KOLOA, KAUAI, March 23rd.
I am spending a few days on some quaint old mission premises, and
the "guest house," where I am lodged, is a dobe house, with walls
two feet thick, and a very thick grass roof comes down six feet all
round to shade the windows. It is itself shaded by date palms and
algarobas, and is surrounded by hibiscus, oleanders, and the datura
arborea(?), which at night fill the air with sweetness. I am the
only guest, and the solitude of the guest house in which I am
writing is most refreshing to tired nerves. There is not a sound
but the rustling of trees.
The first event to record is that the trade winds have set in, and
though they may yet yield once or twice to the kona, they will soon
be firmly established for nine months. They are not soft airs as I
supposed, but riotous, rollicking breezes, which keep up a constant
clamour, blowing the trees about, slamming doors, taking liberties
with papers, making themselves heard and felt everywhere, flecking
the blue Pacific with foam, lowering the mercury three degrees,
bringing new health and vigour with them,--wholesome, cheery,
frolicsome north-easters. They brought me here from Oahu in
eighteen hours, for which I thank them heartily.
You will think me a Sybarite for howling about those eighteen hours
of running to leeward, when the residents of Kauai, if they have to
go to Honolulu in the intervals between the quarterly trips of the
Kilauea, have to spend from three to nine days in beating to
windward. These inter-island voyages of extreme detention, rolling
on a lazy swell in tropical heat, or beating for days against the
strong trades without shelter from the sun, and without anything
that could be called accommodation, were among the inevitable
hardships to which the missionaries' wives and children were exposed
in every migration for nearly forty years.
When I reached the wharf at Honolulu the sight of the Jenny, the
small sixty-ton schooner by which I was to travel, nearly made me
give up this pleasant plan, so small she looked, and so cumbered
with natives and their accompaniments of mats, dogs, and calabashes
of poi. But she is clean, and as sweet as a boat can be which
carries through the tropics cattle, hides, sugar, and molasses. She
is very low in the water, her deck is the real "fisherman's walk,
two steps and overboard;" and on this occasion was occupied solely
by natives. The Attorney General and Mrs. Judd were to have been my
fellow voyagers, but my disappointment at their non-appearance was
considerably mitigated by the fact that there was not stowage room
for more than one white passenger! Mrs. Dexter pitied me heartily,
for it made her quite ill to look down the cabin hatch; but I
convinced her that no inconveniences are legitimate subjects for
sympathy which are endured in the pursuit of pleasure. There was
just room on deck for me to sit on a box, and the obliging,
gentlemanly master, who, with his son and myself, were the only
whites on board, sat on the taffrail.
The Jenny spread her white duck sails, glided gracefully away from
the wharf, and bounded through the coral reef; the red sunlight
faded, the stars came out, the Honolulu light went down in the
distance, and in two hours the little craft was out of sight of land
on the broad, crisp Pacific. It was so chilly, that after admiring
as long as I could, I dived into the cabin, a mere den, with a
table, and a berth on each side, in one of which I lay down, and the
other was alternately occupied by the captain and his son. But
limited as I thought it, boards have been placed across on some
occasions, and eleven whites have been packed into a space six feet
by eight! The heat and suffocation were nearly intolerable, the
black flies swarming, the mosquitos countless and vicious, the fleas
agile beyond anything, and the cockroaches gigantic. Some of the
finer cargo was in the cabin, and large rats, only too visible by
the light of a swinging lamp, were assailing it, and one with a
portentous tail ran over my berth more than once, producing a
stampede among the cockroaches each time. I have seldom spent a
more miserable night, though there was the extreme satisfaction of
knowing that every inch of canvas was drawing.
Towards morning the short jerking motion of a ship close hauled,
made me know that we were standing in for the land, and at daylight
we anchored in Koloa Roads. The view is a pleasant one. The rains
have been abundant, and the land, which here rises rather gradually
from the sea, is dotted with houses, abounds in signs of
cultivation, and then spreads up into a rolling country between
precipitous ranges of mountains. The hills look something like
those of Oahu, but their wonderful greenness denotes a cooler
climate and more copious rains, also their slopes and valleys are
densely wooded, and Kauai obviously has its characteristic features,
one of which must certainly be a superabundance of that most
unsightly cactus, the prickly pear, to which the motto nemo me
impune lacessit most literally applies.
