1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490
491
492
493
494
495
496
497
498
499
500
501
502
503
504
505
506
507
508
509
510
511
512
513
514
515
516
517
518
519
520
521
522
523
524
525
526
527
528
529
530
531
532
533
534
535
536
537
538
539
540
541
542
543
544
545
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563
564
565
566
567
568
569
570
571
572
573
574
575
576
577
578
579
580
581
582
583
584
585
586
587
588
589
590
591
592
593
594
595
596
597
598
599
600
601
602
603
604
605
606
607
608
609
610
611
612
613
614
615
616
617
618
619
620
621
622
623
624
625
626
627
628
629
630
631
632
633
634
635
636
637
638
639
640
641
642
643
644
645
646
647
648
649
650
651
652
653
654
655
656
657
658
659
660
661
662
663
664
665
666
667
668
669
670
671
672
673
674
675
676
677
678
679
680
681
682
683
684
685
686
687
688
689
690
691
692
693
694
695
696
697
698
699
700
701
702
703
704
705
706
707
708
709
710
711
712
713
714
715
716
717
718
719
720
721
722
723
724
725
726
727
728
729
730
731
732
733
734
735
736
737
738
739
740
741
742
743
744
745
746
747
748
749
750
751
752
753
754
755
756
757
758
759
760
761
762
763
764
765
766
767
768
769
770
771
772
773
774
775
776
777
778
779
780
781
782
783
784
785
786
787
788
789
790
791
792
793
794
795
796
797
798
799
800
801
802
803
804
805
806
807
808
809
810
811
812
813
814
815
816
817
818
819
820
821
822
823
824
825
826
827
828
829
830
831
832
833
834
835
836
837
838
839
840
841
842
843
844
845
846
847
848
849
850
851
852
853
854
855
856
857
858
859
860
861
862
863
864
865
866
867
868
869
870
871
872
873
874
875
876
877
878
879
880
881
882
883
884
885
886
887
888
889
890
891
892
893
894
895
896
897
898
899
900
901
902
903
904
905
906
907
908
909
910
911
912
913
914
915
916
917
918
919
920
921
922
923
924
925
926
927
928
929
930
931
932
933
934
935
936
937
938
939
940
941
942
943
944
945
946
947
948
949
950
951
952
953
954
955
956
957
958
959
960
961
962
963
964
965
966
967
968
969
970
971
972
973
974
975
976
977
978
979
980
981
982
983
984
985
986
987
988
989
990
991
992
993
994
995
996
997
998
999
1000
1001
1002
1003
1004
1005
1006
1007
1008
1009
1010
1011
1012
1013
1014
1015
1016
1017
1018
1019
1020
1021
1022
1023
1024
1025
1026
1027
1028
1029
1030
1031
1032
1033
1034
1035
1036
1037
1038
1039
1040
1041
1042
1043
1044
1045
1046
1047
1048
1049
1050
1051
1052
1053
1054
1055
1056
1057
1058
1059
1060
1061
1062
1063
1064
1065
1066
1067
1068
1069
1070
1071
1072
1073
1074
1075
1076
1077
1078
1079
1080
1081
1082
1083
1084
1085
1086
1087
1088
1089
1090
1091
1092
1093
1094
1095
1096
1097
1098
1099
1100
1101
1102
1103
1104
1105
1106
1107
1108
1109
1110
1111
1112
1113
1114
1115
1116
1117
1118
1119
1120
1121
1122
1123
1124
1125
1126
1127
1128
1129
1130
1131
1132
1133
1134
1135
1136
1137
1138
1139
1140
1141
1142
1143
1144
1145
1146
1147
1148
1149
1150
1151
1152
1153
1154
1155
1156
1157
1158
1159
1160
1161
1162
1163
1164
1165
1166
1167
1168
1169
1170
1171
1172
1173
1174
1175
1176
1177
1178
1179
1180
1181
1182
1183
1184
1185
1186
1187
1188
1189
1190
1191
1192
1193
1194
1195
1196
1197
1198
1199
1200
1201
1202
1203
1204
1205
1206
1207
1208
1209
1210
1211
1212
1213
1214
1215
1216
1217
1218
1219
1220
1221
1222
1223
1224
1225
1226
1227
1228
1229
1230
1231
1232
1233
1234
1235
1236
1237
1238
1239
1240
1241
1242
1243
1244
1245
1246
1247
1248
1249
1250
1251
1252
1253
1254
1255
1256
1257
1258
1259
1260
1261
1262
1263
1264
1265
1266
1267
1268
1269
1270
1271
1272
1273
1274
1275
1276
1277
1278
1279
1280
1281
1282
1283
1284
1285
1286
1287
1288
1289
1290
1291
1292
1293
1294
1295
1296
1297
1298
1299
1300
1301
1302
1303
1304
1305
1306
1307
1308
1309
1310
1311
1312
1313
1314
1315
1316
1317
1318
1319
1320
1321
1322
1323
1324
1325
1326
1327
1328
1329
1330
1331
1332
1333
1334
1335
1336
1337
1338
1339
1340
1341
1342
1343
1344
1345
1346
1347
1348
1349
1350
1351
1352
1353
1354
1355
1356
1357
1358
1359
1360
1361
1362
1363
1364
1365
1366
1367
1368
1369
1370
1371
1372
1373
1374
1375
1376
1377
1378
1379
1380
1381
1382
1383
1384
1385
1386
1387
1388
1389
1390
1391
1392
1393
1394
1395
1396
1397
1398
1399
1400
1401
1402
1403
1404
1405
1406
1407
1408
1409
1410
1411
1412
1413
1414
1415
1416
1417
1418
1419
1420
1421
1422
1423
1424
1425
1426
1427
1428
1429
1430
1431
1432
1433
1434
1435
1436
1437
1438
1439
1440
1441
1442
1443
1444
1445
1446
1447
1448
1449
1450
1451
1452
1453
1454
1455
1456
1457
1458
1459
1460
1461
1462
1463
1464
1465
1466
1467
1468
1469
1470
1471
1472
1473
1474
1475
1476
1477
1478
1479
1480
1481
1482
1483
1484
1485
1486
1487
1488
1489
1490
1491
1492
1493
1494
1495
1496
1497
1498
1499
1500
1501
1502
1503
1504
1505
1506
1507
1508
1509
1510
1511
1512
1513
1514
1515
1516
1517
1518
1519
1520
1521
1522
1523
1524
1525
1526
1527
1528
1529
1530
1531
1532
1533
1534
1535
1536
1537
1538
1539
1540
1541
1542
1543
1544
1545
1546
1547
1548
1549
1550
1551
1552
1553
1554
1555
1556
1557
1558
1559
1560
1561
1562
1563
1564
1565
1566
1567
1568
1569
1570
1571
1572
1573
1574
1575
1576
1577
1578
1579
1580
1581
1582
1583
1584
1585
1586
1587
1588
1589
1590
1591
1592
1593
1594
1595
1596
1597
1598
1599
1600
1601
1602
1603
1604
1605
1606
1607
1608
1609
1610
1611
1612
1613
1614
1615
1616
1617
1618
1619
1620
1621
1622
1623
1624
1625
1626
1627
1628
1629
1630
1631
1632
1633
1634
1635
1636
1637
1638
1639
1640
1641
1642
1643
1644
1645
1646
1647
1648
1649
1650
1651
1652
1653
1654
1655
1656
1657
1658
1659
1660
1661
1662
1663
1664
1665
1666
1667
1668
1669
1670
1671
1672
1673
1674
1675
1676
1677
1678
1679
1680
1681
1682
1683
1684
1685
1686
1687
1688
1689
1690
1691
1692
1693
1694
1695
1696
1697
1698
1699
1700
1701
1702
1703
1704
1705
1706
1707
1708
1709
1710
1711
1712
1713
1714
1715
1716
1717
1718
1719
1720
1721
1722
1723
1724
1725
1726
1727
1728
1729
1730
1731
1732
1733
1734
1735
1736
1737
1738
1739
1740
1741
1742
1743
1744
1745
1746
1747
1748
1749
1750
1751
1752
1753
1754
1755
1756
1757
1758
1759
1760
1761
1762
1763
1764
1765
1766
1767
1768
1769
1770
1771
1772
1773
1774
1775
1776
1777
1778
1779
1780
1781
1782
1783
1784
1785
1786
1787
1788
1789
1790
1791
1792
1793
1794
1795
1796
1797
1798
1799
1800
1801
1802
1803
1804
1805
1806
1807
1808
1809
1810
1811
1812
1813
1814
1815
1816
1817
1818
1819
1820
1821
1822
1823
1824
1825
1826
1827
1828
1829
1830
1831
1832
1833
1834
1835
1836
1837
1838
1839
1840
1841
1842
1843
1844
1845
1846
1847
1848
1849
1850
1851
1852
1853
1854
1855
1856
1857
1858
1859
1860
1861
1862
1863
1864
1865
1866
1867
1868
1869
1870
1871
1872
1873
1874
1875
1876
1877
1878
1879
1880
1881
1882
1883
1884
1885
1886
1887
1888
1889
1890
1891
1892
1893
1894
1895
1896
1897
1898
1899
1900
1901
1902
1903
1904
1905
1906
1907
1908
1909
1910
1911
1912
1913
1914
1915
1916
1917
1918
1919
1920
1921
1922
1923
1924
1925
1926
1927
1928
1929
1930
1931
1932
1933
1934
1935
1936
1937
1938
1939
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
1947
1948
1949
1950
1951
1952
1953
1954
1955
1956
1957
1958
1959
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
1970
1971
1972
1973
1974
1975
1976
1977
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025
2026
2027
2028
2029
2030
2031
2032
2033
2034
2035
2036
2037
2038
2039
2040
2041
2042
2043
2044
2045
2046
2047
2048
2049
2050
2051
2052
2053
2054
2055
2056
2057
2058
2059
2060
2061
2062
2063
2064
2065
2066
2067
2068
2069
2070
2071
2072
2073
2074
2075
2076
2077
2078
2079
2080
2081
2082
2083
2084
2085
2086
2087
2088
2089
2090
2091
2092
2093
2094
2095
2096
2097
2098
2099
2100
2101
2102
2103
2104
2105
2106
2107
2108
2109
2110
2111
2112
2113
2114
2115
2116
2117
2118
2119
2120
2121
2122
2123
2124
2125
2126
2127
2128
2129
2130
2131
2132
2133
2134
2135
2136
2137
2138
2139
2140
2141
2142
2143
2144
2145
2146
2147
2148
2149
2150
2151
2152
2153
2154
2155
2156
2157
2158
2159
2160
2161
2162
2163
2164
2165
2166
2167
2168
2169
2170
2171
2172
2173
2174
2175
2176
2177
2178
2179
2180
2181
2182
2183
2184
2185
2186
2187
2188
2189
2190
2191
2192
2193
2194
2195
2196
2197
2198
2199
2200
2201
2202
2203
2204
2205
2206
2207
2208
2209
2210
2211
2212
2213
2214
2215
2216
2217
2218
2219
2220
2221
2222
2223
2224
2225
2226
2227
2228
2229
2230
2231
2232
2233
2234
2235
2236
2237
2238
2239
2240
2241
2242
2243
2244
2245
2246
2247
2248
2249
2250
2251
2252
2253
2254
2255
2256
2257
2258
2259
2260
2261
2262
2263
2264
2265
2266
2267
2268
2269
2270
2271
2272
2273
2274
2275
2276
2277
2278
2279
2280
2281
2282
2283
2284
2285
2286
2287
2288
2289
2290
2291
2292
2293
2294
2295
2296
2297
2298
2299
2300
2301
2302
2303
2304
2305
2306
2307
2308
2309
2310
2311
2312
2313
2314
2315
2316
2317
2318
2319
2320
2321
2322
2323
2324
2325
2326
2327
2328
2329
2330
2331
2332
2333
2334
2335
2336
2337
2338
2339
2340
2341
2342
2343
2344
2345
2346
2347
2348
2349
2350
2351
2352
2353
2354
2355
2356
2357
2358
2359
2360
2361
2362
2363
2364
2365
2366
2367
2368
2369
2370
2371
2372
2373
2374
2375
2376
2377
2378
2379
2380
2381
2382
2383
2384
2385
2386
2387
2388
2389
2390
2391
2392
2393
2394
2395
2396
2397
2398
2399
2400
2401
2402
2403
2404
2405
2406
2407
2408
2409
2410
2411
2412
2413
2414
2415
2416
2417
2418
2419
2420
2421
2422
2423
2424
2425
2426
2427
2428
2429
2430
2431
2432
2433
2434
2435
2436
2437
2438
2439
2440
2441
2442
2443
2444
2445
2446
2447
2448
2449
2450
2451
2452
2453
2454
2455
2456
2457
2458
2459
2460
2461
2462
2463
2464
2465
2466
2467
2468
2469
2470
2471
2472
2473
2474
2475
2476
2477
2478
2479
2480
2481
2482
2483
2484
2485
2486
2487
2488
2489
2490
2491
2492
2493
2494
2495
2496
2497
2498
2499
2500
2501
2502
2503
2504
2505
2506
2507
2508
2509
2510
2511
2512
2513
2514
2515
2516
2517
2518
2519
2520
2521
2522
2523
2524
2525
2526
2527
2528
2529
2530
2531
2532
2533
2534
2535
2536
2537
2538
2539
2540
2541
2542
2543
2544
2545
2546
2547
2548
2549
2550
2551
2552
2553
2554
2555
2556
2557
2558
2559
2560
2561
2562
2563
2564
2565
2566
2567
2568
2569
2570
2571
2572
2573
2574
2575
2576
2577
2578
2579
2580
2581
2582
2583
2584
2585
2586
2587
2588
2589
2590
2591
2592
2593
2594
2595
2596
2597
2598
2599
2600
2601
2602
2603
2604
2605
2606
2607
2608
2609
2610
2611
2612
2613
2614
2615
2616
2617
2618
2619
2620
2621
2622
2623
2624
2625
2626
2627
2628
2629
2630
2631
2632
2633
2634
2635
2636
2637
2638
2639
2640
2641
2642
2643
2644
2645
2646
2647
2648
2649
2650
2651
2652
2653
2654
2655
2656
2657
2658
2659
2660
2661
2662
2663
2664
2665
2666
2667
2668
2669
2670
2671
2672
2673
2674
2675
2676
2677
2678
2679
2680
2681
2682
2683
2684
2685
2686
2687
2688
2689
2690
2691
2692
2693
2694
2695
2696
2697
2698
2699
2700
2701
2702
2703
2704
2705
2706
2707
2708
2709
2710
2711
2712
2713
2714
2715
2716
2717
2718
2719
2720
2721
2722
2723
2724
2725
2726
2727
2728
2729
2730
2731
2732
2733
2734
2735
2736
2737
2738
2739
2740
2741
2742
2743
2744
2745
2746
2747
2748
2749
2750
2751
2752
2753
2754
2755
2756
2757
2758
2759
2760
2761
2762
2763
2764
2765
2766
2767
2768
2769
2770
2771
2772
2773
2774
2775
2776
2777
2778
2779
2780
2781
2782
2783
2784
2785
2786
2787
2788
2789
2790
2791
2792
2793
2794
2795
2796
2797
2798
2799
2800
2801
2802
2803
2804
2805
2806
2807
2808
2809
2810
2811
2812
2813
2814
2815
2816
2817
2818
2819
2820
2821
2822
2823
2824
2825
2826
2827
2828
2829
2830
2831
2832
2833
2834
2835
2836
2837
2838
2839
2840
2841
2842
2843
2844
2845
2846
2847
2848
2849
2850
2851
2852
2853
2854
2855
2856
2857
2858
2859
2860
2861
2862
2863
2864
2865
2866
2867
2868
2869
2870
2871
2872
2873
2874
2875
2876
2877
2878
2879
2880
2881
2882
2883
2884
2885
2886
2887
2888
2889
2890
2891
2892
2893
2894
2895
2896
2897
2898
2899
2900
2901
2902
2903
2904
2905
2906
2907
2908
2909
2910
2911
2912
2913
2914
2915
2916
2917
2918
2919
2920
2921
2922
2923
2924
2925
2926
2927
2928
2929
2930
2931
2932
2933
2934
2935
2936
2937
2938
2939
2940
2941
2942
2943
2944
2945
2946
2947
2948
2949
2950
2951
2952
2953
2954
2955
2956
2957
2958
2959
2960
2961
2962
2963
2964
2965
2966
2967
2968
2969
2970
2971
2972
2973
2974
2975
2976
2977
2978
2979
2980
2981
2982
2983
2984
2985
2986
2987
2988
2989
2990
2991
2992
2993
2994
2995
2996
2997
2998
2999
3000
3001
3002
3003
3004
3005
3006
3007
3008
3009
3010
3011
3012
3013
3014
3015
3016
3017
3018
3019
3020
3021
3022
3023
3024
3025
3026
3027
3028
3029
3030
3031
3032
3033
3034
3035
3036
3037
3038
3039
3040
3041
3042
3043
3044
3045
3046
3047
3048
3049
3050
3051
3052
3053
3054
3055
3056
3057
3058
3059
3060
3061
3062
3063
3064
3065
3066
3067
3068
3069
3070
3071
3072
3073
3074
3075
3076
3077
3078
3079
3080
3081
3082
3083
3084
3085
3086
3087
3088
3089
3090
3091
3092
3093
3094
3095
3096
3097
3098
3099
3100
3101
3102
3103
3104
3105
3106
3107
3108
3109
3110
3111
3112
3113
3114
3115
3116
3117
3118
3119
3120
3121
3122
3123
3124
3125
3126
3127
3128
3129
3130
3131
3132
3133
3134
3135
3136
3137
3138
3139
3140
3141
3142
3143
3144
3145
3146
3147
3148
3149
3150
3151
3152
3153
3154
3155
3156
3157
3158
3159
3160
3161
3162
3163
3164
3165
3166
3167
3168
3169
3170
3171
3172
3173
3174
3175
3176
3177
3178
3179
3180
3181
3182
3183
3184
3185
3186
3187
3188
3189
3190
3191
3192
3193
3194
3195
3196
3197
3198
3199
3200
3201
3202
3203
3204
3205
3206
3207
3208
3209
3210
3211
3212
3213
3214
3215
3216
3217
3218
3219
3220
3221
3222
3223
3224
3225
3226
3227
3228
3229
3230
3231
3232
3233
3234
3235
3236
3237
3238
3239
3240
3241
3242
3243
3244
3245
3246
3247
3248
3249
3250
3251
3252
3253
3254
3255
3256
3257
3258
3259
3260
3261
3262
3263
3264
3265
3266
3267
3268
3269
3270
3271
3272
3273
3274
3275
3276
3277
3278
3279
3280
3281
3282
3283
3284
3285
3286
3287
3288
3289
3290
3291
3292
3293
3294
3295
3296
3297
3298
3299
3300
3301
3302
3303
3304
3305
3306
3307
3308
3309
3310
3311
3312
3313
3314
3315
3316
3317
3318
3319
3320
3321
3322
3323
3324
3325
3326
3327
3328
3329
3330
3331
3332
3333
3334
3335
3336
3337
3338
3339
3340
3341
3342
3343
3344
3345
3346
3347
3348
3349
3350
3351
3352
3353
3354
3355
3356
3357
3358
3359
3360
3361
3362
3363
3364
3365
3366
3367
3368
3369
3370
3371
3372
3373
3374
3375
3376
3377
3378
3379
3380
3381
3382
3383
3384
3385
3386
3387
3388
3389
3390
3391
3392
3393
3394
3395
3396
3397
3398
3399
3400
3401
3402
3403
3404
3405
3406
3407
3408
3409
3410
3411
3412
3413
3414
3415
3416
3417
3418
3419
3420
3421
3422
3423
3424
3425
3426
3427
3428
3429
3430
3431
3432
3433
3434
3435
3436
3437
3438
3439
3440
3441
3442
3443
3444
3445
3446
3447
3448
3449
3450
3451
3452
3453
3454
3455
3456
3457
3458
3459
3460
3461
3462
3463
3464
3465
3466
3467
3468
3469
3470
3471
3472
3473
3474
3475
3476
3477
3478
3479
3480
3481
3482
3483
3484
3485
3486
3487
3488
3489
3490
3491
3492
3493
3494
3495
3496
3497
3498
3499
3500
3501
3502
3503
3504
3505
3506
3507
3508
3509
3510
3511
3512
3513
3514
3515
3516
3517
3518
3519
3520
3521
3522
3523
3524
