it blends in far-off loveliness with the
still, blue, sky; and heavy surges break on the reefs, and fritter
themselves away on the rocks, tossing their pure foam over ti and
lauhala trees, and the exquisite ferns and trailers which mantle the
cliffs down to the water's edge. Here a native house stands, with
passion-flowers clustering round its verandah, and the great
solitary red blossoms of the hibiscus flaming out from dark
surrounding leafage, and women in rose and green holukus, weaving
garlands, greet us with "Aloha" as we pass. Then we come upon a
whole cluster of grass houses under lauhalas and bananas. Then
there is the sugar plantation of Kaiwiki, with its patches of bright
green cane, its flumes crossing the track above our heads, bringing
the cane down from the upland cane-fields to the crushing-mill, and
the shifting, busy scenes of the sugar-boiling season.
Then the track goes down with a great dip, along which we slip and
slide in the mud to a deep broad stream. This is a most picturesque
spot, the junction of two clear bright rivers, and a few native
houses and a Chinaman's store are grouped close by under some palms,
with the customary loungers on horseback, asking and receiving
nuhou, or news, at the doors. Our accustomed horses leaped into a
ferry-scow provided by Government, worked by a bearded female of
hideous aspect, and leaped out on the other side to climb a track
cut on the side of a precipice, which would be steep to mount on
one's own feet. There we met parties of natives, all flower-
wreathed, talking and singing, coming gaily down on their sure-
footed horses, saluting us with the invariable "Aloha." Every now
and then we passed native churches, with spires painted white, or a
native schoolhouse, or a group of scholars all ferns and flowers.
The greenness of the vegetation merits the term "dazzling." We
think England green, but its colour is poor and pale as compared
with that of tropical Hawaii. Palms, candlenuts, ohias, hibiscus,
were it not for their exceeding beauty, would almost pall upon one
from their abundance, and each gulch has its glorious entanglement
of breadfruit, the large-leaved ohia, or native apple, a species of
Eugenia (Eugenia Malaccensis), and the pandanus, with its aerial
roots, all looped together by large sky-blue convolvuli and the
running fern, and is marvellous with parasitic growths.
The distracting beauty of this coast is what are called gulches--
narrow deep ravines or gorges, from 100 to 2,000 feet in depth, each
with a series of cascades from 10 to 1,800 feet in height. I
dislike reducing their glories to the baldness of figures, but the
depth of these clefts (originally, probably, the seams caused by
fire torrents), cut and worn by the fierce streams fed by the snows
of Mauna Kea, and the rains of the forest belt, cannot otherwise be
expressed. The cascades are most truly beautiful, gleaming white
among the dark depths of foliage far away, and falling into deep
limpid basins, festooned and overhung with the richest and greenest
vegetation of this prolific climate, from the huge-leaved banana and
shining breadfruit to the most feathery of ferns and lycopodiums.
Each gulch opens on a velvet lawn close to the sea, and most of them
have space for a few grass houses, with cocoanut trees, bananas, and
kalo patches. There are sixty-nine of these extraordinary chasms
within a distance of thirty miles!
I think we came through eleven, fording the streams in all but two.
The descent into some of them is quite alarming. You go down almost
standing in your stirrups, at a right angle with the horse's head,
and up, grasping his mane to prevent the saddle slipping. He goes
down like a goat, with his bare feet, looking cautiously at each
step, sometimes putting out a foot and withdrawing it again in
favour of better footing, and sometimes gathering his four feet
under him and sliding or jumping. The Mexican saddle has great
advantages on these tracks, which are nothing better than ledges cut
on the sides of precipices, for one goes up and down not only in
perfect security but without fatigue. I am beginning to hope that I
am not too old, as I feared I was, to learn a new mode of riding,
for my companions rode at full speed over places where I should have
picked my way carefully at a foot's pace; and my horse followed
them, galloping and stopping short at their pleasure, and I
successfully kept my seat, though not without occasional fears of an
ignominious downfall. I even wish that you could see me in my Rob
Roy riding dress, with leather belt and pouch, a lei of the orange
seeds of the pandanus round my throat, jingling Mexican spurs, blue
saddle blanket, and Rob Roy blanket strapped on behind the saddle!
This place is grandly situated 600 feet above a deep cove, into
which two beautiful gulches of great size run, with heavy cascades,
finer than Foyers at its best, and a native village is picturesquely
situated between the two. The great white rollers, whiter by
contrast with the dark deep water, come into the gulch just where we
forded the river, and from the ford a passable road made for hauling
sugar ascends to the house. The air is something absolutely
delicious; and the murmur of the rollers and the deep boom of the
cascades are very soothing. There is little rise or fall in the
cadence of the surf anywhere on the windward coast, but one even
sound, loud or soft, like that made by a train in a tunnel.