I had not time to tell you before that this trip to Kauai was
hastily arranged for me by several of my Honolulu friends, some of
whom gave me letters of introduction, while others wrote forewarning
their friends of my arrival. I am often reminded of Hazael's
question, "Is thy servant a dog that he should do this thing?"
There is no inn or boarding house on the island, and I had hitherto
believed that I could not be concussed into following the usual
custom whereby a traveller throws himself on the hospitality of the
residents. Yet, under the influence of Honolulu persuasions, I am
doing this very thing, but with an amount of mauvaise honte and
trepidation, which I will not voluntarily undergo again.
My first introduction was to Mrs. Smith, wife of a secular member of
the Mission, and it requested her to find means of forwarding me a
distance of twenty-three miles. Her son was at the landing with a
buggy, a most unpleasant index of the existence of carriage roads,
and brought me here; and Mrs. Smith most courteously met me at the
door. When I presented my letter I felt like a thief detected in a
first offence, but I was at once made welcome, and my kind hosts
insist on my remaining with them for some days. Their house is a
pretty old-fashioned looking tropical dwelling, much shaded by
exotics, and the parlour is homelike with new books. There are two
sons and two daughters at home, all, as well as their parents,
interesting themselves assiduously in the welfare of the natives.
Six bright-looking native girls are receiving an industrial training
in the house. Yesterday being Sunday, the young people taught a
Sunday school twice, besides attending the native church, an act of
respect to Divine service in Hawaiian which always has an influence
on the native attendance.
We have had some beautiful rides in the neighbourhood. It is a
wild, lonely, picturesque coast, and the Pacific moans along it,
casting itself on it in heavy surges, with a singularly dreary
sound. There are some very fine specimens of the phenomena called
"blow-holes" on the shore, not like the "spouting cave" at Iona,
however. We spent a long time in watching the action of one, though
not the finest. At half tide this "spouting horn" throws up a
column of water over sixty feet in height from a very small orifice,
and the effect of the compressed air rushing through a crevice near
it, sometimes with groans and shrieks, and at others with a hollow
roar like the warning fog-horn on a coast, is magnificent, when, as
to-day, there is a heavy swell on the coast.
Kauai is much out of the island world, owing to the infrequent
visits of the Kilauea, but really it is only twelve hours by steam
from the capital. Strangers visit it seldom, as it has no active
volcano like Hawaii, or colossal crater like Maui, or anything
sensational of any kind. It is called the "Garden Island," and has
no great wastes of black lava and red ash like its neighbours. It
is queerly shaped, almost circular, with a diameter of from twenty-
eight to thirty miles, and its area is about 500 square miles.
Waialeale, its highest mountain, is 4,800 feet high, but little is
known of it, for it is swampy and dangerous, and a part of it is a
forest-covered and little explored tableland, terminating on the sea
in a range of perpendicular precipices 2,000 feet in depth, so steep
it is said, that a wild cat could not get round them. Owing to
these, and the virtual inaccessibility of a large region behind
them, no one can travel round the island by land, and small as it
is, very little seems to be known of portions of its area.
Kauai has apparently two centres of formation, and its mountains are
thickly dotted with craters. The age and density of the vegetation
within and without those in this Koloa district, indicate a very
long cessation from volcanic action. It is truly an oddly contrived
island. An elevated rolling region, park-like, liberally ornamented
with clumps of ohia, lauhala, hau, (hibiscus) and koa, and
intersected with gullies full of large eugenias, lies outside the
mountain spurs behind Koloa. It is only the tropical trees,
specially the lauhala or "screw pine," the whimsical shapes of
outlying ridges, which now and then lie like the leaves in a book,
and the strange forms of extinct craters, which distinguish it from
some of our most beautiful park scenery, such as Windsor Great Park
or Belvoir. It is a soft tranquil beauty, and a tolerable road
which owes little enough to art, increases the likeness to the sweet
home scenery of England. In this part of the island the ground
seems devoid of stones, and the grass is as fine and smooth as a
race course.
The latest traces of volcanic action are found here. From the Koloa
Ridge to, and into the sea, a barren uneven surface of pahoehoe
extends, often bulged up in immense bubbles, some of which have
partially burst, leaving caverns, one of which, near the shore, is
paved with the ancient coral reef!