3525
3526
3527
3528
3529
3530
3531
3532
3533
3534
3535
3536
3537
3538
3539
3540
3541
3542
3543
3544
3545
3546
3547
3548
3549
3550
3551
3552
3553
3554
3555
3556
3557
3558
3559
3560
3561
3562
3563
3564
3565
3566
3567
3568
3569
3570
3571
3572
3573
3574
3575
3576
3577
3578
3579
3580
3581
3582
3583
3584
3585
3586
3587
3588
3589
3590
3591
3592
3593
3594
3595
3596
3597
3598
3599
3600
3601
3602
3603
3604
3605
3606
3607
3608
3609
3610
3611
3612
3613
3614
3615
3616
3617
3618
3619
3620
3621
3622
3623
3624
3625
3626
3627
3628
3629
3630
3631
3632
3633
3634
3635
3636
3637
3638
3639
3640
3641
3642
3643
3644
3645
3646
3647
3648
3649
3650
3651
3652
3653
3654
3655
3656
3657
3658
3659
3660
3661
3662
3663
3664
3665
3666
3667
3668
3669
3670
3671
3672
3673
3674
3675
3676
3677
3678
3679
3680
3681
3682
3683
3684
3685
3686
3687
3688
3689
3690
3691
3692
3693
3694
3695
3696
3697
3698
3699
3700
3701
3702
3703
3704
3705
3706
3707
3708
3709
3710
3711
3712
3713
3714
3715
3716
3717
3718
3719
3720
3721
3722
3723
3724
3725
3726
3727
3728
3729
3730
3731
3732
3733
3734
3735
3736
3737
3738
3739
3740
3741
3742
3743
3744
3745
3746
3747
3748
3749
3750
3751
3752
3753
3754
3755
3756
3757
3758
3759
3760
3761
3762
3763
3764
3765
3766
3767
3768
3769
3770
3771
3772
3773
3774
3775
3776
3777
3778
3779
3780
3781
3782
3783
3784
3785
3786
3787
3788
3789
3790
3791
3792
3793
3794
3795
3796
3797
3798
3799
3800
3801
3802
3803
3804
3805
3806
3807
3808
3809
3810
3811
3812
3813
3814
3815
3816
3817
3818
3819
3820
3821
3822
3823
3824
3825
3826
3827
3828
3829
3830
3831
3832
3833
3834
3835
3836
3837
3838
3839
3840
3841
3842
3843
3844
3845
3846
3847
3848
3849
3850
3851
3852
3853
3854
3855
3856
3857
3858
3859
3860
3861
3862
3863
3864
3865
3866
3867
3868
3869
3870
3871
3872
3873
3874
3875
3876
3877
3878
3879
3880
3881
3882
3883
3884
3885
3886
3887
3888
3889
3890
3891
3892
3893
3894
3895
3896
3897
3898
3899
3900
3901
3902
3903
3904
3905
3906
3907
3908
3909
3910
3911
3912
3913
3914
3915
3916
3917
3918
3919
3920
3921
3922
3923
3924
3925
3926
3927
3928
3929
3930
3931
3932
3933
3934
3935
3936
3937
3938
3939
3940
3941
3942
3943
3944
3945
3946
3947
3948
3949
3950
3951
3952
3953
3954
3955
3956
3957
3958
3959
3960
3961
3962
3963
3964
3965
3966
3967
3968
3969
3970
3971
3972
3973
3974
3975
3976
3977
3978
3979
3980
3981
3982
3983
3984
3985
3986
3987
3988
3989
3990
3991
3992
3993
3994
3995
3996
3997
3998
3999
4000
4001
4002
4003
4004
4005
4006
4007
4008
4009
4010
4011
4012
4013
4014
4015
4016
4017
4018
4019
4020
4021
4022
4023
4024
4025
4026
4027
4028
4029
4030
4031
4032
4033
4034
4035
4036
4037
4038
4039
4040
4041
4042
4043
4044
4045
4046
4047
4048
4049
4050
4051
4052
4053
4054
4055
4056
4057
4058
4059
4060
4061
4062
4063
4064
4065
4066
4067
4068
4069
4070
4071
4072
4073
4074
4075
4076
4077
4078
4079
4080
4081
4082
4083
4084
4085
4086
4087
4088
4089
4090
4091
4092
4093
4094
4095
4096
4097
4098
4099
4100
4101
4102
4103
4104
4105
4106
4107
4108
4109
4110
4111
4112
4113
4114
4115
4116
4117
4118
4119
4120
4121
4122
4123
4124
4125
4126
4127
4128
4129
4130
4131
4132
4133
4134
4135
4136
4137
4138
4139
4140
4141
4142
4143
4144
4145
4146
4147
4148
4149
4150
4151
4152
4153
4154
4155
4156
4157
4158
4159
4160
4161
4162
4163
4164
4165
4166
4167
4168
4169
4170
4171
4172
4173
4174
4175
4176
4177
4178
4179
4180
4181
4182
4183
4184
4185
4186
4187
4188
4189
4190
4191
4192
4193
4194
4195
4196
4197
4198
4199
4200
4201
4202
4203
4204
4205
4206
4207
4208
4209
4210
4211
4212
4213
4214
4215
4216
4217
4218
4219
4220
4221
4222
4223
4224
4225
4226
4227
4228
4229
4230
4231
4232
4233
4234
4235
4236
4237
4238
4239
4240
4241
4242
4243
4244
4245
4246
4247
4248
4249
4250
4251
4252
4253
4254
4255
4256
4257
4258
4259
4260
4261
4262
4263
4264
4265
4266
4267
4268
4269
4270
4271
4272
4273
4274
4275
4276
4277
4278
4279
4280
4281
4282
4283
4284
4285
4286
4287
4288
4289
4290
4291
4292
4293
4294
4295
4296
4297
4298
4299
4300
4301
4302
4303
4304
4305
4306
4307
4308
4309
4310
4311
4312
4313
4314
4315
4316
4317
4318
4319
4320
4321
4322
4323
4324
4325
4326
4327
4328
4329
4330
4331
4332
4333
4334
4335
4336
4337
4338
4339
4340
4341
4342
4343
4344
4345
4346
4347
4348
4349
4350
4351
4352
4353
4354
4355
4356
4357
4358
4359
4360
4361
4362
4363
4364
4365
4366
4367
4368
4369
4370
4371
4372
4373
4374
4375
4376
4377
4378
4379
4380
4381
4382
4383
4384
4385
4386
4387
4388
4389
4390
4391
4392
4393
4394
4395
4396
4397
4398
4399
4400
4401
4402
4403
4404
4405
4406
4407
4408
4409
4410
4411
4412
4413
4414
4415
4416
4417
4418
4419
4420
4421
4422
4423
4424
4425
4426
4427
4428
4429
4430
4431
4432
4433
4434
4435
4436
4437
4438
4439
4440
4441
4442
4443
4444
4445
4446
4447
4448
4449
4450
4451
4452
4453
4454
4455
4456
4457
4458
4459
4460
4461
4462
4463
4464
4465
4466
4467
4468
4469
4470
4471
4472
4473
4474
4475
4476
4477
4478
4479
4480
4481
4482
4483
4484
4485
4486
4487
4488
4489
4490
4491
4492
4493
4494
4495
4496
4497
4498
4499
4500
4501
4502
4503
4504
4505
4506
4507
4508
4509
4510
4511
4512
4513
4514
4515
4516
4517
4518
4519
4520
4521
4522
4523
4524
4525
4526
4527
4528
4529
4530
4531
4532
4533
4534
4535
4536
4537
4538
4539
4540
4541
4542
4543
4544
4545
4546
4547
4548
4549
4550
4551
4552
4553
4554
4555
4556
4557
4558
4559
4560
4561
4562
4563
4564
4565
4566
4567
4568
4569
4570
4571
4572
4573
4574
4575
4576
4577
4578
4579
4580
4581
4582
4583
4584
4585
4586
4587
4588
4589
4590
4591
4592
4593
4594
4595
4596
4597
4598
4599
4600
4601
4602
4603
4604
4605
4606
4607
4608
4609
4610
4611
4612
4613
4614
4615
4616
4617
4618
4619
4620
4621
4622
4623
4624
4625
4626
4627
4628
4629
4630
4631
4632
4633
4634
4635
4636
4637
4638
4639
4640
4641
4642
4643
4644
4645
4646
4647
4648
4649
4650
4651
4652
4653
4654
4655
4656
4657
4658
4659
4660
4661
4662
4663
4664
4665
4666
4667
4668
4669
4670
4671
4672
4673
4674
4675
4676
4677
4678
4679
4680
4681
4682
4683
4684
4685
4686
4687
4688
4689
4690
4691
4692
4693
4694
4695
4696
4697
4698
4699
4700
4701
4702
4703
4704
4705
4706
4707
4708
4709
4710
4711
4712
4713
4714
4715
4716
4717
4718
4719
4720
4721
4722
4723
4724
4725
4726
4727
4728
4729
4730
4731
4732
4733
4734
4735
4736
4737
4738
4739
4740
4741
4742
4743
4744
4745
4746
4747
4748
4749
4750
4751
4752
4753
4754
4755
4756
4757
4758
4759
4760
4761
4762
4763
4764
4765
4766
4767
4768
4769
4770
4771
4772
4773
4774
4775
4776
4777
4778
4779
4780
4781
4782
4783
4784
4785
4786
4787
4788
4789
4790
4791
4792
4793
4794
4795
4796
4797
4798
4799
4800
4801
4802
4803
4804
4805
4806
4807
4808
4809
4810
4811
4812
4813
4814
4815
4816
4817
4818
4819
4820
4821
4822
4823
4824
4825
4826
4827
4828
4829
4830
4831
4832
4833
4834
4835
4836
4837
4838
4839
4840
4841
4842
4843
4844
4845
4846
4847
4848
4849
4850
4851
4852
4853
4854
4855
4856
4857
4858
4859
4860
4861
4862
4863
4864
4865
4866
4867
4868
4869
4870
4871
4872
4873
4874
4875
4876
4877
4878
4879
4880
4881
4882
4883
4884
4885
4886
4887
4888
4889
4890
4891
4892
4893
4894
4895
4896
4897
4898
4899
4900
4901
4902
4903
4904
4905
4906
4907
4908
4909
4910
4911
4912
4913
4914
4915
4916
4917
4918
4919
4920
4921
4922
4923
4924
4925
4926
4927
4928
4929
4930
4931
4932
4933
4934
4935
4936
4937
4938
4939
4940
4941
4942
4943
4944
4945
4946
4947
4948
4949
4950
4951
4952
4953
4954
4955
4956
4957
4958
4959
4960
4961
4962
4963
4964
4965
4966
4967
4968
4969
4970
4971
4972
4973
4974
4975
4976
4977
4978
4979
4980
4981
4982
4983
4984
4985
4986
4987
4988
4989
4990
4991
4992
4993
4994
4995
4996
4997
4998
4999
5000
5001
5002
5003
5004
5005
5006
5007
5008
5009
5010
5011
5012
5013
5014
5015
5016
5017
5018
5019
5020
5021
5022
5023
5024
5025
5026
5027
5028
5029
5030
5031
5032
5033
5034
5035
5036
5037
5038
5039
5040
5041
5042
5043
5044
5045
5046
5047
5048
5049
5050
5051
5052
5053
5054
5055
5056
5057
5058
5059
5060
5061
5062
5063
5064
5065
5066
5067
5068
5069
5070
5071
5072
5073
5074
5075
5076
5077
5078
5079
5080
5081
5082
5083
5084
5085
5086
5087
5088
5089
5090
5091
5092
5093
5094
5095
5096
5097
5098
5099
5100
5101
5102
5103
5104
5105
5106
5107
5108
5109
5110
5111
5112
5113
5114
5115
5116
5117
5118
5119
5120
5121
5122
5123
5124
5125
5126
5127
5128
5129
5130
5131
5132
5133
5134
5135
5136
5137
5138
5139
5140
5141
5142
5143
5144
5145
5146
5147
5148
5149
5150
5151
5152
5153
5154
5155
5156
5157
5158
5159
5160
5161
5162
5163
5164
5165
5166
5167
5168
5169
5170
5171
5172
5173
5174
5175
5176
5177
5178
5179
5180
5181
5182
5183
5184
5185
5186
5187
5188
5189
5190
5191
5192
5193
5194
5195
5196
5197
5198
5199
5200
5201
5202
5203
5204
5205
5206
5207
5208
5209
5210
5211
5212
5213
5214
5215
5216
5217
5218
5219
5220
5221
5222
5223
5224
5225
5226
5227
5228
5229
5230
5231
5232
5233
5234
5235
5236
5237
5238
5239
5240
5241
5242
5243
5244
5245
5246
5247
5248
5249
5250
5251
5252
5253
5254
5255
5256
5257
5258
5259
5260
5261
5262
5263
5264
5265
5266
5267
5268
5269
5270
5271
5272
5273
5274
5275
5276
5277
5278
5279
5280
5281
5282
5283
5284
5285
5286
5287
5288
5289
5290
5291
5292
5293
5294
5295
5296
5297
5298
5299
5300
5301
5302
5303
5304
5305
5306
5307
5308
5309
5310
5311
5312
5313
5314
5315
5316
5317
5318
5319
5320
5321
5322
5323
5324
5325
5326
5327
5328
5329
5330
5331
5332
5333
5334
5335
5336
5337
5338
5339
5340
5341
5342
5343
5344
5345
5346
5347
5348
5349
5350
5351
5352
5353
5354
5355
5356
5357
5358
5359
5360
5361
5362
5363
5364
5365
5366
5367
5368
5369
5370
5371
5372
5373
5374
5375
5376
5377
5378
5379
5380
5381
5382
5383
5384
5385
5386
5387
5388
5389
5390
5391
5392
5393
5394
5395
5396
5397
5398
5399
5400
5401
5402
5403
5404
5405
5406
5407
5408
5409
5410
5411
5412
5413
5414
5415
5416
5417
5418
5419
5420
5421
5422
5423
5424
5425
5426
5427
5428
5429
5430
5431
5432
5433
5434
5435
5436
5437
5438
5439
5440
5441
5442
5443
5444
5445
5446
5447
5448
5449
5450
5451
5452
5453
5454
5455
5456
5457
5458
5459
5460
5461
5462
5463
5464
5465
5466
5467
5468
5469
5470
5471
5472
5473
5474
5475
5476
5477
5478
5479
5480
5481
5482
5483
5484
5485
5486
5487
5488
5489
5490
5491
5492
5493
5494
5495
5496
5497
5498
5499
5500
5501
5502
5503
5504
5505
5506
5507
5508
5509
5510
5511
5512
5513
5514
5515
5516
5517
5518
5519
5520
5521
5522
5523
5524
5525
5526
5527
5528
5529
5530
5531
5532
5533
5534
5535
5536
5537
5538
5539
5540
5541
5542
5543
5544
5545
5546
5547
5548
5549
5550
5551
5552
5553
5554
5555
5556
5557
5558
5559
5560
5561
5562
5563
5564
5565
5566
5567
5568
5569
5570
5571
5572
5573
5574
5575
5576
5577
5578
5579
5580
5581
5582
5583
5584
5585
5586
5587
5588
5589
5590
5591
5592
5593
5594
5595
5596
5597
5598
5599
5600
5601
5602
5603
5604
5605
5606
5607
5608
5609
5610
5611
5612
5613
5614
5615
5616
5617
5618
5619
5620
5621
5622
5623
5624
5625
5626
5627
5628
5629
5630
5631
5632
5633
5634
5635
5636
5637
5638
5639
5640
5641
5642
5643
5644
5645
5646
5647
5648
5649
5650
5651
5652
5653
5654
5655
5656
5657
5658
5659
5660
5661
5662
5663
5664
5665
5666
5667
5668
5669
5670
5671
5672
5673
5674
5675
5676
5677
5678
5679
5680
5681
5682
5683
5684
5685
5686
5687
5688
5689
5690
5691
5692
5693
5694
5695
5696
5697
5698
5699
5700
5701
5702
5703
5704
5705
5706
5707
5708
5709
5710
5711
5712
5713
5714
5715
5716
5717
5718
5719
5720
5721
5722
5723
5724
5725
5726
5727
5728
5729
5730
5731
5732
5733
5734
5735
5736
5737
5738
5739
5740
5741
5742
5743
5744
5745
5746
5747
5748
5749
5750
5751
5752
5753
5754
5755
5756
5757
5758
5759
5760
5761
5762
5763
5764
5765
5766
5767
5768
5769
5770
5771
5772
5773
5774
5775
5776
5777
5778
5779
5780
5781
5782
5783
5784
5785
5786
5787
5788
5789
5790
5791
5792
5793
5794
5795
5796
5797
5798
5799
5800
5801
5802
5803
5804
5805
5806
5807
5808
5809
5810
5811
5812
5813
5814
5815
5816
5817
5818
5819
5820
5821
5822
5823
5824
5825
5826
5827
5828
5829
5830
5831
5832
5833
5834
5835
5836
5837
5838
5839
5840
5841
5842
5843
5844
5845
5846
5847
5848
5849
5850
5851
5852
5853
5854
5855
5856
5857
5858
5859
5860
5861
5862
5863
5864
5865
5866
5867
5868
5869
5870
5871
5872
5873
5874
5875
5876
5877
5878
5879
5880
5881
5882
5883
5884
5885
5886
5887
5888
5889
5890
5891
5892
5893
5894
5895
5896
5897
5898
5899
5900
5901
5902
5903
5904
5905
5906
5907
5908
5909
5910
5911
5912
5913
5914
5915
5916
5917
5918
5919
5920
5921
5922
5923
5924
5925
5926
5927
5928
5929
5930
5931
5932
5933
5934
5935
5936
5937
5938
5939
5940
5941
5942
5943
5944
5945
5946
5947
5948
5949
5950
5951
5952
5953
5954
5955
5956
5957
5958
5959
5960
5961
5962
5963
5964
5965
5966
5967
5968
5969
5970
5971
5972
5973
5974
5975
5976
5977
5978
5979
5980
5981
5982
5983
5984
5985
5986
5987
5988
5989
5990
5991
5992
5993
5994
5995
5996
5997
5998
5999
6000
6001
6002
6003
6004
6005
6006
6007
6008
6009
6010
6011
6012
6013
6014
6015
6016
6017
6018
6019
6020
6021
6022
6023
6024
6025
6026
6027
6028
6029
6030
6031
6032
6033
6034
6035
6036
6037
6038
6039
6040
6041
6042
6043
6044
6045
6046
6047
6048
6049
6050
6051
6052
6053
6054
6055
6056
6057
6058
6059
6060
6061
6062
6063
6064
6065
6066
6067
6068
6069
6070
6071
6072
6073
6074
6075
6076
6077
6078
6079
6080
6081
6082
6083
6084
6085
6086
6087
6088
6089
6090
6091
6092
6093
6094
6095
6096
6097
6098
6099
6100
6101
6102
6103
6104
6105
6106
6107
6108
6109
6110
6111
6112
6113
6114
6115
6116
6117
6118
6119
6120
6121
6122
6123
6124
6125
6126
6127
6128
6129
6130
6131
6132
6133
6134
6135
6136
6137
6138
6139
6140
6141
6142
6143
6144
6145
6146
6147
6148
6149
6150
6151
6152
6153
6154
6155
6156
6157
6158
6159
6160
6161
6162
6163
6164
6165
6166
6167
6168
6169
6170
6171
6172
6173
6174
6175
6176
6177
6178
6179
6180
6181
6182
6183
6184
6185
6186
6187
6188
6189
6190
6191
6192
6193
6194
6195
6196
6197
6198
6199
6200
6201
6202
6203
6204
6205
6206
6207
6208
6209
6210
6211
6212
6213
6214
6215
6216
6217
6218
6219
6220
6221
6222
6223
6224
6225
6226
6227
6228
6229
6230
6231
6232
6233
6234
6235
6236
6237
6238
6239
6240
6241
6242
6243
6244
6245
6246
6247
6248
6249
6250
6251
6252
6253
6254
6255
6256
6257
6258
6259
6260
6261
6262
6263
6264
6265
6266
6267
6268
6269
6270
6271
6272
6273
6274
6275
6276
6277
6278
6279
6280
6281
6282
6283
6284
6285
6286
6287
6288
6289
6290
6291
6292
6293
6294
6295
6296
6297
6298
6299
6300
6301
6302
6303
6304
6305
6306
6307
6308
6309
6310
6311
6312
6313
6314
6315
6316
6317
6318
6319
6320
6321
6322
6323
6324
6325
6326
6327
6328
6329
6330
6331
6332
6333
6334
6335
6336
6337
6338
6339
6340
6341
6342
6343
6344
6345
6346
6347
6348
6349
6350
6351
6352
6353
6354
6355
6356
6357
6358
6359
6360
6361
6362
6363
6364
6365
6366
6367
6368
6369
6370
6371
6372
6373
6374
6375
6376
6377
6378
6379
6380
6381
6382
6383
6384
6385
6386
6387
6388
6389
6390
6391
6392
6393
6394
6395
6396
6397
6398
6399
6400
6401
6402
6403
6404
6405
6406
6407
6408
6409
6410
6411
6412
6413
6414
6415
6416
6417
6418
6419
6420
6421
6422
6423
6424
6425
6426
6427
6428
6429
6430
6431
6432
6433
6434
