After a delightful visit spent at Lahaina, late one afternoon, we bade
adieu to Maui, and steering between Lanai and Molokai, by daylight the
following morning we had passed Diamond Point, and let run our anchor at
a great depth of water, a mile or more outside the Oahu reef, the
frigate's draught being too large to allow her to enter within the
smooth and well-protected arms of the port.
We were in Honolulu--the Ismir of Polynesia--a little thriving city of
nearly eight thousand people, and its situation one of the prettiest in
the world. It lies spread about at the base of the beautiful valley of
Nuaana, upon a very gentle slope down to the verge of the harbor. On
either hand the shores are fringed with cocoanuts, and all around, up
hill and vale, save the burnt sides of the Devil's Punch-bowl and Point
Diamond, is laid the deepest, densest verdure, as if it had been
actually poured down from the heights above, in liquid floods of
foliage, until there was not a spot on the leafy waves where another
green branch could find a lurking place!
Honolulu is a town of strangers, with shops, stores, and warehouses;
handsome dwellings with verandas and piazzas; pleasantly shaded cottages
of elegant modern build, with grass and flowers; and nice little straw
huts, in clusters by themselves, for bachelors, all very cool; then the
unpaved streets are filled with dust, and natives wander about, in
bright-colored, loosely-fitting garments, looking forlorn, diseased, and
miserable, living, no one cares how or where; sleeping in the most
loathsome abodes of wretchedness, and vilest dens of vice; in all save
absolute want or destitution, far below, in the moral scale, the worst
hovels of iniquity in the great cities of the Old World! But we have no
time to waste upon morals. Presently a low four-wheeled vehicle rattles
along--there are many of them--drawn by Kanaka cab-horses; very kind and
humanizing it is too, for the beasts are tame, never kick, not given to
prove restive, or run away, at least with the coach! I often speculated
mentally if the fair women when taking an airing ever blushed for their
cattle; and when I saw a pious missionary lady trotting gaily by, I
wondered if she had ever seen or read a "High-heeled Shoe for a Limping
Sinner"--most probably not. And then within those charming cottages I
spoke of, there are lovely women from far, far over the seas--oh,
beautiful was one!--who make music and dancing, and most agreeable
society, and hand around delicious tea fresh from the Celestials, and
piquant lemonade--eschewing vinous compounds--while the sweet perfume of
the lime-trees is present to eye and sense, and all pleasantly
commingled with innocent sips of scandal.
Again the quays are crowded with more miserable natives, with sprigs of
coral, shells, calibashes, or island ornaments in their hands, looking
wistfully, and silently towards you; for they never use importunities,
they are too indolent by half. And there is a market shed near by, where
a fat woman will swallow a full gallon of _poee-poee_, to show how the
thing is done, provided it be paid for! And then, as a relief from these
diseased beings, there is the white reef seaward, vainly chafing and
lashing the coral barrier; and the calm harbor, clustering with fine
ships, chiefly of the oleaginous order, while whale-boats, and graceful
Koawood canoes--with light frameworks of sticks, and outriggers to bear
them upright--are dancing over the blue wavelets.
There are agreeable rides in every direction diverging from the city.
The most fashionable is up the Nuana Valley. The road is broad and
straight, lined on either side by well-tilled plantations of fruits, and
patches of vegetables, with elegant country-houses, placed back from the
causeway, half visible through the rich and sombre foliage.
Five minutes' gallop takes you, by an easy ascent, away from the heat
and dust of town. The atmosphere is purer and cooler, the blue sea,
shipping, reef, town, groves and fields, are lying in miniature at your
feet! Go on--pass the King's villa--up, up, for six or seven miles, and
suddenly the trade wind sweeps with heavy gusts, around a sharp turn of
the craggy verdant peaks, and you stand on a lofty terrace, and gaze
through a great balconied window, cut like an embrasure, and formed by
piles of rocks at the sides and base, while below is a frightful
precipice, and beyond a glorious undulating landscape is breathing in
verdure and beauty, dotted here and there by native hamlets, whose
bleached white thatching is glistening in the sun, with herds of cattle
upon the hill sides, chequered by bright patches under cultivation;
while further still, the island is girdled about by high waves, breaking
upon the rock-bound coast with the full force of the trades.