The valleys of Kauai are long, and widen to the sea, and their dark
rich soil is often ten feet deep. On the windward side the rivers
are very numerous and picturesque. Between the strong winds and the
lightness of the soil, I should think that like some parts of the
Highlands, "it would take a shower every day." The leeward side,
quite close to the sea, is flushed and nearly barren, but there is
very little of this desert region. Kauai is less legible in its
formation than the other islands. Its mountains, from their
impenetrable forests, dangerous breaks, and swampiness, are
difficult of access, and its ridges are said to be more utterly
irregular, its lavas more decomposed, and its natural sections more
completely smothered under a profuse vegetation than those of any
other island in the tropical Pacific. Geologists suppose, from the
degradation of its ridges, and the absence of any recent volcanic
products, that it is the oldest of the group, but so far as I have
read, none of them venture to conjecture how many ages it has taken
to convert its hard basalt into the rich soil which now sustains
trees of enormous size. If this theory be correct, the volcanoes
must have gone on dying out from west to east, from north to south,
till only Kilauea remains, and its energies appear to be declining.
The central mountain of this island is built of a heavy ferruginous
basalt, but the shore ridges contain less iron, are more porous, and
vary in their structure from a compact phonolite, to a ponderous
basalt.
The population of Kauai is a widely scattered one of 4,900, and as
it is an out of the world region the people are probably better, and
less sophisticated. They are accounted rustics, or "pagans," in the
classical sense, elsewhere. Horses are good and very cheap, and the
natives of both sexes are most expert riders. Among their feats,
are picking up small coins from the ground while going at full
gallop, or while riding at the same speed wringing off the heads of
unfortunate fowls, whose bodies are buried in the earth.
There are very few foreigners, and they appear on the whole a good
set, and very friendly among each other. Many of them are actively
interested in promoting the improvement of the natives, but it is
uphill work, and ill-rewarded, at least on earth. The four sugar
plantations employ a good deal of Chinese labour, and I fear that
the Chinamen are stealthily tempting the Hawaiians to smoke opium.
All the world over, however far behind aborigines are in the useful
arts, they exercise a singular ingenuity in devising means for
intoxicating and stupifying themselves. On these islands
distillation is illegal, and a foreigner is liable to conviction and
punishment for giving spirits to a native Hawaiian, yet the natives
contrive to distil very intoxicating drinks, specially from the root
of the ti tree, and as the spirit is unrectified it is both fiery
and unwholesome. Licences to sell spirits are confined to the
capital. In spite of the notoriously bad effect of alcohol in the
tropics, people drink hard, and the number of deaths which can be
distinctly traced to spirit drinking is quite startling.
The prohibition on selling liquor to natives is the subject of
incessant discussions and "interpellations" in the national
legislature. Probably all the natives agree in regarding it as a
badge of the "inferiority of colour;" but I have been told generally
that the most intelligent and thoughtful among them are in favour of
its continuance, on the ground that if additional facilities for
drinking were afforded, the decrease in the population would be
accelerated. In the printed "Parliamentary Proceedings," I see that
petitions are constantly presented praying that the distillation of
spirits may be declared free, while a few are in favour of "total
prohibition." Another prayer is "that Hawaiians may have the same
privileges as white people in buying and drinking spirituous
liquors."
A bill to repeal the invidious distinction was brought into the
legislature not long since; but the influence of the descendants of
the missionaries and of an influential part of the white community
is so strongly against spirit drinking, as well as against the sale
of drink to the natives, that the law remains on the Statute-book.
The tone in which it was discussed is well indicated by the language
of Kalakaua, the present king's rival: "The restrictions imposed by
this law do the people no good, but rather harm; for instead of
inculcating the principles of honour, they teach them to steal
behind the bar, the stable, and the closet, where they may be
sheltered from the eyes of the law. The heavy licence imposed on
the liquor dealers, and the prohibition against selling to the
natives are an infringement of our civil rights, binding not only
the purchaser but the dealer against acquiring and possessing
property. Then, Mr. President, I ask, where lies virtue, where lies
justice? Not in those that bind the liberty of this people, by
refusing them the privilege that they now crave, of drinking
spirituous liquors without restriction. Will you by persisting that
this law remain in force make us a nation of hypocrites? or will you
repeal it, that honour and virtue may for once be yours, O Hawaii."