6435
6436
6437
6438
6439
6440
6441
6442
6443
6444
6445
6446
6447
6448
6449
6450
6451
6452
6453
6454
6455
6456
6457
6458
6459
6460
6461
6462
6463
6464
6465
6466
6467
6468
6469
6470
6471
6472
6473
6474
6475
6476
6477
6478
6479
6480
6481
6482
6483
6484
6485
6486
6487
6488
6489
6490
6491
6492
6493
6494
6495
6496
6497
6498
6499
6500
6501
6502
6503
6504
6505
6506
6507
6508
6509
6510
6511
6512
6513
6514
6515
6516
6517
6518
6519
6520
6521
6522
6523
6524
6525
6526
6527
6528
6529
6530
6531
6532
6533
6534
6535
6536
6537
6538
6539
6540
6541
6542
6543
6544
6545
6546
6547
6548
6549
6550
6551
6552
6553
6554
6555
6556
6557
6558
6559
6560
6561
6562
6563
6564
6565
6566
6567
6568
6569
6570
6571
6572
6573
6574
6575
6576
6577
6578
6579
6580
6581
6582
6583
6584
6585
6586
6587
6588
6589
6590
6591
6592
6593
6594
6595
6596
6597
6598
6599
6600
6601
6602
6603
6604
6605
6606
6607
6608
6609
6610
6611
6612
6613
6614
6615
6616
6617
6618
6619
6620
6621
6622
6623
6624
6625
6626
6627
6628
6629
6630
6631
6632
6633
6634
6635
6636
6637
6638
6639
6640
6641
6642
6643
6644
6645
6646
6647
6648
6649
6650
6651
6652
6653
6654
6655
6656
6657
6658
6659
6660
6661
6662
6663
6664
6665
6666
6667
6668
6669
6670
6671
6672
6673
6674
6675
6676
6677
6678
6679
6680
6681
6682
6683
6684
6685
6686
6687
6688
6689
6690
6691
6692
6693
6694
6695
6696
6697
6698
6699
6700
6701
6702
6703
6704
6705
6706
6707
6708
6709
6710
6711
6712
6713
6714
6715
6716
6717
6718
6719
6720
6721
6722
6723
6724
6725
6726
6727
6728
6729
6730
6731
6732
6733
6734
6735
6736
6737
6738
6739
6740
6741
6742
6743
6744
6745
6746
6747
6748
6749
6750
6751
6752
6753
6754
6755
6756
6757
6758
6759
6760
6761
6762
6763
6764
6765
6766
6767
6768
6769
6770
6771
6772
6773
6774
6775
6776
6777
6778
6779
6780
6781
6782
6783
6784
6785
6786
6787
6788
6789
6790
6791
6792
6793
6794
6795
6796
6797
6798
6799
6800
6801
6802
6803
6804
6805
6806
6807
6808
6809
6810
6811
6812
6813
6814
6815
6816
6817
6818
6819
6820
6821
6822
6823
6824
6825
6826
6827
6828
6829
6830
6831
6832
6833
6834
6835
6836
6837
6838
6839
6840
6841
6842
6843
6844
6845
6846
6847
6848
6849
6850
6851
6852
6853
6854
6855
6856
6857
6858
6859
6860
6861
6862
6863
6864
6865
6866
6867
6868
6869
6870
6871
6872
6873
6874
6875
6876
6877
6878
6879
6880
6881
6882
6883
6884
6885
6886
6887
6888
6889
6890
6891
6892
6893
6894
6895
6896
6897
6898
6899
6900
6901
6902
6903
6904
6905
6906
6907
6908
6909
6910
6911
6912
6913
6914
6915
6916
6917
6918
6919
6920
6921
6922
6923
6924
6925
6926
6927
6928
6929
6930
6931
6932
6933
6934
6935
6936
6937
6938
6939
6940
6941
6942
6943
6944
6945
6946
6947
6948
6949
6950
6951
6952
6953
6954
6955
6956
6957
6958
6959
6960
6961
6962
6963
6964
6965
6966
6967
6968
6969
6970
6971
6972
6973
6974
6975
6976
6977
6978
6979
6980
6981
6982
6983
6984
6985
6986
6987
6988
6989
6990
6991
6992
6993
6994
6995
6996
6997
6998
6999
7000
7001
7002
7003
7004
7005
7006
7007
7008
7009
7010
7011
7012
7013
7014
7015
7016
7017
7018
7019
7020
7021
7022
7023
7024
7025
7026
7027
7028
7029
7030
7031
7032
7033
7034
7035
7036
7037
7038
7039
7040
7041
7042
7043
7044
7045
7046
7047
7048
7049
7050
7051
7052
7053
7054
7055
7056
7057
7058
7059
7060
7061
7062
7063
7064
7065
7066
7067
7068
7069
7070
7071
7072
7073
7074
7075
7076
7077
7078
7079
7080
7081
7082
7083
7084
7085
7086
7087
7088
7089
7090
7091
7092
7093
7094
7095
7096
7097
7098
7099
7100
7101
7102
7103
7104
7105
7106
7107
7108
7109
7110
7111
7112
7113
7114
7115
7116
7117
7118
7119
7120
7121
7122
7123
7124
7125
7126
7127
7128
7129
7130
7131
7132
7133
7134
7135
7136
7137
7138
7139
7140
7141
7142
7143
7144
7145
7146
7147
7148
7149
7150
7151
7152
7153
7154
7155
7156
7157
7158
7159
7160
7161
7162
7163
7164
7165
7166
7167
7168
7169
7170
7171
7172
7173
7174
7175
7176
7177
7178
7179
7180
7181
7182
7183
7184
7185
7186
7187
7188
7189
7190
7191
7192
7193
7194
7195
7196
7197
7198
7199
7200
7201
7202
7203
7204
7205
7206
7207
7208
7209
7210
7211
7212
7213
7214
7215
7216
7217
7218
7219
7220
7221
7222
7223
7224
7225
7226
7227
7228
7229
7230
7231
7232
7233
7234
7235
7236
7237
7238
7239
7240
7241
7242
7243
7244
7245
7246
7247
7248
7249
7250
7251
7252
7253
7254
7255
7256
7257
7258
7259
7260
7261
7262
7263
7264
7265
7266
7267
7268
7269
7270
7271
7272
7273
7274
7275
7276
7277
7278
7279
7280
7281
7282
7283
7284
7285
7286
7287
7288
7289
7290
7291
7292
7293
7294
7295
7296
7297
7298
7299
7300
7301
7302
7303
7304
7305
7306
7307
7308
7309
7310
7311
7312
7313
7314
7315
7316
7317
7318
7319
7320
7321
7322
7323
7324
7325
7326
7327
7328
7329
7330
7331
7332
7333
7334
7335
7336
7337
7338
7339
7340
7341
7342
7343
7344
7345
7346
7347
7348
7349
7350
7351
7352
7353
7354
7355
7356
7357
7358
7359
7360
7361
7362
7363
7364
7365
7366
7367
7368
7369
7370
7371
7372
7373
7374
7375
7376
7377
7378
7379
7380
7381
7382
7383
7384
7385
7386
7387
7388
7389
7390
7391
7392
7393
7394
7395
7396
7397
7398
7399
7400
7401
7402
7403
7404
7405
7406
7407
7408
7409
7410
7411
7412
7413
7414
7415
7416
7417
7418
7419
7420
7421
7422
7423
7424
7425
7426
7427
7428
7429
7430
7431
7432
7433
7434
7435
7436
7437
7438
7439
7440
7441
7442
7443
7444
7445
7446
7447
7448
7449
7450
7451
7452
7453
7454
7455
7456
7457
7458
7459
7460
7461
7462
7463
7464
7465
7466
7467
7468
7469
7470
7471
7472
7473
7474
7475
7476
7477
7478
7479
7480
7481
7482
7483
7484
7485
7486
7487
7488
7489
7490
7491
7492
7493
7494
7495
7496
7497
7498
7499
7500
7501
7502
7503
7504
7505
7506
7507
7508
7509
7510
7511
7512
7513
7514
7515
7516
7517
7518
7519
7520
7521
7522
7523
7524
7525
7526
7527
7528
7529
7530
7531
7532
7533
7534
7535
7536
7537
7538
7539
7540
7541
7542
7543
7544
7545
7546
7547
7548
7549
7550
7551
7552
7553
7554
7555
7556
7557
7558
7559
7560
7561
7562
7563
7564
7565
7566
7567
7568
7569
7570
7571
7572
7573
7574
7575
7576
7577
7578
7579
7580
7581
7582
7583
7584
7585
7586
7587
7588
7589
7590
7591
7592
7593
7594
7595
7596
7597
7598
7599
7600
7601
7602
7603
7604
7605
7606
7607
7608
7609
7610
7611
7612
7613
7614
7615
7616
7617
7618
7619
7620
7621
7622
7623
7624
7625
7626
7627
7628
7629
7630
7631
7632
7633
7634
7635
7636
7637
7638
7639
7640
7641
7642
7643
7644
7645
7646
7647
7648
7649
7650
7651
7652
7653
7654
7655
7656
7657
7658
7659
7660
7661
7662
7663
7664
7665
7666
7667
7668
7669
7670
7671
7672
7673
7674
7675
7676
7677
7678
7679
7680
7681
7682
7683
7684
7685
7686
7687
7688
7689
7690
7691
7692
7693
7694
7695
7696
7697
7698
7699
7700
7701
7702
7703
7704
7705
7706
7707
7708
7709
7710
7711
7712
7713
7714
7715
7716
7717
7718
7719
7720
7721
7722
7723
7724
7725
7726
7727
7728
7729
7730
7731
7732
7733
7734
7735
7736
7737
7738
7739
7740
7741
7742
7743
7744
7745
7746
7747
7748
7749
7750
7751
7752
7753
7754
7755
7756
7757
7758
7759
7760
7761
7762
7763
7764
7765
7766
7767
7768
7769
7770
7771
7772
7773
7774
7775
7776
7777
7778
7779
7780
7781
7782
7783
7784
7785
7786
7787
7788
7789
7790
7791
7792
7793
7794
7795
7796
7797
7798
7799
7800
7801
7802
7803
7804
7805
7806
7807
7808
7809
7810
7811
7812
7813
7814
7815
7816
7817
7818
7819
7820
7821
7822
7823
7824
7825
7826
7827
7828
7829
7830
7831
7832
7833
7834
7835
7836
7837
7838
7839
7840
7841
7842
7843
7844
7845
7846
7847
7848
7849
7850
7851
7852
7853
7854
7855
7856
7857
7858
7859
7860
7861
7862
7863
7864
7865
7866
7867
7868
7869
7870
7871
7872
7873
7874
7875
7876
7877
7878
7879
7880
7881
7882
7883
7884
7885
7886
7887
7888
7889
7890
7891
7892
7893
7894
7895
7896
7897
7898
7899
7900
7901
7902
7903
7904
7905
7906
7907
7908
7909
7910
7911
7912
7913
7914
7915
7916
7917
7918
7919
7920
7921
7922
7923
7924
7925
7926
7927
7928
7929
7930
7931
7932
7933
7934
7935
7936
7937
7938
7939
7940
7941
7942
7943
7944
7945
7946
7947
7948
7949
7950
7951
7952
7953
7954
7955
7956
7957
7958
7959
7960
7961
7962
7963
7964
7965
7966
7967
7968
7969
7970
7971
7972
7973
7974
7975
7976
7977
7978
7979
7980
7981
7982
7983
7984
7985
7986
7987
7988
7989
7990
7991
7992
7993
7994
7995
7996
7997
7998
7999
8000
8001
8002
8003
8004
8005
8006
8007
8008
8009
8010
8011
8012
8013
8014
8015
8016
8017
8018
8019
8020
8021
8022
8023
8024
8025
8026
8027
8028
8029
8030
8031
8032
8033
8034
8035
8036
8037
8038
8039
8040
8041
8042
8043
8044
8045
8046
8047
8048
8049
8050
8051
8052
8053
8054
8055
8056
8057
8058
8059
8060
8061
8062
8063
8064
8065
8066
8067
8068
8069
8070
8071
8072
8073
8074
8075
8076
8077
8078
8079
8080
8081
8082
8083
8084
8085
8086
8087
8088
8089
8090
8091
8092
8093
8094
8095
8096
8097
8098
8099
8100
8101
8102
8103
8104
8105
8106
8107
8108
8109
8110
8111
8112
8113
8114
8115
8116
8117
8118
8119
8120
8121
8122
8123
8124
8125
8126
8127
8128
8129
8130
8131
8132
8133
8134
8135
8136
8137
8138
8139
8140
8141
8142
8143
8144
8145
8146
8147
8148
8149
8150
8151
8152
8153
8154
8155
8156
8157
8158
8159
8160
8161
8162
8163
8164
8165
8166
8167
8168
8169
8170
8171
8172
8173
8174
8175
8176
8177
8178
8179
8180
8181
8182
8183
8184
8185
8186
8187
8188
8189
8190
8191
8192
8193
8194
8195
8196
8197
8198
8199
8200
8201
8202
8203
8204
8205
8206
8207
8208
8209
8210
8211
8212
8213
8214
8215
8216
8217
8218
8219
8220
8221
8222
8223
8224
8225
8226
8227
8228
8229
8230
8231
8232
8233
8234
8235
8236
8237
8238
8239
8240
8241
8242
8243
8244
8245
8246
8247
8248
8249
8250
8251
8252
8253
8254
8255
8256
8257
8258
8259
8260
8261
8262
8263
8264
8265
8266
8267
8268
8269
8270
8271
8272
8273
8274
8275
8276
8277
8278
8279
8280
8281
8282
8283
8284
8285
8286
8287
8288
8289
8290
8291
8292
8293
8294
8295
8296
8297
8298
8299
8300
8301
8302
8303
8304
8305
8306
8307
8308
8309
8310
8311
8312
8313
8314
8315
8316
8317
8318
8319
8320
8321
8322
8323
8324
8325
8326
8327
8328
8329
8330
8331
8332
8333
8334
8335
8336
8337
8338
8339
8340
8341
8342
8343
8344
8345
8346
8347
8348
8349
8350
8351
8352
8353
8354
8355
8356
8357
8358
8359
8360
8361
8362
8363
8364
8365
8366
8367
8368
8369
8370
8371
8372
8373
8374
8375
8376
8377
8378
8379
8380
8381
8382
8383
8384
8385
8386
8387
8388
8389
8390
8391
8392
8393
8394
8395
8396
8397
8398
8399
8400
8401
8402
8403
8404
8405
8406
8407
8408
8409
8410
8411
8412
8413
8414
8415
8416
8417
8418
8419
8420
8421
8422
8423
8424
8425
8426
8427
8428
8429
8430
8431
8432
8433
8434
8435
8436
8437
8438
8439
8440
8441
8442
8443
8444
8445
8446
8447
8448
8449
8450
8451
8452
8453
8454
8455
8456
8457
8458
8459
8460
8461
8462
8463
8464
8465
8466
8467
8468
8469
8470
8471
8472
8473
8474
8475
8476
8477
8478
8479
8480
8481
8482
8483
8484
8485
8486
8487
8488
8489
8490
8491
8492
8493
8494
8495
8496
8497
8498
8499
8500
8501
8502
8503
8504
8505
8506
8507
8508
8509
8510
8511
8512
8513
8514
8515
8516
8517
8518
8519
8520
8521
8522
8523
8524
8525
8526
8527
8528
8529
8530
8531
8532
8533
8534
8535
8536
8537
8538
8539
8540
8541
8542
8543
8544
8545
8546
8547
8548
8549
8550
8551
8552
8553
8554
8555
8556
8557
8558
8559
8560
8561
8562
8563
8564
8565
8566
8567
8568
8569
8570
8571
8572
8573
8574
8575
8576
8577
8578
8579
8580
8581
8582
8583
8584
8585
8586
8587
8588
8589
8590
8591
8592
8593
8594
8595
8596
8597
8598
8599
8600
8601
8602
8603
8604
8605
8606
8607
8608
8609
8610
8611
8612
8613
8614
8615
8616
8617
8618
8619
8620
8621
8622
8623
8624
8625
8626
8627
8628
8629
8630
8631
8632
8633
8634
8635
8636
8637
8638
8639
8640
8641
8642
8643
8644
8645
8646
8647
8648
8649
8650
8651
8652
8653
8654
8655
8656
8657
8658
8659
8660
8661
8662
8663
8664
8665
8666
8667
8668
8669
8670
8671
8672
8673
8674
8675
8676
8677
8678
8679
8680
8681
8682
8683
8684
8685
8686
8687
8688
8689
8690
8691
8692
8693
8694
8695
8696
8697
8698
8699
8700
8701
8702
8703
8704
8705
8706
8707
8708
8709
8710
8711
8712
8713
8714
8715
8716
8717
8718
8719
8720
8721
8722
8723
8724
8725
8726
8727
8728
8729
8730
8731
8732
8733
8734
8735
8736
8737
8738
8739
8740
8741
8742
8743
8744
8745
8746
8747
8748
8749
8750
8751
8752
8753
8754
8755
8756
8757
8758
8759
8760
8761
8762
8763
8764
8765
8766
8767
8768
8769
8770
8771
8772
8773
8774
8775
8776
8777
8778
8779
8780
8781
8782
8783
8784
8785
8786
8787
8788
8789
8790
8791
8792
8793
8794
8795
8796
8797
8798
8799
8800
8801
8802
8803
8804
8805
8806
8807
8808
8809
8810
8811
8812
8813
8814
8815
8816
8817
8818
8819
8820
8821
8822
8823
8824
8825
8826
8827
8828
8829
8830
8831
8832
8833
8834
8835
8836
8837
8838
8839
8840
8841
8842
8843
8844
8845
8846
8847
8848
8849
8850
8851
8852
8853
8854
8855
8856
8857
8858
8859
8860
8861
8862
8863
8864
8865
8866
8867
8868
8869
8870
8871
8872
8873
8874
8875
8876
8877
8878
8879
8880
8881
8882
8883
8884
8885
8886
8887
8888
8889
8890
8891
8892
8893
8894
8895
8896
8897
8898
8899
8900
8901
8902
8903
8904
8905
8906
8907
8908
8909
8910
8911
8912
8913
8914
8915
8916
8917
8918
8919
8920
8921
8922
8923
8924
8925
8926
8927
8928
8929
8930
8931
8932
8933
8934
8935
8936
8937
8938
8939
8940
8941
8942
8943
8944
8945
8946
8947
8948
8949
8950
8951
8952
8953
8954
8955
8956
8957
8958
8959
8960
8961
8962
8963
8964
8965
8966
8967
8968
8969
8970
8971
8972
8973
8974
8975
8976
8977
8978
8979
8980
8981
8982
8983
8984
8985
8986
8987
8988
8989
8990
8991
8992
8993
8994
8995
8996
8997
8998
8999
9000
9001
9002
9003
9004
9005
9006
9007
9008
9009
9010
9011
9012
9013
9014
9015
9016
9017
9018
9019
9020
9021
9022
9023
9024
9025
9026
9027
9028
9029
9030
9031
9032
9033
9034
9035
9036
9037
9038
9039
9040
9041
9042
9043
9044
9045
9046
9047
9048
9049
9050
9051
9052
9053
9054
9055
9056
9057
9058
9059
9060
9061
9062
9063
9064
9065
9066
9067
9068
9069
9070
9071
9072
9073
9074
9075
9076
9077
9078
9079
9080
9081
9082
9083
9084
9085
9086
9087
9088
9089
9090
9091
9092
9093
9094
9095
9096
9097
9098
9099
9100
9101
9102
9103
9104
9105
9106
9107
9108
9109
9110
9111
9112
9113
9114
9115
9116
9117
9118
9119
9120
9121
9122
9123
9124
9125
9126
9127
9128
9129
9130
9131
9132
9133
9134
9135
9136
9137
9138
9139
9140
9141
9142
9143
9144
9145
9146
9147
9148
9149
9150
9151
9152
9153
9154
9155
9156
9157
9158
9159
9160
9161
9162
9163
9164
9165
9166
9167
9168
9169
9170
9171
9172
9173
9174
9175
9176
9177
9178
9179
9180
9181
9182
9183
9184
9185
9186
9187
9188
9189
9190
9191
9192
9193
9194
9195
9196
9197
9198
9199
9200
9201
9202
9203
9204
9205
9206
9207
9208
9209
9210
9211
9212
9213
9214
9215
9216
9217
9218
9219
9220
9221
9222
9223
9224
9225
9226
9227
9228
9229
9230
9231
9232
9233
9234
9235
9236
9237
9238
9239
9240
9241
9242
9243
9244
9245
9246
9247
9248
9249
9250
9251
9252
9253
9254
9255
9256
9257
9258
9259
9260
9261
9262
9263
9264
9265
9266
9267
9268
9269
9270
9271
9272
9273
9274
9275
9276
9277
9278
9279
9280
9281
9282
9283
9284
9285
9286
9287
9288
9289
9290
9291
9292
9293
9294
9295
9296
9297
9298
9299
9300
9301
9302
9303
9304
9305
9306
9307
9308
9309
9310
9311
9312
9313
9314
9315
9316
9317
9318
9319
9320
9321
9322
9323
9324
9325
9326
9327
9328
9329
9330
9331
9332
9333
9334
9335
9336
9337
9338
9339
9340
9341
9342
9343
