HAWAIIAN HOTEL, HONOLULU. August 6th.
My fate is lying at the wharf in the shape of the Pacific Mail
Steamer Costa Rica, and soon to me Hawaii-nei will be but a dream.
"Summer isles of Eden!" My heart warms towards them as I leave
them, for they have been more like home than any part of the world
since I left England. The moonlight is trickling through misty
algarobas, and feathery tamarinds and palms, and shines on glossy
leaves of breadfruit and citron; a cool breeze brings in at my open
doors the perfumed air and the soft murmur of the restful sea, and
this beautiful Honolulu, whose lights are twinkling through the
purple night, is at last, as it was at first, Paradise in the
Pacific, a bright blossom of a summer sea.
I shall be in the Rocky Mountains before you receive my hastily-
written reply to your proposal to come out here for a year, but I
will add a few reasons against it, in addition to the one which I
gave regarding the benefit which I now hope to derive from a change
to a more stimulating climate. The strongest of all is, that if we
were to stay here for a year, we should just sit down "between the
sun and moon upon the shore," and forget "our island home," and be
content to fall "asleep in a half dream," and "return no more!"
Of course you will have gathered from my letters that there are very
many advantages here. Indeed, the mosquitoes of the leeward coast,
to whose attacks one becomes inured in a few months, are the only
physical drawback. The open-air life is most conducive to health,
and the climate is absolutely perfect, owing to its equability and
purity. Whether the steady heat of Honolulu, the languid airs of
Hilo, the balmy breezes of Onomea, the cool bluster of Waimea, or
the odorous stillness of Kona, it is always the same. The grim
gloom of our anomalous winters, the harsh malignant winds of our
springs, and the dismal rains and overpowering heats of our summers,
have no counterpart in the endless spring-time of Hawaii.
Existence here is unclogged and easy, a small income goes a long
way, and the simplicity, refinement, kindliness, and sociability of
the foreign residents, render society very pleasant. The life here
is truer, simpler, kinder, and happier than ours. The relation
between the foreign and native population is a kindly and happy one,
and the natives, in spite of their faults, are a most friendly and
pleasant people to live among. With a knowledge of their easily-
acquired language, they would be a ceaseless source of interest, and
every white resident can have the satisfaction of helping them in
their frequent distresses and illnesses.
The sense of security is a very special charm, and one enjoys it as
well in lonely native houses, and solitary days and nights of
travelling, as in the foreign homes, which are never locked
throughout the year. There are no burglarious instincts to dread,
and there is no such thing as "a broken sleep of fear beneath the
stars." The person and property of a white man are everywhere
secure, and a white woman is sure of unvarying respect and kindness.
There are no inevitable hardships. The necessaries, and even the
luxuries of civilization can be obtained everywhere, and postal
communication with America is now regular and rapid.
When I began this letter, a long procession of counterbalancing
disadvantages passed through my mind, but they become "beautifully
less" as I set them down in black and white. If I put gossip first,
it is because I seriously think that it is the canker of the foreign
society on the islands. Its extent and universality are grotesque
and amusing to a stranger, but to live in it, and share in it, and
learn to enjoy it, would be both lowering and hurtful, and you can
hardly be long here without being drawn into its vortex. By GOSSIP
I don't mean scandal or malignant misrepresentations, or reports of
petty strifes, intrigues, and jealousies, such as are common in all
cliques and communities, but nuhou, mere tattle, the perpetual
talking about people, and the picking to tatters of every item of
personal detail, whether gathered from fact or imagination.
A great deal of this is certainly harmless, and in some measure
arises from the intimate friendly relations which exist between the
scattered families, but over-indulgence in it destroys the privacy
of individual existence, and is deteriorating in more ways than one.
From the north of Kauai to the south of Hawaii, everybody knows
every other body's affairs, income, expenditure, sales, purchases,
debts, furniture, clothing, comings, goings, borrowings, lendings,
letters, correspondents, and every thing else: and when there is
nothing new to relate on any one of these prolific subjects,
supposed intentions afford abundant matter for speculation. All
gossip is focussed here, being imported from every other district,
and re-exported, with additions and embellishments, by every inter-
island mail. The ingenuity with which nuhou is circulated is worthy
of a better cause.