A committee of the Assembly, in reporting on the question of the
prohibition of the sale of intoxicants to anybody, through its
chairman, Mr. Carter, stated, "Experience teaches that such
prohibition could not be enforced without a strong public sentiment
to indorse it, and such a sentiment does not prevail in this
community, as is evidenced by the fact that the sale of intoxicating
drinks to natives is largely practised in defiance of law and the
executive, and that the manufacture of intoxicating drinks, though
prohibited, is carried on in every district of the kingdom." So the
question which is rising in every country ruled or colonised by
Anglo-Saxons, is also agitated here with very strong feeling on both
sides.
I was led to this digression by seeing, for the first time, some
very fine plants of the Piper methysticum. This is awa, truly a
"plant of renown" throughout Polynesia. Strange tales are told of
it. It is said to produce profound sleep, with visions more
enchanting than those of opium or hasheesh, and that its repetition,
instead of being deleterious, is harmless and even wholesome. Its
sale is prohibited, except on the production of evidence that it has
been prescribed as a drug. Nevertheless no law on the islands is so
grossly violated. It is easy to GIVE it, and easy to grow it, or
dig it up in the woods, so that, in spite of the legal restrictions,
it is used to an enormous extent. It was proposed absolutely to
prohibit the sale of it, though the sum paid for the licence is no
inconsiderable item in the revenue of a kingdom, which, like many
others, is experiencing the difficulty of "making both ends meet;"
but the committee which sat upon the subject reported "that such
prohibition is not practicable, unless its growth and cultivation
are prevented. So long as public sentiment permits the open
violation of the existing laws regulating its sale without rebuke,
so long will it be of little use to attempt prohibition." One
cannot be a day on the islands without hearing wonderful stories
about awa; and its use is defended by some who are strongly opposed
to the use as well as abuse of intoxicants. People who like "The
Earl and the Doctor" delight themselves in the strongly sensuous
element which pervades Polynesian life, delight themselves too, in
contemplating the preparation and results of the awa beverage; but
both are to me extremely disgusting, and I cannot believe that a
drink, which stupifies the senses, and deprives a human being of the
power to exercise reason and will, is anything but hurtful to the
moral nature.
While passing the Navigator group, one of my fellow-passengers, who
had been for some time in Tutuila, described the preparation of awa
poetically, the root "being masticated by the pearly teeth of dusky
flower-clad maidens;" but I was an accidental witness of a nocturnal
"awa drinking" on Hawaii, and saw nothing but very plain prose. I
feel as if I must approach the subject mysteriously. I had no time
to tell you of the circumstance when it occurred, when also I was
completely ignorant that it was an illegal affair; and, now with a
sort of "guilty knowledge" I tremble to relate what I saw, and to
divulge that though I could not touch the beverage, I tasted the
root, which has an acrid pungent taste, something like horse-radish,
with an aromatic flavour in addition, and I can imagine that the
acquired taste for it must, like other acquired tastes, be perfectly
irresistible, even without the additional gratification of the
results which follow its exercise.
In the particular instance which I saw, two girls who were not
beautiful, and an old man who would have been hideous but for a set
of sound regular teeth, were sitting on the ground masticating the
awa root, the process being contemplated with extreme interest by a
number of adults. When, by careful chewing, they had reduced the
root to a pulpy consistence, they tossed it into a large calabash,
and relieved their mouths of superfluous saliva before preparing a
fresh mouthful. This went on till a considerable quantity was
provided, and then water was added, and the mass was kneaded and
stirred with the hands till it looked like soap suds. It was then
strained; and after more water had been added it was poured into
cocoa-nut calabashes, and handed round. Its appearance eventually
was like weak, frothy coffee and milk. The appearance of purely
animal gratification on the faces of those who drank it, instead of
being poetic, was of the low gross earth. Heads thrown back, lips
parted with a feeble sensual smile, eyes hazy and unfocussed, arms
folded on the breast, and the mental faculties numbed and sliding
out of reach.