9344
9345
9346
9347
9348
9349
9350
9351
9352
9353
9354
9355
9356
9357
9358
9359
9360
9361
9362
9363
9364
9365
9366
9367
9368
9369
9370
9371
9372
9373
9374
9375
9376
9377
9378
9379
9380
9381
9382
9383
9384
9385
9386
9387
9388
9389
9390
9391
9392
9393
9394
9395
9396
9397
9398
9399
9400
9401
9402
9403
9404
9405
9406
9407
9408
9409
9410
9411
9412
9413
9414
9415
9416
9417
9418
9419
9420
9421
9422
9423
9424
9425
9426
9427
9428
9429
9430
9431
9432
9433
9434
9435
9436
9437
9438
9439
9440
9441
9442
9443
9444
9445
9446
9447
9448
9449
9450
9451
9452
9453
9454
9455
9456
9457
9458
9459
9460
9461
9462
9463
9464
9465
9466
9467
9468
9469
9470
9471
9472
9473
9474
9475
9476
9477
9478
9479
9480
9481
9482
9483
9484
9485
9486
9487
9488
9489
9490
9491
9492
9493
9494
9495
9496
9497
9498
9499
9500
9501
9502
9503
9504
9505
9506
9507
9508
9509
9510
9511
9512
9513
9514
9515
9516
9517
9518
9519
9520
9521
9522
9523
9524
9525
9526
9527
9528
9529
9530
9531
9532
9533
9534
9535
9536
9537
9538
9539
9540
9541
9542
9543
9544
9545
9546
9547
9548
9549
9550
9551
9552
9553
9554
9555
9556
9557
9558
9559
9560
9561
9562
9563
9564
9565
9566
9567
9568
9569
9570
9571
9572
9573
9574
9575
9576
9577
9578
9579
9580
9581
9582
9583
9584
9585
9586
9587
9588
9589
9590
9591
9592
9593
9594
9595
9596
9597
9598
9599
9600
9601
9602
9603
9604
9605
9606
9607
9608
9609
9610
9611
9612
9613
9614
9615
9616
9617
9618
9619
9620
9621
9622
9623
9624
9625
9626
9627
9628
9629
9630
9631
9632
9633
9634
9635
9636
9637
9638
9639
9640
9641
9642
9643
9644
9645
9646
9647
9648
9649
9650
9651
9652
9653
9654
9655
9656
9657
9658
9659
9660
9661
9662
9663
9664
9665
9666
9667
9668
9669
9670
9671
9672
9673
9674
9675
9676
9677
9678
9679
9680
9681
9682
9683
9684
9685
9686
9687
9688
9689
9690
9691
9692
9693
9694
9695
9696
9697
9698
9699
9700
9701
9702
9703
9704
9705
9706
9707
9708
9709
9710
9711
9712
9713
9714
9715
9716
9717
9718
9719
9720
9721
9722
9723
9724
9725
9726
9727
9728
9729
9730
9731
9732
9733
9734
9735
9736
9737
9738
9739
9740
9741
9742
9743
9744
9745
9746
9747
9748
9749
9750
9751
9752
9753
9754
9755
9756
9757
9758
9759
9760
9761
9762
9763
9764
9765
9766
9767
9768
9769
9770
9771
9772
9773
9774
9775
9776
9777
9778
9779
9780
9781
9782
9783
9784
9785
9786
9787
9788
9789
9790
9791
9792
9793
9794
9795
9796
9797
9798
9799
9800
9801
9802
9803
9804
9805
9806
9807
9808
9809
9810
9811
9812
9813
9814
9815
9816
9817
9818
9819
9820
9821
9822
9823
9824
9825
9826
9827
9828
9829
9830
9831
9832
9833
9834
9835
9836
9837
9838
9839
9840
9841
9842
9843
9844
9845
9846
9847
9848
9849
9850
9851
9852
9853
9854
9855
9856
9857
9858
9859
9860
9861
9862
9863
9864
9865
9866
9867
9868
9869
9870
9871
9872
9873
9874
9875
9876
9877
9878
9879
9880
9881
9882
9883
9884
9885
9886
9887
9888
9889
9890
9891
9892
9893
9894
9895
9896
9897
9898
9899
9900
9901
9902
9903
9904
9905
9906
9907
9908
9909
9910
9911
9912
9913
9914
9915
9916
9917
9918
9919
9920
9921
9922
9923
9924
9925
9926
9927
9928
9929
9930
9931
9932
9933
9934
9935
9936
9937
9938
9939
9940
9941
9942
9943
9944
9945
9946
9947
9948
9949
9950
9951
9952
9953
9954
9955
9956
9957
9958
9959
9960
9961
9962
9963
9964
9965
9966
9967
9968
9969
9970
9971
9972
9973
9974
9975
9976
9977
9978
9979
9980
9981
9982
9983
9984
9985
9986
9987
9988
9989
9990
9991
9992
9993
9994
9995
9996
9997
9998
9999
10000
10001
10002
10003
10004
10005
10006
10007
10008
10009
10010
10011
10012
10013
10014
10015
10016
10017
10018
10019
10020
10021
10022
10023
10024
10025
10026
10027
10028
10029
10030
10031
10032
10033
10034
10035
10036
10037
10038
10039
10040
10041
10042
10043
10044
10045
10046
10047
10048
10049
10050
10051
10052
10053
10054
10055
10056
10057
10058
10059
10060
10061
10062
10063
10064
10065
10066
10067
10068
10069
10070
10071
10072
10073
10074
10075
10076
10077
10078
10079
10080
10081
10082
10083
10084
10085
10086
10087
10088
10089
10090
10091
10092
10093
10094
10095
10096
10097
10098
10099
10100
10101
10102
10103
10104
10105
10106
10107
10108
10109
10110
10111
10112
10113
10114
10115
10116
10117
10118
10119
10120
10121
10122
10123
10124
10125
10126
10127
10128
10129
10130
10131
10132
10133
10134
10135
10136
10137
10138
10139
10140
10141
10142
10143
10144
10145
10146
10147
10148
10149
10150
10151
10152
10153
10154
10155
10156
10157
10158
10159
10160
10161
10162
10163
10164
10165
10166
10167
10168
10169
10170
10171
10172
10173
10174
10175
10176
10177
10178
10179
10180
10181
10182
10183
10184
10185
10186
10187
10188
10189
10190
10191
10192
10193
10194
10195
10196
10197
10198
10199
10200
10201
10202
10203
10204
10205
10206
10207
10208
10209
10210
10211
10212
10213
10214
10215
10216
10217
10218
10219
10220
10221
10222
10223
10224
10225
10226
10227
10228
10229
10230
10231
10232
10233
10234
10235
10236
10237
10238
10239
10240
10241
10242
10243
10244
10245
10246
10247
10248
10249
10250
10251
10252
10253
10254
10255
10256
10257
10258
10259
10260
10261
10262
10263
10264
10265
10266
10267
10268
10269
10270
10271
10272
10273
10274
10275
10276
10277
10278
10279
10280
10281
10282
10283
10284
10285
10286
10287
10288
10289
10290
10291
10292
10293
10294
10295
10296
10297
10298
10299
10300
10301
10302
10303
10304
10305
10306
10307
10308
10309
10310
10311
10312
10313
10314
10315
10316
10317
10318
10319
10320
10321
10322
10323
10324
10325
10326
10327
10328
10329
10330
10331
10332
10333
10334
10335
10336
10337
10338
10339
10340
10341
10342
10343
10344
10345
10346
10347
10348
10349
10350
10351
10352
10353
10354
10355
10356
10357
10358
10359
10360
10361
10362
10363
10364
10365
10366
10367
10368
10369
10370
10371
10372
10373
10374
10375
10376
10377
10378
10379
10380
10381
10382
10383
10384
10385
10386
10387
10388
10389
10390
10391
10392
10393
10394
10395
10396
10397
10398
10399
10400
10401
10402
10403
10404
10405
10406
10407
10408
10409
10410
10411
10412
10413
10414
10415
10416
10417
10418
10419
10420
10421
10422
10423
10424
10425
10426
10427
10428
10429
10430
10431
10432
10433
10434
10435
10436
10437
10438
10439
10440
10441
10442
10443
10444
10445
10446
10447
10448
10449
10450
10451
10452
10453
10454
10455
10456
10457
10458
10459
10460
10461
10462
10463
10464
10465
10466
10467
10468
10469
10470
10471
10472
10473
10474
10475
10476
10477
10478
10479
10480
10481
10482
10483
10484
10485
10486
10487
10488
10489
10490
10491
10492
10493
10494
10495
10496
10497
10498
10499
10500
10501
10502
10503
10504
10505
10506
10507
10508
10509
10510
10511
10512
10513
10514
10515
10516
10517
10518
10519
10520
10521
10522
10523
10524
10525
10526
10527
10528
10529
10530
10531
10532
10533
10534
10535
10536
10537
10538
10539
10540
10541
10542
10543
10544
10545
10546
10547
10548
10549
10550
10551
10552
10553
10554
10555
10556
10557
10558
10559
10560
10561
10562
10563
10564
10565
10566
10567
10568
10569
10570
10571
10572
10573
10574
10575
10576
10577
10578
10579
10580
10581
10582
10583
10584
10585
10586
10587
10588
10589
10590
10591
10592
10593
10594
10595
10596
10597
10598
10599
10600
10601
10602
10603
10604
10605
10606
10607
10608
10609
10610
10611
10612
10613
10614
10615
10616
10617
10618
10619
10620
10621
10622
10623
10624
10625
10626
10627
10628
10629
10630
10631
10632
10633
10634
10635
10636
10637
10638
10639
10640
10641
10642
10643
10644
10645
10646
10647
10648
10649
10650
10651
10652
10653
10654
10655
10656
10657
10658
10659
10660
10661
10662
10663
10664
10665
10666
10667
10668
10669
10670
10671
10672
10673
10674
10675
10676
10677
10678
10679
10680
10681
10682
10683
10684
10685
10686
10687
10688
10689
10690
10691
10692
10693
10694
10695
10696
10697
10698
10699
10700
10701
10702
10703
10704
10705
10706
10707
10708
10709
10710
10711
10712
10713
10714
10715
10716
10717
10718
10719
10720
10721
10722
10723
10724
10725
10726
10727
10728
10729
10730
10731
10732
10733
10734
10735
10736
10737
10738
10739
10740
10741
10742
10743
10744
10745
10746
10747
10748
10749
10750
10751
10752
10753
10754
10755
10756
10757
10758
10759
10760
10761
10762
10763
10764
10765
10766
10767
10768
10769
10770
10771
10772
10773
10774
10775
10776
10777
10778
10779
10780
10781
10782
10783
10784
10785
10786
10787
10788
10789
10790
10791
10792
10793
10794
10795
10796
10797
10798
10799
10800
10801
10802
10803
10804
10805
10806
10807
10808
10809
10810
10811
10812
10813
10814
10815
10816
10817
10818
10819
10820
10821
10822
10823
10824
10825
10826
10827
10828
10829
10830
10831
10832
10833
10834
10835
10836
10837
10838
10839
10840
10841
10842
10843
10844
10845
10846
10847
10848
10849
10850
10851
10852
10853
10854
10855
10856
10857
10858
10859
10860
10861
10862
10863
10864
10865
10866
10867
10868
10869
10870
10871
10872
10873
10874
10875
10876
10877
10878
10879
10880
10881
10882
10883
10884
10885
10886
10887
10888
10889
10890
10891
10892
10893
10894
10895
10896
10897
10898
10899
10900
10901
10902
10903
10904
10905
10906
10907
10908
10909
10910
10911
10912
10913
10914
10915
10916
10917
10918
10919
10920
10921
10922
10923
10924
10925
10926
10927
10928
10929
10930
10931
10932
10933
10934
10935
10936
10937
10938
10939
10940
10941
10942
10943
10944
10945
10946
10947
10948
10949
10950
10951
10952
10953
10954
10955
10956
10957
10958
10959
10960
10961
10962
10963
10964
10965
10966
10967
10968
10969
10970
10971
10972
10973
10974
10975
10976
10977
10978
10979
10980
10981
10982
10983
10984
10985
10986
10987
10988
10989
10990
10991
10992
10993
10994
10995
10996
10997
10998
10999
11000
11001
11002
11003
11004
11005
11006
11007
11008
11009
11010
11011
11012
11013
11014
11015
11016
11017
11018
11019
11020
11021
11022
11023
11024
11025
11026
11027
11028
11029
11030
11031
11032
11033
11034
11035
11036
11037
11038
11039
11040
11041
11042
11043
11044
11045
11046
11047
11048
11049
11050
11051
11052
11053
11054
11055
11056
11057
11058
11059
11060
11061
11062
11063
11064
11065
11066
11067
11068
11069
11070
11071
11072
11073
11074
11075
11076
11077
11078
11079
11080
11081
11082
11083
11084
11085
11086
11087
11088
11089
11090
11091
11092
11093
11094
11095
11096
11097
11098
11099
11100
11101
11102
11103
11104
11105
11106
11107
11108
11109
11110
11111
11112
11113
11114
11115
11116
11117
11118
11119
11120
11121
11122
11123
11124
11125
11126
11127
11128
11129
11130
11131
11132
11133
11134
11135
11136
11137
11138
11139
11140
11141
11142
11143
11144
11145
11146
11147
11148
11149
11150
11151
11152
11153
11154
11155
11156
11157
11158
11159
11160
11161
11162
11163
11164
11165
11166
11167
11168
11169
11170
11171
11172
11173
11174
11175
11176
11177
11178
11179
11180
11181
11182
11183
11184
11185
11186
11187
11188
11189
11190
11191
11192
11193
11194
11195
11196
11197
11198
11199
11200
11201
11202
11203
11204
11205
11206
11207
11208
11209
|
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" />
<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" />
<title>The Hawaiian Archipelago | Project Gutenberg</title>
<style type="text/css">
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 6750 ***</div>
<h1>THE HAWAIIAN ARCHIPELAGO.</h1>
<p>SIX MONTHS AMONG THE PALM GROVES, CORAL REEFS, AND VOLCANOES OF THE
SANDWICH ISLANDS.</p>
<p>BY ISABELLA L. BIRD.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p><i> “Summer isles of Eden lying<br /> In
dark purple spheres of sea.”</i></p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
<p><i>To my sister, to whom these letters were originally written, they
are now affectionately dedicated.</i></p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>PREFACE.</h2>
<p>Within the last century the Hawaiian islands have been the topic
of various works of merit, and some explanation of the reasons which
have led me to enter upon the same subject are necessary.</p>
<p>I was travelling for health, when circumstances induced me to land
on the group, and the benefit which I derived from the climate tempted
me to remain for nearly seven months. During that time the necessity
of leading a life of open air and exercise as a means of recovery, led
me to travel on horseback to and fro through the islands, exploring
the interior, ascending the highest mountains, visiting the active volcanoes,
and remote regions which are known to few even of the residents, living
among the natives, and otherwise seeing Hawaiian life in all its phases.</p>
<p>At the close of my visit, my Hawaiian friends urged me strongly to
publish my impressions and experiences, on the ground that the best
books already existing, besides being old, treat chiefly of aboriginal
customs and habits now extinct, and of the introduction of Christianity
and subsequent historical events. They also represented that I
had seen the islands more thoroughly than any foreign visitor, and the
volcano of Mauna Loa under specially favourable circumstances, and that
I had so completely lived the island life, and acquainted myself with
the existing state of the country, as to be rather a <i>kamaina</i>
<a name="citation0"></a><a href="#footnote0">{0}</a> than a stranger,
and that consequently I should be able to write on Hawaii with a degree
of intimacy as well as freshness. My friends at home, who were
interested in my narratives, urged me to give them to a wider circle,
and my inclinations led me in the same direction, with a sort of longing
to make others share something of my own interest and enjoyment.</p>
<p>The letters which follow were written to a near relation, and often
hastily and under great difficulties of circumstance, but even with
these and other disadvantages, they appear to me the best form of conveying
my impressions in their original vividness. With the exception
of certain omissions and abridgments, they are printed as they were
written, and for such demerits as arise from this mode of publication,
I ask the kind indulgence of my readers.<br /> ISABELLA
L. BIRD.<br />January, 1875.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
<h2>TRAVELS IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS.</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.</h3>
<p>Canon Kingsley, in his charming book on the West Indies, says, “The
undoubted fact is known I find to few educated English people, that
the Coco palm, which produces coir rope, cocoanuts, and a hundred other
useful things, is not the same plant as the cacao bush which produces
chocolate, or anything like it. I am sorry to have to insist upon
this fact, but till Professor Huxley’s dream and mine is fulfilled,
and our schools deign to teach, in the intervals of Greek and Latin,
some slight knowledge of this planet, and of those of its productions
which are most commonly in use, even this fact may need to be re-stated
more than once.”</p>
<p>There is no room for the supposition that the intelligence of Mr.