This is the _Pali_, concerning which, among other heathenish legends,
which have neither romance nor chivalric merit to recommend them, it is
said that a certain island king once hurled from thence a number of his
rebellious subjects.
Returning, we can take a glance at scores of poor squalid wretches,
with closely-shaven heads, living in filthy kennels that a decent dog
would despise; but they have been guilty of breaking one of the
commandments, and to reform their morals are herded together, and made
to labor upon the public roads!
Saturday is the Saturnalia of the Kanakas! They revel on horseback; the
streets, roads and plains are filled with them. It is surprising where
they all spring from; for although they are an ambulating population,
without local attachments, and go in schooner-loads from island to
island of the group, particularly upon the advent of a large ship of
war, and no doubt are packed very closely in their hovels in and around
Honolulu, yet it still is a matter for wonderment where all come from.
Hundreds of both sexes throng the pathways; and those more fortunate,
who can hire horses, are riding, and racing, leaping, and kicking up all
the noise and dust possible. The women bestride their steeds like men,
with petticoats tucked snugly around them, and sometimes wearing for
head gear as many as three bonnets of different colors, one within the
other, like nests of pill boxes. The young princes of the blood, too,
attended by the copper-colored nobility of the kingdom, ride with
headlong speed, and are not remarkable for taking less than
three-fourths of the highway, to the great peril and inconvenience of
more soberly-mounted passengers. On one pleasant evening an aristocratic
sprig rode rudely against an Anglo-Saxon demoiselle, in whose train I
had the pleasure of being, and without pausing to apologise for his
brutality, continued on, causing me to indulge in certain pious
aspirations for my Mexican whip that I might inflict a few mild
exhortations, in spite of his long line of Kanaka ancestry.
Neither men nor women sit the horse gracefully or firmly, and it is a
matter of hourly occurrence to see them take an aerial toss from the
saddle. A certain kind of equestrian intoxication--possibly caused by
brandy--appears to possess them, and they gallop and prance about as
long as the beasts have a leg to stand on.
It is customary for strangers visiting Honolulu, in the absence of
requisite hotel accommodation, to hire a small tenement expressly
appropriated for that purpose; many of them are pleasant little
domiciles, built of straw, and kept by their proprietors tolerably
clean, free from fleas, and habitable. They are in clusters by
themselves, and surrounded by adobie walls, enclosing a few trees, and
shrubbery, and generally take their designation from the last ship of
war whose officers may have occupied them.
The Alsatia we affected was named in compliment to an English
flag-ship--Collingwood _row_! Our hamlet was tabooed, and none others
than those especially licensed, were permitted to darken those
sanctuaries.
We arose early for a bathe on the coral flats or shoals of the reef,
then took gallop before breakfast; and when the trade began its diurnal
breeze, and the streets were impassible from dust, we reclined within
our thatched castles, enjoying the cooling gusts blowing down the Nuana,
or were seated with segars beneath the shelving eaves, regarding the
natives grouped near the doorways! They were mostly girls--poor,
miserable shameless objects, with diseased, unhealthy complexions,
lounging all day in the glaring sun, or clustered, two and three
together, sucking _poee-poee_, smoking pipes, and chatting their soft
idiom, low and laughingly; but they had not the grace, nor coy witchery
of the charming rustics of Hilo: they were city ladies--in Honolulu,
where there is more population, more want, and far more vice!
Before the sun sinks for the day, there is but little wind, and walking
or riding is then a pleasureable excitement. There is a circle of
agreeable society, too; not alone with foreign merchants and consuls,
but with a higher order of diplomatic agents, who, although severed from
their homes by thousands of leagues of water, still surround themselves
with all the elegancies and enjoyments of social existence which they
have known in their native lands. Indeed Oahu, though without the
salubrious, agreeable climate of Maui, is still a place of much
interest; and from its delightful position, and fine scenery, well
worthy of all the commendation that voyagers bestow upon it.