We were kindly welcomed, and were at once "made at home." Delicious
phrase! the full meaning of which I am learning on Hawaii, where,
though everything has the fascination of novelty, I have ceased to
feel myself a stranger. This is a roomy, rambling frame-house, with
a verandah, and the door, as is usual here, opens directly into the
sitting-room. The stair by which I go to my room suggests
possibilities, for it has been removed three inches from the wall by
an earthquake, which also brought down the tall chimney of the
boiling-house. Close by there are small pretty frame-houses for the
overseer, bookkeeper, sugar boiler, and machinist; a store, the
factory, a pretty native church near the edge of the cliff, and
quite a large native village below. It looks green and bright, and
the atmosphere is perfect, with the cool air coming down from the
mountains, and a soft breeze coming up from the blue dreamy ocean.
Behind the house the uplands slope away to the colossal Mauna Kea.
The actual, dense, impenetrable forest does not begin for a mile and
a half from the coast, and its broad dark belt, extending to a
height of 4,000 feet, and beautifully broken, throws out into
greater brightness the upward glades of grass and the fields of
sugar-cane.
This is a very busy season, and as this is a large plantation there
is an appearance of great animation. There are five or six saddled
horses usually tethered below the house; and with overseers, white
and coloured, and natives riding at full gallop, and people coming
on all sorts of errands, the hum of the crushing-mill, the rush of
water in the flumes, and the grind of the waggons carrying cane,
there is no end of stir.
The plantations in the Hilo district enjoy special advantages, for
by turning some of the innumerable mountain streams into flumes the
owners can bring a great part of their cane and all their wood for
fuel down to the mills without other expense than the original cost
of the woodwork. Mr. A. has 100 mules, but the greater part of
their work is ploughing and hauling the kegs of sugar down to the
cove, where in favourable weather they are put on board of a
schooner for Honolulu. This plantation employs 185 hands, native
and Chinese, and turns out 600 tons of sugar a year. The natives
are much liked as labourers, being docile and on the whole willing;
but native labour is hard to get, as the natives do not like to work
for a term unless obliged, and a pernicious system of "advances" is
practised. The labourers hire themselves to the planters, in the
case of natives usually for a year, by a contract which has to be
signed before a notary public. The wages are about eight dollars a
month with food, or eleven dollars without food, and the planters
supply houses and medical attendance. The Chinese are imported as
coolies, and usually contract to work for five years. As a matter
of policy no less than of humanity the "hands" are well treated; for
if a single instance of injustice were perpetrated on a plantation
the factory might stand still the next year, for hardly a native
would contract to serve again.
The Chinese are quiet and industrious, but smoke opium, and are much
addicted to gaming. Many of them save money, and, when their turn
of service is over, set up stores, or grow vegetables for money.
Each man employed has his horse, and on Saturday the hands form
quite a cavalcade. Great tact, firmness, and knowledge of human
nature are required in the manager of a plantation. The natives are
at times disposed to shirk work without sufficient cause; the native
lunas, or overseers, are not always reasonable, the Chinamen and
natives do not always agree, and quarrels and entanglements arise,
and everything is referred to the decision of the manager, who,
besides all things else, must know the exact amount of work which
ought to be performed, both in the fields and factory, and see that
it is done. Mr. A. is a keen, shrewd man of business, kind without
being weak, and with an eye on every detail of his plantations. The
requirements are endless. It reminds me very much of plantation
life in Georgia in the old days of slavery. I never elsewhere heard
of so many headaches, sore hands, and other trifling ailments. It
is very amusing to see the attempts which the would-be invalids make
to lengthen their brief smiling faces into lugubriousness, and the
sudden relaxation into naturalness when they are allowed a holiday.
Mr. A. comes into the house constantly to consult his wife regarding
the treatment of different ailments.
I have made a second tour through the factory, and am rather
disgusted with sugar making. "All's well that ends well," however,
and the delicate crystalline result makes one forget the initial
stages of the manufacture. The cane, stripped of its leaves, passes
from the flumes under the rollers of the crushing-mill, where it is
subjected to a pressure of five or six tons. One hundred pounds of
cane under this process yield up from sixty-five to seventy-five
pounds of juice. This juice passes, as a pale green cataract, into
a trough, which conducts it into a vat, where it is dosed with
quicklime to neutralize its acid, and is then run off into large
heated metal vessels. At this stage the smell is abominable, and
the turbid fluid, with a thick scum upon it, is simply disgusting.