Kingsley’s “educated English” acquaintance is below
the average, and I should be sorry to form an unworthy estimate of that
of my own circle, though I have several times met with the foregoing
confusion, as well as the following and other equally ill-informed questions,
one or two of which I reluctantly admit that I might have been guilty
of myself before I visited the Pacific: “Whereabouts are the Sandwich
Islands? They are not the same as the Fijis, are they? Are
they the same as Otaheite? Are the natives all cannibals?
What sort of idols do they worship? Are they as pretty as the
other South Sea Islands? Does the king wear clothes? Who
do they belong to? Does any one live on them but the savages?
Will anything grow on them? Are the people very savage?”
etc. Their geographical position is a great difficulty.
I saw a gentleman of very extensive information looking for them on
the map in the neighbourhood of Tristran d’Acunha; and the publishers
of a high-class periodical lately advertised, “Letters from the
Sandwich Islands” as “Letters from the South Sea Islands.”
In consequence of these and similar interrogatories, which are not altogether
unreasonable, considering the imperfect teaching of physical geography,
the extent of this planet, the multitude of its productions, and the
enormous number of islands composing Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia,
it is necessary to preface the following letters with as many preliminary
statements as shall serve to make them intelligible.</p>
<p>The Sandwich Islands do not form one of the South Sea groups, and
have no other connexion with them than certain affinities of race and
language. They constitute the only important group in the vast
North Pacific Ocean, in which they are so advantageously placed as to
be pretty nearly equidistant from California, Mexico, China, and Japan.
They are in the torrid zone, and extend from 18° 50’ to 22°
20’ north latitude, and their longitude is from 154° 53’
to 160° 15’ west from Greenwich. They were discovered
by Captain Cook in 1778. They are twelve in number, but only eight
are inhabited, and these vary in size from Hawaii, which is 4000 square
miles in extent, and 88 miles long by 73 broad, to Kahoolawe, which
is only 11 miles long and 8 broad. Their entire superficial area
is about 6,100 miles. They are to some extent bounded by barrier
reefs of coral, and have few safe harbours. Their formation is
altogether volcanic, and they possess the largest perpetually active
volcano and the largest extinct crater in the world. They are
very mountainous, and two mountain summits on Hawaii are nearly 14,000
feet in height. Their climate for salubrity and general equability
is reputed the finest on earth. It is almost absolutely equable,
and a man may take his choice between broiling all the year round on
the sea level on the leeward side of the islands at a temperature of
80°, and enjoying the charms of a fireside at an altitude where
there is frost every night of the year. There is no sickly season,
and there are no diseases of locality. The trade winds blow for
nine months of the year, and on the windward coasts there is an abundance
of rain, and a perennial luxuriance of vegetation.</p>
<p>The Sandwich Islands are not the same as Otaheite nor as the Fijis,
from which they are distant about 4,000 miles, nor are their people
of the same race. The natives are not cannibals, and it is doubtful
if they ever were so. Their idols only exist in missionary museums.
They cast them away voluntarily in 1819, at the very time when missionaries
from America sent out to Christianize the group were on their way round
Cape Horn. The people are all clothed, and the king, who is an
educated gentleman, wears the European dress. The official designation
of the group is “Hawaiian Islands,” and they form an independent
kingdom.</p>
<p>The natives are not savages, most decidedly not. They are on
the whole a quiet, courteous, orderly, harmless, Christian community.
The native population has declined from 400,000 as estimated by Captain
Cook in 1778 to 49,000, according to the census of 1872. There
are about 5,000 foreign residents, who live on very friendly terms with
the natives, and are mostly subjects of Kalakaua, the king of the group.</p>
<p>The islands have a thoroughly civilized polity, and the Hawaiians
show a great aptitude for political organization. They constitute
a limited monarchy, and have a constitutional and hereditary king, a
parliament with an upper and lower house, a cabinet, a standing army,
a police force, a Supreme Court of Judicature, a most efficient postal
system, a Governor and Sheriff on each of the larger islands, court
officials, and court etiquette, a common school system, custom houses,
a civil list, taxes, a national debt, and most of the other amenities
and appliances of civilization.</p>
<p>There is no State Church. The majority of the foreigners, as
well as of the natives, are Congregationalists. The missionaries
translated the Bible and other books into Hawaiian, taught the natives
to read and write, gave the princes and nobles a high class education,
induced the king and chiefs to renounce their oppressive feudal rights,
with legal advice framed a constitution which became the law of the
land, and obtained the recognition of the little Polynesian kingdom
as a member of the brotherhood of civilized nations.</p>
<p>With these few remarks I leave the subject of the volume to develop
itself in my letters. They have not had the advantage of revision
by any one familiar with the Sandwich Islands, and mistakes and inaccuracies
may consequently appear, on which, I hope that my Hawaiian friends will
not be very severe. In correcting them, I have availed myself
of the very valuable “History of the Hawaiian Islands,”
by Mr. Jackson Jarves, Ellis’ “Tour Round Hawaii,”
Mr. Brigham’s valuable monograph on “The Hawaiian Volcanoes,”
and sundry reports presented to the legislature during its present session.
I have also to express my obligations to the Hon. E. Allen, Chief Justice
and Chancellor of the Hawaiian kingdom, Mr. Manley Hopkins, author of
“Hawaii,” Dr. T. M. Coan, of New York, Professor W. Alexander,
Daniel Smith, Esq., and other friends at Honolulu, for assistance most
kindly rendered.<br /> ISABELLA
L. BIRD.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>LETTER I.</h3>
<p>STEAMER NEVADA, NORTH PACIFIC, January 19.</p>
<p>A white, unwinking, scintillating sun blazed down upon Auckland,
New Zealand. Along the white glaring road from Onehunga, dusty
trees and calla lilies drooped with the heat. Dusty thickets sheltered
the cicada, whose triumphant din grated and rasped through the palpitating
atmosphere. In dusty enclosures, supposed to be gardens, shrivelled
geraniums scattered sparsely alone defied the heat. Flags drooped
in the stifling air. Men on the verge of sunstroke plied their
tasks mechanically, like automatons. Dogs, with flabby and protruding
tongues, hid themselves away under archway shadows. The stones
of the sidewalks and the brick of the houses radiated a furnace heat.
All nature was limp, dusty, groaning, gasping. The day was the
climax of a burning fortnight, of heat, draught, and dust, of baked,
cracked, dewless land, and oily breezeless seas, of glaring days, passing
through fierce fiery sunsets into stifling nights.</p>
<p>I only remained long enough in the capital to observe that it had
a look of having seen better days, and that its business streets had
an American impress, and, taking a boat at a wharf, in whose seams the
pitch was melting, I went off to the steamer <i>Nevada</i>, which was
anchored out in the bay, preferring to spend the night in her than in
the unbearable heat on shore. She belongs to the Webb line, an
independent mail adventure, now dying a natural death, undertaken by
the New Zealand Government, as much probably out of jealousy of Victoria
as anything else. She nearly foundered on her last voyage; her
passengers unanimously signed a protest against her unseaworthy condition.
She was condemned by the Government surveyor, and her mails were sent
to Melbourne. She has, however, been patched up for this trip,
and eight passengers, including myself, have trusted ourselves to her.
She is a huge paddle-steamer, of the old-fashioned American type, deck
above deck, balconies, a pilot-house abaft the foremast, two monstrous
walking beams, and two masts which, possibly in case of need, might
serve as jury masts.</p>
<p>Huge, airy, perfectly comfortable as she is, not a passenger stepped
on board without breathing a more earnest prayer than usual that the
voyage might end propitiously. The very first evening statements
were whispered about to the effect that her state of disrepair is such
that she has not been to her own port for nine months, and has been
sailing for that time without a certificate; that her starboard shaft
is partially fractured, and that to reduce the strain upon it the floats
of her starboard wheel have been shortened five inches, the strain being
further reduced by giving her a decided list to port; that her crank
is “bandaged,” that she is leaky; that her mainmast is sprung,
and that with only four hours’ steaming many of her boiler tubes,
even some of those put in at Auckland, had already given way.
I cannot testify concerning the mainmast, though it certainly does comport
itself like no other mainmast I ever saw; but the other statements and
many more which might be added, are, I believe, substantially correct.
That the caulking of the deck was in evil case we very soon had proof,
for during heavy rain above, it was a smart shower in the saloon and
state rooms, keeping four stewards employed with buckets and swabs,
and compelling us to dine in waterproofs and rubber shoes.</p>
<p>In this dilapidated condition, when two days out from Auckland, we
encountered a revolving South Sea hurricane, succinctly entered in the
log of the day as “Encountered a very severe hurricane with a
very heavy sea.” It began at eight in the morning, and never
spent its fury till nine at night, and the wind changed its direction
eleven times. The <i>Nevada</i> left Auckland two feet deeper
in the water than she ought to have been, and laboured heavily.
Seas struck her under the guards with a heavy, explosive <i>thud</i>,
and she groaned and strained as if she would part asunder. It
was a long weird day. We held no communication with each other,
or with those who could form any rational estimate of the probabilities
of our destiny; no officials appeared; the ordinary invariable routine
of the steward department was suspended without notice; the sounds were
tremendous, and a hot lurid obscurity filled the atmosphere. Soon
after four the clamour increased, and the shock of a sea blowing up
a part of the fore-guards made the groaning fabric reel and shiver throughout
her whole huge bulk. At that time, by common consent, we assembled
in the deck-house, which had windows looking in all directions, and
sat there for five hours. Very few words were spoken, and very
little fear was felt. We understood by intuition that if our crazy
engines failed at any moment to keep the ship’s head to the sea,
her destruction would not occupy half-an-hour. It was all palpable.
There was nothing which the most experienced seaman could explain to
the merest novice. We hoped for the best, and there was no use
in speaking about the worst. Nor, indeed, was speech possible,
unless a human voice could have outshrieked the hurricane.</p>
<p>In this deck-house the strainings, sunderings, and groanings were
hardly audible, or rather were overpowered by a sound which, in thirteen
months’ experience of the sea in all weathers, I have never heard,
and hope never to hear again, unless in a staunch ship, one loud, awful,
undying shriek, mingled with a prolonged relentless hiss. No gathering
strength, no languid fainting into momentary lulls, but one protracted
gigantic scream. And this was not the whistle of wind through
cordage, but the actual sound of air travelling with tremendous velocity,
carrying with it minute particles of water. Nor was the sea running
mountains high, for the hurricane kept it down. Indeed during
those fierce hours no sea was visible, for the whole surface was caught
up and carried furiously into the air, like snow-drift on the prairies,
sibilant, relentless. There was profound quiet on deck, the little
life which existed being concentrated near the bow, where the captain
was either lashed to the foremast, or in shelter in the pilot-house.
Never a soul appeared on deck, the force of the hurricane being such
that for four hours any man would have been carried off his feet.
Through the swift strange evening our hopes rested on the engine, and
amidst the uproar and din, and drifting spray, and shocks of pitiless
seas, there was a sublime repose in the spectacle of the huge walking
beams, alternately rising and falling, slowly, calmly, regularly, as
if the <i>Nevada</i> were on a holiday trip within the Golden Gate.
At eight in the evening we could hear each other speak, and a little
later, through the great masses of hissing drift we discerned black
water. At nine Captain Blethen appeared, smoking a cigar with
nonchalance, and told us that the hurricane had nearly boxed the compass,
and had been the most severe he had known for seventeen years.
This grand old man, nearly the oldest captain in the Pacific, won our
respect and confidence from the first, and his quiet and masterly handling
of this dilapidated old ship is beyond all praise.</p>
<p>When the strain of apprehension was mitigated, we became aware that
we had not had anything to eat since breakfast, a clean sweep having
been made, not only of the lunch, but of all the glass in the racks
above it; but all requests to the stewards were insufficient to procure
even biscuits, and at eleven we retired supperless to bed, amidst a
confusion of awful sounds, and were deprived of lights as well as food.
When we asked for food or light, and made weak appeals on the ground
of faintness, the one steward who seemed to dawdle about for the sole
purpose of making himself disagreeable, always replied, “You can’t
get anything, the stewards are on duty.” We were not accustomed
to recognize that stewards had any other duty than that of feeding the
passengers, but under the circumstances we meekly acquiesced.
We were allowed to know that a part of the foreguards had been carried
way, and that iron stanchions four inches thick had been gnarled and
twisted like candy sticks, and the constant falling of the saloon casing
of the mainmast, showed something wrong there. A heavy clang,
heard at intervals by day and night, aroused some suspicions as to more
serious damage, and these were afterwards confirmed. As the wind
fell the sea rose, and for some hours realized every description I have
read of the majesty and magnitude of the rollers of the South Pacific.</p>
<p>The day after the hurricane something went wrong with the engines,
and we were stationary for an hour. We all felt thankful that
this derangement which would have jeopardised or sacrificed sixty lives,
was then only a slight detention on a summer sea.</p>
<p>Five days out from Auckland we entered the tropics with a temperature
of 80° in the water, and 85° in the air, but as the light head
airs blew the intense heat of our two smoke stacks aft, we often endured
a temperature of 110°. There were quiet, heavy tropical showers,
and a general misty dampness, and the Navigator Islands, with their
rainbow-tinted coral forests, their fringe of coco palms, and groves
of banyan and breadfruit trees, these sunniest isles of the bright South
Seas, resolved themselves into dark lumps looming through a drizzling
mist. But the showers and the dampness were confined to that region,
and for the last fortnight an unclouded tropical sun has blazed upon
our crawling ship. The boiler tubes are giving way at the rate
of from ten to twenty daily, the fracture in the shaft is extending,
and so, partially maimed, the old ship drags her 320 feet of length
slowly along. The captain is continually in the engine-room, and
we know when things are looking more unpropitious than usual by his
coming up puffing his cigar with unusual strength of determination.
It has been so far a very pleasant voyage. The moral, mental,
and social qualities of my fellow-passengers are of a high order, and
since the hurricane we have been rather like a family circle than a
miscellaneous accidental group. For some time our days went by
in reading aloud, working, chess, draughts and conversation, with two
hours at quoits in the afternoon for exercise; but four days ago the
only son of Mrs. Dexter, who is the only lady on board besides myself,
ruptured a blood vessel on the lungs, and lies in a most critical state
in the deck-house from which he has not been moved, requiring most careful
nursing, incessant fanning, and the attention of two persons by day
and night. Mrs. D. had previously won the regard of everyone,
and I had learned to look on her as a friend from whom I should be grieved
to part. The only hope for the young man’s life is that
he should be landed at Honolulu, and she has urged me so strongly to
land with her there, where she will be a complete stranger, that I have
consented to do so, and consequently shall see the Sandwich Islands.
This severe illness has cast a great gloom over our circle of six, and
Mr. D. continues in a state of so much exhaustion and peril that all
our arrangements as to occupation, recreation, and sleep, are made with
reference to a sick, and as we sometimes fear, a dying man, whose state
is much aggravated by the maltreatment and stupidity of a dilapidated
Scotch doctor, who must be at least eighty, and whose intellects are
obfuscated by years of whiskey drinking. Two of the gentlemen
not only show the utmost tenderness as nurses, but possess a skill and
experience which are invaluable. They never leave him by night,
and scarcely take needed rest even in the day, one or other of them
being always at hand to support him when faint, or raise him on his
pillows.</p>
<p>It is not only that the <i>Nevada</i> is barely seaworthy, and has
kept us broiling in the tropics when we ought to have been at San Francisco,
but her fittings are so old. The mattresses bulge and burst, and
cockroaches creep in and out, the deck is so leaky that the water squishes
up under the saloon matting as we walk over it, the bread swarms with
minute ants, and we have to pick every piece over because of weevils.
Existence at night is an unequal fight with rats and cockroaches, and
at meals with the stewards for time to eat. The stewards outnumber
the passengers, and are the veriest riff-raff I have seen on board ship.
At meals, when the captain is not below, their sole object is to hurry
us from the table in order that they may sit down to a protracted meal;
they are insulting and disobliging, and since illness has been on board,
have shown a want of common humanity which places them below the rest
of their species. The unconcealed hostility with which they regard
us is a marvellous contrast to the natural or purchasable civility or
servility which prevails on British steamers. It has its comic
side too, and we are content to laugh at it, and at all the other oddities
of this vaunted “Mail Line.”</p>
<p>Our most serious grievance was the length of time that we were kept
in the damp inter-island region of the Tropic of Capricorn. Early
breakfasts, cold plunge baths, and the perfect ventilation of our cabins,
only just kept us alive. We read, wrote, and talked like automatons,
and our voices sounded thin and far away. We decided that heat
was less felt in exercise, made up an afternoon quoit party, and played
unsheltered from the nearly vertical sun, on decks so hot that we required
thick boots for the protection of our feet, but for three days were
limp and faint, and hardly able to crawl about or eat. The nights
were insupportable. We used to lounge on the bow, and retire late
at night to our cabins, to fight the heat, and scare rats and kill cockroaches
with slippers, until driven by the solar heat to rise again unrefreshed
to wrestle through another relentless day. We read the “Idylls
of the King” and talked of misty meres and reedy fens, of the
cool north, with its purple hills, leaping streams, and life-giving
breezes, of long northern winters, and ice and snow, but the realities
of sultriness and damp scared away our coolest imaginations. In
this dismal region, when about forty miles east of Tutuila, a beast
popularly known as the “Flying fox” <a name="citation14"></a><a href="#footnote14">{14}</a>
alighted on our rigging, and was eventually captured as a prize for
the zoological collection at San Francisco. He is a most interesting
animal, something like an exaggerated bat. His wings are formed
of a jet black membrane, and have a highly polished claw at the extremity
of each, and his feet consist of five beautifully polished long black
claws, with which he hangs on head downwards. His body is about
twice the size of that of a very large rat, black and furry underneath,
and with red foxy fur on his head and back. His face is pointed,
with a very black nose and prominent black eyes, with a savage, remorseless
expression. His wings, when extended, measure forty-eight inches
across, and his flying powers are prodigious. He snapped like
a dog at first, but is now quite tame, and devours quantities of dried
figs, the only diet he will eat.</p>
<p>We crossed the Equator in Long. 159° 44’, but in consequence
of the misty weather it was not till we reached Lat. 10° 6’
N. that the Pole star, cold and pure, glistened far above the horizon,
and two hours later we saw the coruscating Pleiades, and the starry
belt of Orion, the blessed familiar constellations of “auld lang
syne,” and a “breath of the cool north,” the first
I have felt for five months, fanned the tropic night and the calm silvery
Pacific. From that time we have been indifferent to our crawling
pace, except for the sick man’s sake. The days dawn in rose
colour and die in gold, and through their long hours a sea of delicious
blue shimmers beneath the sun, so soft, so blue, so dreamlike, an ocean
worthy of its name, the enchanted region of perpetual calm, and an endless
summer. Far off, for many an azure league, rims of rock, fringed
with the graceful coco palm, girdle still lagoons, and are themselves
encircled by coral reefs on which the ocean breaks all the year in broad
drifts of foam. Myriads of flying fish and a few dolphins and
Portuguese men-of-war flash or float through the scarcely undulating
water. But we look in vain for the “sails of silk and ropes
of sendal,” which are alone appropriate to this dream-world.