Some disadvantages arise from the presence on the islands of
heterogeneous and ill-assorted nationalities. The Americans, of
course, predominate, and even those who are Hawaiian born, have, as
elsewhere, a strongly national feeling. The far smaller English
community hangs together in a somewhat cliquish fashion, and
possibly cherishes a latent grudge against the Americans for their
paramount influence in island affairs. The German residents, as
everywhere, are cliquish too. Then, since the establishment of the
Honolulu Mission, church feeling has run rather high, and here, as
elsewhere, has a socially divisive tendency. Then there are drink
and anti-drink, pro and anti-missionary, and pro and anti-
reciprocity-treaty parties, and various other local naggings of no
interest to you.
The civilization is exotic, and owing to various circumstances, the
government and constitution are too experimental and provisional in
their nature, and possess too few elements of permanence to engross
the profound interest of the foreign residents, although for reasons
of policy they are well inclined to sustain a barbaric throne. In
spite of a king and court, and titles and officials without number,
and uniforms stiff with gold lace, and Royal dinner parties with
menus printed on white silk, Americans, Republicans in feeling,
really "run" the government, and in state affairs there is a taint
of that combination of obsequious and flippant vulgarity, which none
deplore more deeply than the best among the Americans themselves.
It is a decided misfortune to a community to be divided in its
national leanings, and to have no great fusing interests within or
without itself, such as those which knit vigorous Victoria to the
mother country, or distant Oregon to the heart of the Republic at
Washington. Except sugar and dollars, one rarely hears any subject
spoken about with general interest. The downfall of an
administration in England, or any important piece of national
legislation, arouses almost no interest in American society here,
and the English are ostentatiously apathetic regarding any piece of
intelligence specially absorbing to Americans. The papers pick up
every piece of gossip which drifts about the islands, and snarl with
much wordiness over local matters, but crowd into a small space the
movements which affect the masses of mankind, and in the absence of
a telegraph one hardly feels the beat of the pulses of the larger
world. Those intellectual movements of the West which might provoke
discussion and conversation are not cordially entered into, partly
owing to the difference in theological beliefs, and partly from an
indolence born of the climate, and the lack of mental stimulus.
After all, the gossip and the absence of large interests shared in
common, are the only specialities which can be alleged against
Hawaii, and I have never seen people among whom I should so well
like to live. The ladies are most charming; essentially womanly,
and fulfil all domestic and social duties in a way worthy of
imitation everywhere. The kindness and hospitality, too, are
unbounded, and these cover "a multitude of sins."
There are very few strangers here now. It is the "dead season." I
have met with none except Mr. Nordhoff, who is writing on the
islands for Harper's Monthly, and his charming wife and children.
She is a most expert horsewoman, and has adopted the Mexican saddle
even in Honolulu, where few foreign ladies ride "cavalier fashion."
My friends all urge me to write on Hawaii, on the ground that I have
seen the islands and lived the island life so thoroughly; but
possibly they expect more indiscriminate praise than I could
conscientiously bestow!
Honolulu is in the midst of the epidemic of letter writing which
sets in on the arrival of the steamer from "the coast," and people
walk and drive as if they really had business on hand: and the
farewell visits to be made and received, the pleasant presence of
Mr. Thompson, and Mr. and Mrs. Severance, of Hilo, and the hasty
doing of things which have been left to the last, make me a sharer
in the spasmodic bustle, which, were it permanent, would
metamorphose this dreamy, bowery, tropical capital. The undeserved
and unexpected kindness shown me here, as everywhere on these
islands, renders my last impressions even more delightful than any
first. The people are as genial as their own sunny skies, and in
more frigid regions I shall never sigh for the last without longing
for the first. . . . .
up to here
S.S. COSTA RICA. August 7th.
We sailed for San Francisco early this afternoon. Everything looked
the same as when I landed in January, except that many of the then
strange faces among the radiant crowd are now the faces of friends,
that I know nearly everyone by sight, and that the pathos of
farewell blended with every look and word. The air still rang with
laughter and alohas, and the rippling music of the Hawaiian tongue;
bananas and pineapples were still piled in fragrant heaps; the
drifts of surf rolled in, as then, over the barrier reef, canoes
with outriggers still poised themselves on the blue water; the coral
divers still plied their graceful trade, and the lazy ripples still
flashed in light along the palm-fringed shore. The head-ropes were
let go, we steamed through the violet channel into the broad
Pacific, Lunalilo, who came out so far with Chief Justice Allen,
returned to the shore, and when his kindly aloha was spoken, the
last link with the islands was severed, and half an hour later
Honolulu was out of sight. . . . .
. . . . The breeze is freshening, and the Costa Rica's head lies
nearly due north. The sun is sinking, and on the far horizon the
summit peaks of Oahu gleam like amethysts on a golden sea. Farewell
for ever, my bright tropic dream! Aloha nui to Hawaii-nei!
I.L.B.