After a preliminary heating and skimming it is passed off into iron
pans, several in a row, and boiled and skimmed, and ladled from one
to the other till it reaches the last, which is nearest to the fire,
and there it boils with the greatest violence, seething and foaming,
bringing all the remaining scum to the surface. After the
concentration has proceeded far enough, the action of the heat is
suspended, and the reddish-brown, oily-looking liquid is drawn into
the vacuum-pan till it is about a third full; the concentration is
completed by boiling the juice in vacuo at a temperature of 150
degrees, and even lower. As the boiling proceeds, the sugar boiler
tests the contents of the pan by withdrawing a few drops, and
holding them up to the light on his finger; and, by certain minute
changes in their condition, he judges when it is time to add an
additional quantity. When the pan is full, the contents have
thickened into the consistency of thick gruel by the formation of
minute crystals, and are then allowed to descend into an heater,
where they are kept warm till they can be run into "forms" or tanks,
where they are allowed to granulate. The liquid, or molasses, which
remains after the first crystallization is returned to the vacuum
pan and reboiled, and this reboiling of the drainings is repeated
two or three times, with a gradually decreasing result in the
quality and quantity of the sugar. The last process, which is used
for getting rid of the treacle, is a most beautiful one. The mass
of sugar and treacle is put into what are called "centrifugal pans,"
which are drums about three feet in diameter and two feet high,
which make about 1,000 revolutions a minute. These have false
interiors of wire gauze, and the mass is forced violently against
their sides by centrifugal action, and they let the treacle whirl
through, and retain the sugar crystals, which lie in a dry heap in
the centre.
The cane is being flumed in with great rapidity, and the factory is
working till late at night. The cane from which the juice has been
expressed, called "trash," is dried and used as fuel for the furnace
which supplies the steam power. The sugar is packed in kegs, and a
cooper and carpenter, as well as other mechanics, are employed.
Sugar is now the great interest of the islands. Christian missions
and whaling have had their day, and now people talk sugar. Hawaii
thrills to the news of a cent up or a cent down in the American
market. All the interests of the kingdom are threatened by this
one, which, because it is grievously depressed and staggers under a
heavy import duty in the American market, is now clamorous in some
quarters for "annexation," and in others for a "reciprocity treaty,"
which last means the cession of the Pearl River lagoon on Oahu, with
its adjacent shores, to America, for a Pacific naval station. There
are 200,000 acres of productive soil on the islands, of which only a
fifteenth is under cultivation, and of this large area 150,000 is
said to be specially adapted for sugar culture. Herein is a
prospective Utopia, and people are always dreaming of the sugar-
growing capacities of the belt of rich disintegrated lava which
slopes upwards from the sea to the bases of the mountains.
Hitherto, sugar growing has been a very disastrous speculation, and
few of the planters at present do more than keep their heads above
water.
Were labour plentiful and the duties removed, fortunes might be
made; for the soil yields on an average about three times as much as
that of the State of Louisiana. Two and a half tons to the acre is
a common yield, five tons, a frequent one, and instances are known
of the slowly matured cane of a high altitude yielding as much as
seven tons! The magnificent climate makes it a very easy crop to
grow. There is no brief harvest time with its rush, hurry, and
frantic demand for labour, nor frost to render necessary the hasty
cutting of an immature crop. The same number of hands is kept on
all the year round. The planters can plant pretty much when they
please, or not plant at all, for two or three years, the only
difference in the latter case being that the rattoons which spring
up after the cutting of the former crop are smaller in bulk. They
can cut when they please, whether the cane be tasselled or not, and
they can plant, cut, and grind at one time!
It is a beautiful crop in any stage of growth, especially in the
tasselled stage. Every part of it is useful--the cane pre-
eminently--the leaves as food for horses and mules, and the tassels
for making hats. Here and elsewhere there is a plate of cut cane
always within reach, and the children chew it incessantly. I fear
you will be tired of sugar, but I find it more interesting than the
wool and mutton of Victoria and New Zealand, and it is a most
important item of the wealth of this toy kingdom, which last year
exported 16,995,402 lbs. of sugar and 192,105 gallons of molasses.
{121} With regard to molasses, the Government prohibits the
manufacture of rum, so the planters are deprived of a fruitful
source of profit. It is really difficult to tear myself from the
subject of sugar, for I see the cane waving in the sun while I
write, and hear the busy hum of the crushing-mill.
I.L.B.