The Pacific in this region is an indolent blue expanse, pure and lonely,
an almost untraversed sea. We revel in these tropic days of transcendent
glory, in the balmy breath which just stirs the dreamy blue, in the
brief, fierce crimson sunsets, in the soft splendour of the nights,
when the moon and stars hang like lamps out of a lofty and distant vault,
and in the pearly crystalline dawns, when the sun rising through a veil
of rose and gold “rejoices as a giant to run his course,”
and brightens by no “pale gradations” into the “perfect
day.”</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>P.S.--To-morrow morning we expect to sight land. In spite of
minor evils, our voyage has been a singularly pleasant one. The
condition of the ship and her machinery warrants the strongest condemnation,
but her discipline is admirable, and so are many of her regulations,
and we might have had a much more disagreeable voyage in a better ship.
Captain Blethen is beyond all praise, and so is the chief engineer,
whose duties are incessant and most harassing, owing to the critical
state of the engines. The <i>Nevada</i> now presents a grotesque
appearance, for within the last few hours she has received such an added
list to port that her starboard wheel looks nearly out of the water.<br /> I.L.B.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>LETTER II.</h3>
<p>HAWAIIAN HOTEL, HONOLULU, Jan. 26th.</p>
<p>Yesterday morning at 6.30 I was aroused by the news that “The
Islands” were in sight. Oahu in the distance, a group of
grey, barren peaks rising verdureless out of the lonely sea, was not
an exception to the rule that the first sight of land is a disappointment.
Owing to the clear atmosphere, we seemed only five miles off, but in
reality we were twenty, and the land improved as we neared it.
It was the fiercest day we had had, the deck was almost too hot to stand
upon, the sea and sky were both magnificently blue, and the unveiled
sun turned every minute ripple into a diamond flash. As we approached,
the island changed its character. There were lofty peaks, truly--grey
and red, sun-scorched and wind-bleached, glowing here and there with
traces of their fiery origin; but they were cleft by deep chasms and
ravines of cool shadow and entrancing green, and falling water streaked
their sides--a most welcome vision after eleven months of the desert
sea and the dusty browns of Australia and New Zealand. Nearer
yet, and the coast line came into sight, fringed by the feathery cocoanut
tree of the tropics, and marked by a long line of surf. The grand
promontory of Diamond Head, its fiery sides now softened by a haze of
green, terminated the wavy line of palms; then the Punchbowl, a very
perfect extinct crater, brilliant with every shade of red volcanic ash,
blazed against the green skirts of the mountains. We were close
to the coral reef before the cry, “There’s Honolulu!”
made us aware of the proximity of the capital of the island kingdom,
and then, indeed, its existence had almost to be taken upon trust, for
besides the lovely wooden and grass huts, with deep verandahs, which
nestled under palms and bananas on soft green sward, margined by the
bright sea sand, only two church spires and a few grey roofs appeared
above the trees.</p>
<p>We were just outside the reef, and near enough to hear that deep
sound of the surf which, through the ever serene summer years girdles
the Hawaiian Islands with perpetual thunder, before the pilot glided
alongside, bringing the news which Mark Twain had prepared us to receive
with interest, that “Prince Bill” had been unanimously elected
to the throne. The surf ran white and pure over the environing
coral reef, and as we passed through the narrow channel, we almost saw
the coral forests deep down under the <i>Nevada’s</i> keel; the
coral fishers plied their graceful trade; canoes with outriggers rode
the combers, and glided with inconceivable rapidity round our ship;
amphibious brown beings sported in the transparent waves; and within
the reef lay a calm surface of water of a wonderful blue, entered by
a narrow, intricate passage of the deepest indigo. And beyond
the reef and beyond the blue, nestling among cocoanut trees and bananas,
umbrella trees and breadfruits, oranges, mangoes, hibiscus, algaroba,
and passion-flowers, almost hidden in the deep, dense greenery, was
Honolulu. Bright blossom of a summer sea! Fair Paradise
of the Pacific!</p>
<p>Inside the reef the magnificent iron-clad <i>California</i> (the
flag-ship) and another huge American war vessel, the <i>Benicia</i>,
are moored in line with the British corvette <i>Scout</i>, within 200
yards of the shore; and their boats were constantly passing and re-passing,
among countless canoes filled with natives. Two coasting schooners
were just leaving the harbour, and the inter-island steamer <i>Kilauea</i>,
with her deck crowded with natives, was just coming in. By noon
the great decrepit <i>Nevada</i>, which has no wharf at which she can
lie in sleepy New Zealand, was moored alongside a very respectable one
in this enterprising little Hawaiian capital.</p>
<p>We looked down from the towering deck on a crowd of two or three
thousand people--whites, Kanakas, Chinamen--and hundreds of them at
once made their way on board, and streamed over the ship, talking, laughing,
and remarking upon us in a language which seemed without backbone.
Such rich brown men and women they were, with wavy, shining black hair,
large, brown, lustrous eyes, and rows of perfect teeth like ivory.
Everyone was smiling. The forms of the women seem to be inclined
towards obesity, but their drapery, which consists of a sleeved garment
which falls in ample and unconfined folds from their shoulders to their
feet, partly conceals this defect, which is here regarded as a beauty.
Some of these dresses were black, but many of those worn by the younger
women were of pure white, crimson, yellow, scarlet, blue, or light green.
The men displayed their lithe, graceful figures to the best advantage
in white trousers and gay Garibaldi shirts. A few of the women
wore coloured handkerchiefs twined round their hair, but generally both
men and women wore straw hats, which the men set jauntily on one side
of their heads, and aggravated their appearance yet more by bandana
handkerchiefs of rich bright colours round their necks, knotted loosely
on the left side, with a grace to which, I think, no Anglo-Saxon dandy
could attain. Without an exception the men and women wore wreaths
and garlands of flowers, carmine, orange, or pure white, twined round
their hats, and thrown carelessly round their necks, flowers unknown
to me, but redolent of the tropics in fragrance and colour. Many
of the young beauties wore the gorgeous blossom of the red hibiscus
among their abundant, unconfined, black hair, and many, besides the
garlands, wore festoons of a sweet-scented vine, or of an exquisitely
beautiful fern, knotted behind and hanging half-way down their dresses.
These adornments of natural flowers are most attractive. Chinamen,
all alike, very yellow, with almond-shaped eyes, youthful, hairless
faces, long pigtails, spotlessly clean clothes, and an expression of
mingled cunning and simplicity, “foreigners,” half-whites,
a few negroes, and a very few dark-skinned Polynesians from the far-off
South Seas, made up the rest of the rainbow-tinted crowd.</p>
<p>The “foreign” ladies, who were there in great numbers,
generally wore simple light prints or muslins, and white straw hats,
and many of them so far conformed to native custom as to wear natural
flowers round their hats and throats. But where were the hard,
angular, careworn, sallow, passionate faces of men and women, such as
form the majority of every crowd at home, as well as in America, and
Australia? The conditions of life must surely be easier here,
and people must have found rest from some of its burdensome conventionalities.
The foreign ladies, in their simple, tasteful, fresh attire, innocent
of the humpings and bunchings, the monstrosities and deformities of
ultra-fashionable bad taste, beamed with cheerfulness, friendliness,
and kindliness. Men and women looked as easy, contented, and happy
as if care never came near them. I never saw such healthy, bright
complexions as among the women, or such “sparkling smiles,”
or such a diffusion of feminine grace and graciousness anywhere.</p>
<p>Outside this motley, genial, picturesque crowd about 200 saddled
horses were standing, each with the Mexican saddle, with its lassoing
horn in front, high peak behind, immense wooden stirrups, with great
leathern guards, silver or brass bosses, and coloured saddle-cloths.
The saddles were the only element of the picturesque that these Hawaiian
steeds possessed. They were sorry, lean, undersized beasts, looking
in general as if the emergencies of life left them little time for eating
or sleeping. They stood calmly in the broiling sun, heavy-headed
and heavy-hearted, with flabby ears and pendulous lower lips, limp and
rawboned, a doleful type of the “creation which groaneth and travaileth
in misery.” All these belonged to the natives, who are passionately
fond of riding. Every now and then a flower-wreathed Hawaiian
woman, in her full radiant garment, sprang on one of these animals astride,
and dashed along the road at full gallop, sitting on her horse as square
and easy as a hussar. In the crowd and outside of it, and everywhere,
there were piles of fruit for sale--oranges and guavas, strawberries,
papayas, bananas (green and golden), cocoanuts, and other rich, fantastic
productions of a prolific climate, where nature gives of her wealth
the whole year round. Strange fishes, strange in shape and colour,
crimson, blue, orange, rose, gold, such fishes as flash like living
light through the coral groves of these enchanted seas, were there for
sale, and coral divers were there with their treasures--branch coral,
as white as snow, each perfect specimen weighing from eight to twenty
pounds. But no one pushed his wares for sale--we were at liberty
to look and admire, and pass on unmolested. No vexatious restrictions
obstructed our landing. A sum of two dollars for the support of
the Queen’s Hospital is levied on each passenger, and the examination
of ordinary luggage, if it exists, is a mere form. From the demeanour
of the crowd it was at once apparent that the conditions of conquerors
and conquered do not exist. On the contrary, many of the foreigners
there were subjects of a Hawaiian king, a reversal of the ordinary relations
between a white and a coloured race which it is not easy yet to appreciate.</p>
<p>Two of my fellow-passengers, who were going on to San Francisco,
were anxious that I should accompany them to the Pali, the great excursion
from Honolulu; and leaving Mr. M--- to make all arrangements for the
Dexters and myself, we hired a buggy, destitute of any peculiarity but
a native driver, who spoke nothing but Hawaiian, and left the ship.
This place is quite unique. It is said that 15,000 people are
buried away in these low-browed, shadowy houses, under the glossy, dark-leaved
trees, but except in one or two streets of miscellaneous, old-fashioned
looking stores, arranged with a distinct leaning towards native tastes,
it looks like a large village, or rather like an aggregate of villages.
As we drove through the town we could only see our immediate surroundings,
but each had a new fascination. We drove along roads with over-arching
trees, through whose dense leafage the noon sunshine only trickled in
dancing, broken lights; umbrella trees, caoutchouc, bamboo, mango, orange,
breadfruit, candlenut, monkey pod, date and coco palms, alligator pears,
“prides” of Barbary, India, and Peru, and huge-leaved, wide-spreading
trees, exotics from the South Seas, many of them rich in parasitic ferns,
and others blazing with bright, fantastic blossoms. The air was
heavy with odours of gardenia, tuberose, oleanders, roses, lilies, and
the great white trumpet-flower, and myriads of others whose names I
do not know, and verandahs were festooned with a gorgeous trailer with
magenta blossoms, passion-flowers, and a vine with masses of trumpet-shaped,
yellow, waxy flowers. The delicate tamarind and the feathery algaroba
intermingled their fragile grace with the dark, shiny foliage of the
South Sea exotics, and the deep red, solitary flowers of the hibiscus
rioted among dear familiar fuschias and geraniums, which here attain
the height and size of large rhododendrons.</p>
<p>Few of the new trees surprised me more than the papaya. It
is a perfect gem of tropical vegetation. It has a soft, indented
stem, which runs up quite straight to a height of from 15 to 30 feet,
and is crowned by a profusion of large, deeply indented leaves, with
long foot-stalks, and among, as well as considerably below these, are
the flowers or the fruit, in all stages of development. This,
when ripe, is bright yellow, and the size of a musk melon. Clumps
of bananas, the first sight of which, like that of the palm, constitutes
a new experience, shaded the native houses with their wonderful leaves,
broad and deep green, from five to ten feet long. The breadfruit
is a superb tree, about 60 feet high, with deep green, shining leaves,
a foot broad, sharply and symmetrically cut, worthy, from their exceeding
beauty of form, to take the place of the acanthus in architectural ornament,
and throwing their pale green fruit into delicate contrast. All
these, with the exquisite rose apple, with a deep red tinge in its young
leaves, the fan palm, the chirimoya, and numberless others, and the
slender shafts of the coco palms rising high above them, with their
waving plumes and perpetual fruitage, were a perfect festival of beauty.</p>
<p>In the deep shade of this perennial greenery the people dwell.
The foreign houses show a very various individuality. The peculiarity
in which all seem to share is, that everything is decorated and festooned
with flowering trailers. It is often difficult to tell what the
architecture is, or what is house and what is vegetation; for all angles,
and lattices, and balustrades, and verandahs are hidden by jessamine
or passion-flowers, or the gorgeous flame-like Bougainvillea.
Many of the dwellings straggle over the ground without an upper story,
and have very deep verandahs, through which I caught glimpses of cool,
shady rooms, with matted floors. Some look as if they had been
transported from the old-fashioned villages of the Connecticut Valley,
with their clap-board fronts painted white and jalousies painted green;
but then the deep verandah in which families lead an open-air life has
been added, and the chimneys have been omitted, and the New England
severity and angularity are toned down and draped out of sight by these
festoons of large-leaved, bright-blossomed, tropical climbing plants.
Besides the frame houses there are houses built of blocks of a cream-coloured
coral conglomerate laid in cement, of adobe, or large sun-baked bricks,
plastered; houses of grass and bamboo; houses on the ground and houses
raised on posts; but nothing looks prosaic, commonplace, or mean, for
the glow and luxuriance of the tropics rest on all. Each house
has a large garden or “yard,” with lawns of bright perennial
greens and banks of blazing, many-tinted flowers, and lines of Dracæna,
and other foliage plants, with their great purple or crimson leaves,
and clumps of marvellous lilies, gladiolas, ginger, and many plants
unknown to me. Fences and walls are altogether buried by passion-flowers,
the night-blowing Cereus, and the tropæolum, mixed with geraniums,
fuchsia, and jessamine, which cluster and entangle over them in indescribable
profusion. A soft air moves through the upper branches, and the
drip of water from miniature fountains falls musically on the perfumed
air. This is midwinter! The summer, they say, is thermometrically
hotter, but practically cooler, because of the regular trades which
set in in April, but now, with the shaded thermometer at 80° and
the sky without clouds, the heat is not oppressive.</p>
<p>The mixture of the neat grass houses of the natives with the more
elaborate homes of the foreign residents has a very pleasant look.
The “aborigines” have not been crowded out of sight, or
into a special “quarter.” We saw many groups of them
sitting under the trees outside their houses, each group with a mat
in the centre, with calabashes upon it containing <i>poi</i>, the national
Hawaiian dish, a fermented paste made from the root of the <i>kalo</i>,
or <i>arum esculentum</i>. As we emerged on the broad road which
leads up the Nuuanu Valley to the mountains, we saw many patches of
this <i>kalo</i>, a very handsome tropical plant, with large leaves
of a bright tender green. Each plant was growing on a small hillock,
with water round it. There were beautiful vegetable gardens also,
in which Chinamen raise for sale not only melons, pineapples, sweet
potatoes, and other edibles of hot climates, but the familiar fruits
and vegetables of the temperate zones. In patches of surpassing
neatness, there were strawberries, which are ripe here all the year,
peas, carrots, turnips, asparagus, lettuce, and celery. I saw
no other plants or trees which grow at home, but recognized as hardly
less familiar growths the Victorian Eucalyptus, which has not had time
to become gaunt and straggling, the Norfolk Island pine, which grows
superbly here, and the handsome Moreton Bay fig. But the chief
feature of this road is the number of residences; I had almost written
of pretentious residences, but the term would be a base slander, as
I have jumped to the conclusion that the twin vulgarities of ostentation
and pretence have no place here. But certainly for a mile and
a half or more there are many very comfortable-looking dwellings, very
attractive to the eye, with an ease and imperturbable serenity of demeanour
as if they had nothing to fear from heat, cold, wind, or criticism.
Their architecture is absolutely unostentatious, and their one beauty
is that they are embowered among trailers, shadowed by superb exotics,
and surrounded by banks of flowers, while the stately cocoanut, the
banana, and the candlenut, the aborigines of Oahu, are nowhere displaced.
One house with extensive grounds, a perfect wilderness of vegetation,
was pointed out as the summer palace of Queen Emma, or Kaleleonalani,
widow of Kamehameha IV., who visited England a few years ago, and the
finest garden of all was that of a much respected Chinese merchant,
named Afong. Oahu, at least on this leeward side, is not tropical
looking, and all this tropical variety and luxuriance which delight
the eye result from foreign enthusiasm and love of beauty and shade.</p>
<p>When we ascended above the scattered dwellings and had passed the
tasteful mausoleum, with two tall Kahilis, <a name="citation28"></a><a href="#footnote28">{28}</a>
or feather plumes, at the door of the tomb in which the last of the
Kamehamehas received Christian burial, the glossy, redundant, arborescent
vegetation ceased. At that height a shower of rain falls on nearly
every day in the year, and the result is a green sward which England
can hardly rival, a perfect sea of verdure, darkened in the valley and
more than half way up the hill sides by the foliage of the yellow-blossomed
and almost impenetrable hibiscus, brightened here and there by the pea-green
candlenut. Streamlets leap from crags and ripple along the roadside,
every rock and stone is hidden by moist-looking ferns, as aërial
and delicate as marabout feathers, and when the windings of the valley
and the projecting spurs of mountains shut out all indications of Honolulu,
in the cool green loneliness one could image oneself in the temperate
zones. The peculiarity of the scenery is, that the hills, which
rise to a height of about 4,000 feet, are wall-like ridges of grey or
coloured rock, rising precipitously out of the trees and grass, and
that these walls are broken up into pinnacles and needles. At
the Pali (wall-like precipice), the summit of the ascent of 1,000 feet,
we left our buggy, and passing through a gash in the rock the celebrated
view burst on us with overwhelming effect. Immense masses of black
and ferruginous volcanic rock, hundreds of feet in nearly perpendicular
height, formed the pali on either side, and the ridge extended northwards
for many miles, presenting a lofty, abrupt mass of grey rock broken
into fantastic pinnacles, which seemed to pierce the sky. A broad,
umbrageous mass of green clothed the lower buttresses, and fringed itself
away in clusters of coco palms on a garden-like stretch below, green
with grass and sugar-cane, and dotted with white houses, each with its
palm and banana grove, and varied by eminences which looked like long
extinct tufa cones. Beyond this enchanted region stretched the
coral reef, with its white wavy line of endless surf, and the broad
blue Pacific, ruffled by a breeze whose icy freshness chilled us where
we stood. Narrow streaks on the landscape, every now and then
disappearing behind intervening hills, indicated bridle tracks connected
with a frightfully steep and rough zigzag path cut out of the face of
the cliff on our right. I could not go down this on foot without
a sense of insecurity, but mounted natives driving loaded horses descended
with perfect impunity into the dreamland below.</p>
<p>This pali is the scene of one of the historic tragedies of this island.