Those who drink it pass through the stage of idiocy into a deep
sleep, which it is said can be reproduced once without an extra
dose, by bathing in cold water. Confirmed awa drinkers might be
mistaken for lepers, for they are covered with whitish scales, and
have inflamed eyes and a leathery skin, for the epidermis is
thickened and whitened, and eventually peels off. The habit has
been adopted by not a few whites, specially on Hawaii, though, of
course, to a certain extent clandestinely. Awa is taken also as a
medicine, and was supposed to be a certain cure for corpulence.
The root and base of the stem are the parts used, and it is best
when these are fresh. It seems to exercise a powerful fascination,
and to be loved and glorified as whisky is in Scotland, and wine in
southern Europe. In some of the other islands of Polynesia, on
festive occasions, when the chewed root is placed in the calabash,
and the water is poured on, the whole assemblage sings appropriate
songs in its praise; and this is kept up until the decoction has
been strained to its dregs. But here, as the using it as a beverage
is an illicit process, a great mystery attends it. It is said that
awa drinking is again on the increase, and with the illicit
distillation of unwholesome spirits, and the illicit sale of
imported spirits and the opium smoking, the consumption of
stimulants and narcotics on the islands is very considerable. {295}
To turn from drink to climate. It is strange that with such a heavy
rainfall, dwellings built on the ground and never dried by fires
should be so perfectly free from damp as they are. On seeing the
houses here and in Honolulu, buried away in dense foliage, my first
thought was, "how lovely in summer, but how unendurably damp in
winter," forgetting that I arrived in the nominal winter, and that
it is really summer all the year. Lest you should think that I am
perversely exaggerating the charms of the climate, I copy a sentence
from a speech made by Kamehameha IV., at the opening of an Hawaiian
agricultural society:--
"Who ever heard of winter on our shores? Where among us shall we
find the numberless drawbacks which, in less favoured countries, the
labourer has to contend with? They have no place in our beautiful
group, which rests like a water lily on the swelling bosom of the
Pacific. The heaven is tranquil above our heads, and the sun keeps
his jealous eye upon us every day, while his rays are so tempered
that they never wither prematurely what they have warmed into life."
{296} The kindness of my hosts is quite overwhelming. They will
not hear of my buying a horse, but insist on my taking away with me
the one which I have been riding since I came, the best I have
ridden on the islands, surefooted, fast, easy, and ambitious. I
have complete sympathy with the passion which the natives have for
riding. Horses are abundant and cheap on Kauai: a fairly good one
can be bought for $20. I think every child possesses one. Indeed
the horses seem to outnumber the people.
The eight native girls who are being trained and educated here as a
"family school" have their horses, and go out to ride as English
children go for a romp into a play-ground. Yesterday Mrs. S. said,
"Now, girls, get the horses," and soon two little creatures of eight
and ten came galloping up on two spirited animals. They had not
only caught and bridled them, but had put on the complicated Mexican
saddles as securely as if men had done it; and I got a lesson from
them in making the Mexican knot with the thong which secures the
cinch, which will make me independent henceforward.
These children can all speak English, and their remarks are most
original and amusing. They have not a particle of respect of
manner, as we understand it, but seem very docile. They are naive
and fascinating in their manners, and the most joyous children I
ever saw. When they are not at their lessons, or household
occupations, they are dancing on stilts, acting plays of their own
invention, riding or bathing, and they laugh all day long. Mrs. S.
has trained nearly seventy since she has been here. If there were
nothing else they see family life in a pure and happy form, which
must in itself be a moral training, and by dint of untiring
watchfulness they are kept aloof from the corrupt native
associations. Indeed they are not allowed to have any intercourse
with natives, for, according to one of the missionaries who has
spent many years on the islands: "None know or can conceive without
personal observation the nameless taint that pervades the whole
garrulous talk and gregarious life of all heathen peoples, and above
which our poor Hawaiian friends have not yet risen." Of this
universal impurity of speech every one speaks in the strongest
terms, and careful white parents not only seclude their children in
early years from unrestrained intercourse with the natives, but
prevent them from acquiring the Hawaiian tongue. In this respect
the training of native girls involves a degree of patient
watchfulness which must at times press heavily on those who
undertake it, as the carefulness of years might fail of its result,
if it were intermitted for one afternoon.
I.L.B.