Kamehameha the Conqueror, who after fierce fighting and much ruthless
destruction of human life united the island sovereignties in his own
person, routed the forces of the King of Oahu in the Nuuanu Valley,
and drove them in hundreds up the precipice, from which they leaped
in despair and madness, and their bones lie bleaching 800 feet below.</p>
<p>The drive back here was delightful, from the wintry height, where
I must confess that we shivered, to the slumbrous calm of an endless
summer, the glorious tropical trees, the distant view of cool chasm-like
valleys, with Honolulu sleeping in perpetual shade, and the still blue
ocean, without a single sail to disturb its profound solitude.
Saturday afternoon is a gala-day here, and the broad road was so thronged
with brilliant equestrians, that I thought we should be ridden over
by the reckless laughing rout. There were hundreds of native horsemen
and horsewomen, many of them doubtless on the dejected quadrupeds I
saw at the wharf, but a judicious application of long rowelled Mexican
spurs, and a degree of emulation, caused these animals to tear along
at full gallop. The women seemed perfectly at home in their gay,
brass-bossed, high peaked saddles, flying along astride, barefooted,
with their orange and scarlet riding dresses streaming on each side
beyond their horses’ tails, a bright kaleidoscopic flash of bright
eyes, white teeth, shining hair, garlands of flowers and many-coloured
dresses; while the men were hardly less gay, with fresh flowers round
their jaunty hats, and the vermilion-coloured blossoms of the <i>Ohia</i>
round their brown throats. Sometimes a troop of twenty of these
free-and-easy female riders went by at a time, a graceful and exciting
spectacle, with a running accompaniment of vociferation and laughter.
Among these we met several of the <i>Nevada’s</i> officers, riding
in the stiff, wooden style which Anglo-Saxons love, and a horde of jolly
British sailors from H.M.S. <i>Scout</i>, rushing helter skelter, colliding
with everybody, bestriding their horses as they would a topsail-yard,
hanging on to manes and lassoing horns, and enjoying themselves thoroughly.
In the shady tortuous streets we met hundreds more of native riders,
clashing at full gallop without fear of the police. Many of the
women were in flowing riding-dresses of pure white, over which their
unbound hair, and wreaths of carmine-tinted flowers fell most picturesquely.</p>
<p>All this time I had not seen our domicile, and when our drive ended
under the quivering shadow of large tamarind and algaroba trees, in
front of a long, stone, two-storied house with two deep verandahs festooned
with clematis and passion flowers, and a shady lawn in front, I felt
as if in this fairy land anything might be expected.</p>
<p>This is the perfection of an hotel. Hospitality seems to take
possession of and appropriate one as soon as one enters its never-closed
door, which is on the lower verandah. There is a basement, in
which there are a good many bedrooms, the bar, and billiard-room.
This is entered from the garden, under two semicircular flights of stairs
which lead to the front entrance, a wide corridor conducting to the
back entrance. This is crossed by another running the whole length,
which opens into a very large many-windowed dining-room which occupies
the whole width of the hotel. On the same level there is a large
parlour, with French windows opening on the verandah. Upstairs
there are two similar corridors on which all the bedrooms open, and
each room has one or more French windows opening on the verandah, with
doors as well, made like German shutters, to close instead of the windows,
ensuring at once privacy and coolness. The rooms are tastefully
furnished with varnished pine with a strong aromatic scent, and there
are plenty of lounging-chairs on the verandah, where people sit and
receive their intimate friends. The result of the construction
of the hotel is that a breeze whispers through it by day and night.</p>
<p>Everywhere, only pleasant objects meet the eye. One can sit
all day on the back verandah, watching the play of light and colour
on the mountains and the deep blue green of the Nuuanu Valley, where
showers, sunshine, and rainbows make perpetual variety. The great
dining-room is delicious. It has no curtains, and its decorations
are cool and pale. Its windows look upon tropical trees in one
direction, and up to the cool mountains in the other. Piles of
bananas, guavas, limes, and oranges, decorate the tables at each meal,
and strange vegetables, fish, and fruits vary the otherwise stereotyped
American hotel fare. There are no female domestics. The
host is a German, the manager an American, the steward an Hawaiian,
and the servants are all Chinamen in spotless white linen, with pigtails
coiled round their heads, and an air of superabundant good-nature.
They know very little English, and make most absurd mistakes, but they
are cordial, smiling, and obliging, and look cool and clean. The
hotel seems the great public resort of Honolulu, the centre of stir--club-house,
exchange and drawing-room in one. Its wide corridors and verandahs
are lively with English and American naval uniforms, several planters’
families are here for the season; and with health seekers from California,
resident boarders, whaling captains, tourists from the British Pacific
Colonies, and a stream of townspeople always percolating through the
corridors and verandahs, it seems as lively and free-and-easy as a place
can be, pervaded by the kindliness and <i>bonhomie</i> which form an
important item in my first impressions of the islands. The hotel
was lately built by government at a cost of $120,000, a sum which forms
a considerable part of that token of an advanced civilization, a National
Debt. The minister whose scheme it was seems to be severely censured
on account of it, but undoubtedly it brings strangers and their money
into the kingdom, who would have avoided it had they been obliged as
formerly to cast themselves on the hospitality of the residents.
The present proprietor has it rent-free for a term of years, but I fear
that it is not likely to prove a successful speculation either for him
or the government. I dislike health resorts, and abhor this kind
of life, but for those who like both, I cannot imagine a more fascinating
residence. The charges are $15 a week, or $3 a day, but such a
kindly, open-handed system prevails that I am not conscious that I am
paying anything! This sum includes hot and cold plunge baths <i>ad
libitum</i>, justly regarded as a necessity in this climate.</p>
<p>Dr. McGrew has hope that our invalid will rally in this healing,
equable atmosphere. Our kind fellow-passengers are here, and take
turns in watching and fanning him. Through the half-closed jalousies
we see breadfruit trees, delicate tamarinds and algarobas, fan-palms,
date-palms and bananas, and the deep blue Pacific gleams here and there
through the plumage of the cocoanut trees. A soft breeze, scented
with a slight aromatic odour, wanders in at every opening, bringing
with it, mellowed by distance, the hum and clatter of the busy cicada.
The nights are glorious, and so absolutely still, that even the feathery
foliage of the algaroba is at rest. The stars seem to hang among
the trees like lamps, and the crescent moon gives more light than the
full moon at home. The evening of the day we landed, parties of
officers and ladies mounted at the door, and with much mirth disappeared
on moonlight rides, and the white robes of flower-crowned girls gleamed
among the trees, as groups of natives went by speaking a language which
sounded more like the rippling of water than human speech. Soft
music came from the ironclads in the harbour, and from the royal band
at the king’s palace, and a rich fragrance of dewy blossoms filled
the delicious air. These are indeed the “isles of Eden,”
the “sun lands,” musical with beauty. They seem to
welcome us to their enchanted shores. Everything is new but nothing
strange; for as I enjoyed the purple night, I remembered that I had
seen such islands in dreams in the cold gray North. “How
sweet,” I thought it would be, thus to hear far off, the low sweet
murmur of the “sparkling brine,” to rest, and</p>
<p> “Ever
to seem<br /> Falling asleep in a
half-dream.”</p>
<p>A half-dream only, for one would not wish to be quite asleep and
lose the consciousness of this delicious outer world. So I thought
one moment. The next I heard a droning, humming sound, which certainly
was not the surf upon the reef. It came nearer--there could be
no mistake. I felt a stab, and found myself the centre of a swarm
of droning, stabbing, malignant mosquitoes. No, even this is not
paradise! I am ashamed to say that on my first night in Honolulu
I sought an early refuge from this intolerable infliction, in profound
and prosaic sleep behind mosquito curtains.<br /> I.L.B.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>LETTER III.</h3>
<p>HAWAIIAN HOTEL, Jan. 28th.</p>
<p>Sunday was a very pleasant day here. Church bells rang, and
the shady streets were filled with people in holiday dress. There
are two large native churches, the Kaumakapili, and the Kaiwaiaho, usually
called the stone church. The latter is an immense substantial
building, for the erection of which each Christian native brought a
block of rock-coral. There is a large Roman Catholic church, the
priests of which are said to have been somewhat successful in proselytizing
operations. The Reformed Catholic, or English temporary cathedral,
is a tasteful but very simple wooden building, standing in pretty grounds,
on which a very useful institution for boarding and training native
and half-white girls, and the reception of white girls as day scholars,
also stands. This is in connection with Miss Sellon’s Sisterhood
at Devonport. Another building, alongside the cathedral, is used
for English service in Hawaiian. There are two Congregational
churches: the old “Bethel,” of which the Rev. S. C. Damon,
known to all strangers, and one of the oldest and most respected Honolulu
residents, is the minister; and the “Fort St. Church,” which
has a large and influential congregation, and has been said to “run
the government,” because its members compose the majority of the
Cabinet. Lunalilo, the present king, has cast in his lot with
the Congregationalists, but Queen Emma is an earnest member of the Anglican
Church, and attends the Liturgical Hawaiian Service in order to throw
the weight of her influence with the natives into the scale of that
communion. Her husband spent many of his later days in translating
the Prayer-Book. As is natural, most of the natives belong to
the denomination from which they or their fathers received the Christian
faith, and the majority of the foreigners are of the same persuasion.
The New England Puritan influence, with its rigid Sabbatarianism, though
considerably worn away, is still influential enough to produce a general
appearance of Sabbath observance. The stores are closed, the church-going
is very demonstrative, and the pleasure-seeking is very unobtrusive.
The wharves are profoundly quiet.</p>
<p>I went twice to the English Cathedral, and was interested to see
there a lady in a nun’s habit, with a number of brown girls, who
was pointed out to me as Sister Bertha, who has been working here usefully
for many years. The ritual is high. I am told that it is
above the desires and the comprehension of most of the island episcopalians,
but the zeal and disinterestedness of Bishop Willis will, in time, I
doubt not, win upon those who prize such qualities. He called
in the afternoon, and took me to his pretty, unpretending residence
up the Nuuanu Valley. He has a training and boarding school there
for native boys, some of whom were at church in the morning as a surpliced
choir. The bishop, his sister, the schoolmaster, and fourteen
boys take their meals together in a refectory, the boys acting as servitors
by turns. There is service every morning at 6.30 in the private
chapel attached to the house, and also in the cathedral a little later.
Early risers, so near the equator, must get up by candlelight all the
year round.</p>
<p>This morning we joined our kind friends from the <i>Nevada</i> for
the last time at breakfast. I have noticed that there is often
a centrifugal force which acts upon passengers who have been long at
sea together, dispersing them on reaching port. Indeed, the temporary
enforced cohesion is often succeeded by violent repulsion. But
in this instance we deeply regret the dissolution of our pleasant fraternity;
the less so, however, that this wonderful climate has produced a favourable
change in Mr. D., who no longer requires the hourly attention they have
hitherto shown him. The mornings here, dew-bathed and rose-flushed,
are, if possible, more lovely than the nights, and people are astir
early to enjoy them. The American consul and Mr. Damon called
while we were sitting at our eight-o’clock breakfast, from which
I gather that formalities are dispensed with. After spending the
morning in hunting among the stores for things which were essential
for the invalid, I lunched in the <i>Nevada</i> with Captain Blethen
and our friends.</p>
<p>Next to the advent of “national ships” (a euphemism for
men-of-war), the arrivals and departures of the New Zealand mail-steamers
constitute the great excitement of Honolulu, and the failures, mishaps,
and wonderful unpunctuality of this Webb line are highly stimulating
in a region where “nothing happens.” The loungers
were saying that the <i>Nevada’s</i> pumps were going for five
days before we arrived, and pointed out the clearness of the water which
was running from them at the wharf as an evidence that she was leaking
badly. <a name="citation40"></a><a href="#footnote40">{40}</a>
The crowd of natives was enormous, and the foreigners were there in
hundreds. She was loading with oranges and green bananas up to
the last moment,--those tasteless bananas which, out of the tropics,
misrepresent this most delicious and ambrosial fruit.</p>
<p>There was a far greater excitement for the natives, for King Lunalilo
was about to pay a state visit to the American flag-ship <i>California</i>,
and every available place along the wharves and roads was crowded with
kanakas anxious to see him. I should tell you that the late king,
being without heirs, ought to have nominated his successor; but it is
said that a sorceress, under whose influence he was, persuaded him that
his death would follow upon this act. When he died, two months
ago, leaving the succession unprovided for, the duty of electing a sovereign,
according to the constitution, devolved upon the people through their
representatives, and they exercised it with a combination of order and
enthusiasm which reflects great credit on their civilization.
They chose the highest chief on the islands, Lunalilo (Above All), known
among foreigners as “Prince Bill,” and at this time letters
of congratulation are pouring in upon him from his brethren, the sovereigns
of Europe.</p>
<p>The spectacular effect of a pageant here is greatly heightened by
the cloudless blue sky, and the wealth of light and colour. It
was very hot, almost too hot for sight-seeing, on the <i>Nevada’s</i>
bow. Expectation among the lieges became tremendous and vociferous
when Admiral Pennock’s sixteen-oared barge, with a handsome awning,
followed by two well-manned boats, swept across the strip of water which
lies between the ships and the shore. Outrigger canoes, with garlanded
men and women, were poised upon the motionless water or darted gracefully
round the ironclads, as gracefully to come to rest. Then a stir
and swaying of the crowd, and the American Admiral was seen standing
at the steps of an English barouche and four, and an Hawaiian imitation
of an English cheer rang out upon the air. More cheering, more
excitement, and I saw nothing else till the Admiral’s barge, containing
the Admiral, and the king dressed in a plain morning suit with a single
decoration, swept past the <i>Nevada</i>. The suite followed in
the other boats,--brown men and white, governors, ministers, and court
dignitaries, in Windsor uniforms, but with an added resplendency of
plumes, epaulettes, and gold lace. As soon as Lunalilo reached
the <i>California</i>, the yards of the three ships were manned, and
amidst cheering which rent the air, and the deafening thunder of a royal
salute from sixty-three guns of heavy calibre, the popular descendant
of seventy generations of sceptred savages stepped on board the flag-ship’s
deck. No higher honours could have been paid to the Emperor “of
all the Russias.” I have seen few sights more curious than
that of the representative of the American Republic standing bare-headed
before a coloured man, and the two mightiest empires on earth paying
royal honours to a Polynesian sovereign, whose little kingdom in the
North Pacific is known to many of us at home only as “the group
of islands where Captain Cook was killed.” Ah! how lovely
this Queen of Oceans is! Blue, bright, balm-breathing, gentle
in its supreme strength, different both in motion and colour from the
coarse “vexed Atlantic!”</p>
<p>STEAMER KILAUEA, Jan. 29th.</p>
<p>I was turning homewards, enjoying the prospect of a quiet week in
Honolulu, when Mr. and Mrs. Damon seized upon me, and told me that a
lady friend of theirs, anxious for a companion, was going to the volcano
on Hawaii, that she was a most expert and intelligent traveller, that
the <i>Kilauea</i> would sail in two hours, that unless I went now I
should have no future opportunity during my limited stay on the islands,
that Mrs. Dexter was anxious for me to go, that they would more than
fill my place in my absence, that this was a golden opportunity, that
in short I <i>must</i> go, and they would drive me back to the hotel
to pack! The volcano is still a myth to me, and I wanted to “read
up” before going, and above all was grieved to leave my friend,
but she had already made some needful preparations, her son with his
feeble voice urged my going, the doctor said that there was now no danger
to be apprehended, and the Damons’ kind urgency left me so little
choice, that by five I was with them on the wharf, being introduced
to my travelling companion, and to many of my fellow-passengers.
Such an unexpected move is very bewildering, and it is too experimental,
and too much of a leap in the dark to be enjoyable at present.</p>
<p>The wharf was one dense, well-compacted mass of natives taking leave
of their friends with much effusiveness, and the steamer’s encumbered
deck was crowded with them, till there was hardly room to move; men,
women, children, dogs, cats, mats, calabashes of <i>poi</i>, cocoanuts,
bananas, dried fish, and every dusky individual of the throng was wreathed
and garlanded with odorous and brilliant flowers. All were talking
and laughing, and an immense amount of gesticulation seems to emphasize
and supplement speech. We steamed through the reef in the brief
red twilight, over the golden tropic sea, keeping on the leeward side
of the islands. Before it was quite dark the sleeping arrangements
were made, and the deck and skylights were covered with mats and mattresses
on which 170 natives sat, slept, or smoked,--a motley, parti-coloured
mass of humanity, in the midst of which I recognized Bishop Willis in
the usual episcopal dress, lying on a mattress among the others, a prey
to discomfort and weariness! What would his episcopal brethren
at home think of such a hardship?</p>
<p>There is a yellow-skinned, soft-voiced, fascinating Goa or Malay
steward on board, who with infinite goodwill attends to the comfort
of everybody. I was surprised when he asked me if I would like
a mattress on the skylight, or a berth below, and in unhesitating ignorance
replied severely, “Oh, below, of course, please,” thinking
of a ladies’ cabin, but when I went down to supper, my eyes were
enlightened.</p>
<p>The <i>Kilauea</i> is a screw boat of 400 tons, most unprepossessing
in appearance, slow, but sure, and capable of bearing an infinite amount
of battering. It is jokingly said that her keel has rasped off
the branch coral round all the islands. Though there are many
inter-island schooners, she is the only sure mode of reaching the windward
islands in less than a week; and though at present I am disposed to
think rather slightingly of her, and to class her with the New Zealand
coasting craft, yet the residents are very proud of her, and speak lovingly
of her, and regard her as a blessed deliverance from the horrors of
beating to windward. She has a shabby, obsolete look about her,
like a second-rate coasting collier, or an old American tow-boat.
She looks ill-found, too; I saw two essential pieces of tackle give
way as they were hoisting the main sail. <a name="citation44"></a><a href="#footnote44">{44}</a>
She has a small saloon with a double tier of berths, besides transoms,
which give accommodation on the level of the lower berth. There
is a stern cabin, which is a prolongation of the saloon, and not in
any way separated from it. There is no ladies’ cabin; but
sex, race, and colour are included in a promiscuous arrangement.</p>
<p>Miss Karpe, my travelling companion, and two agreeable ladies, were
already in their berths very sick, but I did not get into mine because
a cockroach, looking as large as a mouse, occupied the pillow, and a
companion not much smaller was roaming over the quilt without any definite
purpose. I can’t vouch for the accuracy of my observation,
but it seemed to me that these tremendous creatures were dark red, with
eyes like lobsters’, and antennæ two inches long.
They looked capable of carrying out the most dangerous and inscrutable
designs. I called the Malay steward; he smiled mournfully, but
spoke reassuringly, and pledged his word for their innocuousness, but
I never can believe that they are not the enemies of man; and I lay
down on the transom, not to sleep, however, for it seemed essential
to keep watch on the proceedings of these formidable vermin.</p>
<p>The grotesqueness of the arrangements of the berths and their occupants
grew on me during the night, and the climax was put upon it when a gentleman
coming down in the early morning asked me if I knew that I was using
the Governor of Maui’s head for a footstool, this portly native
“Excellency” being in profound slumber on the forward part
of the transom. This diagram represents one side of the saloon
and the “happy family” of English, Chinamen, Hawaiians,
and Americans:</p>
<pre> Governor Lyman. Miss Karpe. Miss ---.</pre>
<pre> Afong. Vacant. Miss ---.</pre>
<pre> Governor Nahaolelua. Myself. An Hawaiian.</pre>
<p>I noticed, too, that there were very few trunks and portmanteaus,
but that the after end of the saloon was heaped with Mexican saddles
and saddlebags, which I learned too late were the essential gear of
every traveller on Hawaii.</p>
<p>At five this morning we were at anchor in the roads of Lahaina, the
chief village on the mountainous island of Maui. This place is
very beautiful from the sea, for beyond the blue water and the foamy
reef the eye rests gratefully on a picturesque collection of low, one-storied,
thatched houses, many of frame, painted white; others of grass, but
all with deep, cool verandahs, half hidden among palms, bananas, kukuis,
breadfruit, and mangoes, dark groves against gentle slopes behind, covered
with sugar-cane of a bright pea-green. It is but a narrow strip
of land between the ocean and the red, flaring, almost inaccessible,
Maui hills, which here rise abruptly to a height of 6,000 feet, pinnacled,
chasmed, buttressed, and almost verdureless, except in a few deep clefts,
green and cool with ferns and candlenut trees, and moist with falling
water. Lahaina looked intensely tropical in the roseflush of the
early morning, a dream of some bright southern isle, too surely to pass
away. The sun blazed down on shore, ship, and sea, glorifying
all things through the winter day. It was again ecstasy “to
dream, and dream” under the awning, fanned by the light sea-breeze,
with the murmur of an unknown musical tongue in one’s ears, and
the rich colouring and graceful grouping of a tropical race around one.
We called at Maaleia, a neck of sandy, scorched, verdureless soil, and
at Ulupalakua, or rather at the furnace seven times heated, which is
the landing of the plantation of that name, on whose breezy slopes cane
refreshes the eye at a height of 2,000 feet above the sea. We
anchored at both places, and with what seemed to me a needless amount
of delay, discharged goods and natives, and natives, mats, and calabashes
were embarked. In addition to the essential mat and calabash of
<i>poi</i>, every native carried some pet, either dog or cat, which
was caressed, sung to, and talked to with extreme tenderness; but there
were hardly any children, and I noticed that where there were any, the
men took charge of them. There were very few fine, manly dogs;
the pets in greatest favour are obviously those odious weak-eyed, pink-nosed
Maltese terriers.</p>
<p>The aspect of the sea was so completely lazy, that it was a fresh
surprise as each indolent undulation touched the shore that it had latent
vigour left to throw itself upwards into clouds of spray. We looked
through limpid water into cool depths where strange bright fish darted
through the submarine chapparal, but the coolness was imaginary, for
the water was at 80.° <a name="citation47"></a><a href="#footnote47">{47}</a>
The air above the great black lava flood, which in prehistoric times
had flowed into the sea, and had ever since declined the kindly draping
offices of nature, vibrated in waves of heat. Even the imperishable
cocoanut trees, whose tall, bare, curved trunks rose from the lava or
the burnt red earth, were gaunt, tattered, and thirsty-looking, weary
of crying for moisture to the pitiless skies. At last the ceaseless
ripple of talk ceased, crew and passengers slept on the hot deck, and
no sounds were heard but the drowsy flap of the awning, and the drowsier
creak of the rudder, as the <i>Kilauea</i> swayed sleepily on the lazy
undulations. The flag drooped and fainted with heat. The
white sun blazed like a magnesium light on blue water, black lava, and
fiery soil, roasting, blinding, scintillating, and flushed the red rocks
of Maui into glory. It was a constant marvel that troops of mounted
natives, male and female, could gallop on the scorching shore without
being melted or shrivelled. It is all glorious, this fierce bright
glow of the Tropic of Cancer, yet it was a relief to look up the great
rolling featureless slopes above Ulupalakua to a forest belt of perennial
green, watered, they say, by perpetual showers, and a little later to
see a mountain summit uplifted into a region of endless winter, above
a steady cloud-bank as white as snow. This mountain, Haleakala,
the House of the Sun, is the largest extinct volcano in the world, its
terminal crater being nineteen miles in circumference at a height of
more than 10,000 feet. It, and its spurs, slopes, and clusters
of small craters form East Maui. West Maui is composed mainly
of the lofty picturesque group of the Eeka mountains. A desert
strip of land, not much above high water mark, unites the twain, which
form an island forty-eight miles long and thirty broad, with an area
of 620 square miles.</p>
<p>We left Maui in the afternoon, and spent the next six hours in crossing
the channel between it and Hawaii, but the short tropic day did not
allow us to see anything of the latter island but two snow-capped domes
uplifted above the clouds. I have been reading Jarves’ excellent
book on the islands as industriously as possible, as well as trying
to get information from my fellow-passengers regarding the region into
which I have been so suddenly and unintentionally projected. I
really know nothing about Hawaii, or the size and phenomena of the volcano
to which we are bound, or the state of society or of the native race,
or of the relations existing between it and the foreign population,
or of the details of the constitution. This ignorance is most
oppressive, and I see that it will not be easily enlightened, for among
several intelligent gentlemen who have been conversing with me, no two
seem agreed on any matter of fact.</p>
<p>From the hour of my landing I have observed the existence of two
parties of <i>pro</i> and <i>anti</i> missionary leanings, with views
on all island subjects in grotesque antagonism. So far, the former
have left the undoubted results of missionary effort here to speak for
themselves; and I am almost disposed, from the pertinacious aggressiveness
of the latter party, to think that it must be weak. I have already
been seized upon (a gentleman would write “button-holed”)
by several persons, who, in their anxiety to be first in imprinting
their own views on the <i>tabula rasa</i> of a stranger’s mind,
have exercised an unseemly overhaste in giving the conversation an anti-missionary
twist. They apparently desire to convey the impression that the
New England teachers, finding a people rejoicing in the innocence and
simplicity of Eden, taught them the knowledge of evil, turned them into
a nation of hypocrites, and with a strange mingling of fanaticism and
selfishness, afflicted them with many woes calculated to accelerate
their extinction, <i>clothing</i> among others. The animus appears
strong and bitter. There are two intelligent and highly educated
ladies on board, daughters of missionaries, and the candid and cautious
tone in which they speak on the same subject impresses me favourably.
Mr. Damon introduced me to a very handsome half white gentleman, a lawyer
of ability, and lately interpreter to the Legislature, Mr. Ragsdale,
or, as he is usually called, “Bill Ragsdale,” a leading
spirit among the natives. His conversation was eloquent and poetic,
though rather stilted, and he has a good deal of French mannerism; but
if he is a specimen of native patriotic feeling, I think that the extinction
of Hawaiian nationality must be far off. I was amused with the
attention that he paid to his dress under very adverse circumstances.
He has appeared in three different suits, with light kid gloves to match,
all equally elegant, in two days. A Chinese gentleman, who is
at the same time a wealthy merchant at Honolulu, and a successful planter
on Hawaii, interests me, from the quiet keen intelligence of his face,
and the courtesy and dignity of his manner. I hear that he possesses
the respect of the whole community for his honour and integrity.
It is quite unlike an ordinary miscellaneous herd of passengers.
The tone is so cheerful, courteous, and friendly, and people speak without
introductions, and help to make the time pass pleasantly to each other.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>HILO, HAWAII.</p>
<p>The <i>Kilauea</i> is not a fast propeller, and as she lurched very
much in crossing the channel most of the passengers were sea-sick, a
casualty which did not impair their cheerfulness and good humour.
After dark we called at Kawaihae (pronounced To-wee-hye), on the northwest
of Hawaii, and then steamed through the channel to the east or windward
side. I was only too glad on the second night to accept the offer
of “a mattrass on the skylight,” but between the heavy rolling
caused by the windward swell, and the natural excitement on nearing
the land of volcanoes and earthquakes, I could not sleep, and no other
person slept, for it was considered “a very rough passage,”
though there was hardly a yachtsman’s breeze. It would do
these Sybarites good to give them a short spell of the howling horrors
of the North or South Atlantic, an easterly snowstorm off Sable Island,
or a winter gale in the latitude of Inaccessible Island! The night
was cloudy, and so the glare from Kilauea which is often seen far out
at sea was not visible.</p>
<p>When the sun rose amidst showers and rainbows (for this is the showery
season), I could hardly believe my eyes. Scenery, vegetation,
colour were all changed. The glowing red, the fiery glare, the
obtrusive lack of vegetation were all gone. There was a magnificent
coast-line of grey cliffs many hundred feet in height, usually draped
with green, but often black, caverned, and fantastic at their bases.
Into cracks and caverns the heavy waves surged with a sound like artillery,
sending their broad white sheets of foam high up among the ferns and
trailers, and drowning for a time the endless baritone of the surf,
which is never silent through the summer years. Cascades in numbers
took one impulsive leap from the cliffs into the sea, or came thundering
down clefts or “gulches,” which, widening at their extremities,
opened on smooth green lawns, each one of which has its grass house
or houses, <i>kalo</i> patch, bananas, and coco-palms, so close to the
broad Pacific that its spray often frittered itself away over their
fan-like leaves. Above the cliffs there were grassy uplands with
park-like clumps of the screw-pine, and candle-nut, and glades and dells
of dazzling green, bright with cataracts, opened up among the dark dense
forests which for some thousands of feet girdle Mauna Kea and Mauna
Loa, two vast volcanic mountains, whose snowcapped summits gleamed here
and there above the clouds, at an altitude of nearly 14,000 feet.
Creation surely cannot exhibit a more brilliant green than that which
clothes windward Hawaii with perpetual spring. I have never seen
such verdure. In the final twenty-nine miles there are more than
sixty gulches, from 100 to 700 feet in depth, each with its cataracts,
and wild vagaries of tropical luxuriance. Native churches, frame-built
and painted white, are almost like mile-stones along the coast, far
too large and too many for the notoriously dwindling population.
Ten miles from Hilo we came in sight of the first sugar plantation,
with its patches of yet brighter green, its white boiling house and
tall chimney stack; then more churches, more plantations, more gulches,
more houses, and before ten we steamed into Byron’s, or as it
is now called Hilo Bay.</p>
<p>This is the paradise of Hawaii. What Honolulu attempts to be,
Hilo is without effort. Its crescent-shaped bay, said to be the
most beautiful in the Pacific, is a semi-circle of about two miles,
with its farther extremity formed by Cocoanut Island, a black lava islet
on which this palm attains great perfection, and beyond it again a fringe
of cocoanuts marks the deep indentations of the shore. From this
island to the north point of the bay, there is a band of golden sand
on which the roar of the surf sounded thunderous and drowsy as it mingled
with the music of living waters, the Waiakea and the Wailuku, which
after lashing the sides of the mountains which give them birth, glide
deep and fern-fringed into the ocean. Native houses, half hidden
by greenery, line the bay, and stud the heights above the Wailuku, and
near the landing some white frame houses and three church spires above
the wood denote the foreign element. Hilo is unique. Its
climate is humid, and the long repose which it has enjoyed from rude
volcanic upheavals has mingled a great depth of vegetable mould with
the decomposed lava. Rich soil, rain, heat, sunshine, stimulate
nature to supreme efforts, and there is a luxuriant prodigality of vegetation
which leaves nothing uncovered but the golden margin of the sea, and
even that above high-water-mark is green with the Convolvulus maritimus.
So dense is the wood that Hilo is rather suggested than seen.
It is only on shore that one becomes aware of its bewildering variety
of native and exotic trees and shrubs. From the sea it looks one
dense mass of greenery, in which the bright foliage of the candle-nut
relieves the glossy dark green of the breadfruit--a maze of preposterous
bananas, out of which rise slender annulated trunks of palms giving
their infinite grace to the grove. And palms along the bay, almost
among the surf, toss their waving plumes in the sweet soft breeze, not
“palms in exile,” but children of a blessed isle where “never
wind blows loudly.” Above Hilo, broad lands sweeping up
cloudwards, with their sugar cane, <i>kalo</i>, melons, pine-apples,
and banana groves suggest the boundless liberality of Nature.
Woods and waters, hill and valley are all there, and from the region
of an endless summer the eye takes in the domain of an endless winter,
where almost perpetual snow crowns the summits of Mauna Kea and Mauna
Loa. Mauna Kea from Hilo has a shapely aspect, for its top is
broken into peaks, said to be the craters of extinct volcanoes, but
my eyes seek the dome-like curve of Mauna Loa with far deeper interest,
for it is as yet an unfinished mountain. It has a huge crater
on its summit 800 feet in depth, and a pit of unresting fire on its
side; it throbs and rumbles, and palpitates; it has sent forth floods
of fire over all this part of Hawaii, and at any moment it may be crowned
with a lonely light, showing that its tremendous forces are again in
activity. My imagination is already inflamed by hearing of marvels,
and I am beginning to think tropically.</p>
<p>Canoes came off from the shore, dusky swimmers glided through the
water, youths, athletes, like the bronzes of the Naples Museum, rode
the waves on their surf-boards, brilliantly dressed riders galloped
along the sands and came trooping down the bridle-paths from all the
vicinity till a many-coloured tropical crowd had assembled at the landing.
Then a whaleboat came off, rowed by eight young men in white linen suits
and white straw hats, with wreaths of carmine-coloured flowers round
both hats and throats. They were singing a glee in honour of Mr.
Ragsdale, whom they sprang on deck to welcome. Our crowd of native
fellow-passengers, by some inscrutable process, had re-arrayed themselves
and blossomed into brilliancy. Hordes of Hilo natives swarmed
on deck, and it became a Babel of <i>alohas</i>, kisses, hand-shakings,
and reiterated welcomes. The glee singers threw their beautiful
garlands of roses and <i>ohias</i> over the foreign passengers, and
music, flowers, good-will and kindliness made us welcome to these enchanted
shores. We landed in a whaleboat, and were hoisted up a rude pier
which was crowded, for what the arrival of the Australian mail-steamer
is to Honolulu, the coming of the <i>Kilauea</i> is to Hilo. I
had not time to feel myself a stranger, there were so many introductions,
and so much friendliness. Mr. Coan and Mr. Lyman, two of the most
venerable of the few surviving missionaries, were on the landing, and
I was introduced to them and many others. There is no hotel in
Hilo. The residents receive strangers, and Miss Karpe and I were
soon installed in a large buff frame-house, with two deep verandahs,
the residence of Mr. Severance, Sheriff of Hawaii.</p>
<p>Unlike many other places, Hilo is more fascinating on closer acquaintance,
so fascinating that it is hard to write about it in plain prose.
Two narrow roads lead up from the sea to one as narrow, running parallel
with it. Further up the hill another runs in the same direction.
There are no conveyances, and outside the village these narrow roads
dwindle into bridle-paths, with just room for one horse to pass another.
The houses in which Mr. Coan, Mr. Lyman, Dr. Wetmore (formerly of the
Mission), and one or two others live, have just enough suggestion of
New England about them to remind one of the dominant influence on these
islands, but the climate has idealized them, and clothed them with poetry
and antiquity.</p>
<p>Of the three churches, the most prominent is the Roman Catholic Church,
a white frame building with two great towers; Mr. Coan’s native
church with a spire comes next; and then the neat little foreign church,
also with a spire. The Romish Church is a rather noisy neighbour,
for its bells ring at unnatural hours, and doleful strains of a band
which cannot play either in time or tune proceed from it. The
court-house, a large buff painted frame-building with two deep verandahs,
standing on a well-kept lawn planted with exotic trees, is the most
imposing building in Hilo. All the foreigners have carried out
their individual tastes in their dwellings, and the result is very agreeable,
though in picturesqueness they must yield the plain to the native houses,
which whether of frame, or grass plain or plaited, whether one or two
storied, all have the deep thatched roofs and verandahs plain or fantastically
latticed, which are so in harmony with the surroundings. These
lattices and single and double verandahs are gorgeous with trailers,
and the general warm brown tint of the houses contrasts pleasantly with
the deep green of the bananas which over-shadow them. There are
living waters everywhere. Each house seems to possess its pure
bright stream, which is arrested in bathing houses to be liberated among
<i>kalo</i> patches of the brightest green. Every verandah appears
a gathering place, and the bright <i>holukus</i> of the women, the gay
shirts and bandanas of the men, the brilliant wreaths of natural flowers
which adorn both, the hot-house temperature, the new trees and flowers
which demand attention, the strange rich odours, and the low monotonous
recitative which mourns through the groves make me feel that I am in
a new world. Ah, this is all Polynesian! This must be the
land to which the “timid-eyed” lotos-eaters came.
There is a strange fascination in the languid air, and it is strangely
sweet “to dream of fatherland” . . .<br /> I.L.B.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>LETTER IV.</h3>
<p>HILO, HAWAII.</p>
<p>I find that I can send another short letter before leaving for the
volcano. I cannot convey to you any idea of the greenness and
lavish luxuriance of this place, where everything flourishes, and glorious
trailers and parasitic ferns hide all unsightly objects out of sight.
It presents a bewildering maze of lilies, roses, fuschias, clematis,
begonias, convolvuli, the huge appalling looking granadilla, the purple
and yellow water lemons, also varieties of passiflora, both with delicious
edible fruit, custard apples, rose apples, mangoes, mangostein guavas,
bamboos, alligator pears, oranges, tamarinds, papayas, bananas, breadfruit,
magnolias, geraniums, candle-nut, gardenias, dracænas, eucalyptus,
pandanus, <i>ohias</i>, <a name="citation59a"></a><a href="#footnote59a">{59a}</a>
<i>kamani</i> trees, <i>kalo</i>, <a name="citation59b"></a><a href="#footnote59b">{59b}</a>
<i>noni</i>, <a name="citation59c"></a><a href="#footnote59c">{59c}</a>
and quantities of other trees and flowers, of which I shall eventually
learn the names, patches of pine-apple, melons, and sugar-cane for children
to suck, <i>kalo</i> and sweet potatoes.</p>
<p>In the vicinity of this and all other houses, Chili peppers, and
a ginger-plant with a drooping flower-stalk with a great number of blossoms,
which when not fully developed have a singular resemblance to very pure
porcelain tinted with pink at the extremities of the buds, are to be
seen growing in “yards,” to use a most unfitting Americanism.
I don’t know how to introduce you to some of the things which
delight my eyes here; but I must ask you to believe that the specimens
of tropical growths which we see in conservatories at home are in general
either misrepresentations, or very feeble representations of these growths
in their natural homes. I don’t allude to flowers, and especially
not to orchids, but in this instance very specially to bananas, coco-palms,
and the pandanus. For example, there is a specimen of the Pandanus
odoratissimus in the palm-house in the Edinburgh Botanic Gardens, which
is certainly a malignant caricature, with its long straggling branches,
and widely scattered tufts of poverty stricken foliage. The bananas
and plantains in that same palm-house represent only the feeblest and
poorest of their tribe. They require not only warmth and moisture,
but the generous sunshine of the tropics for their development.
In the same house the date and sugar-palms are tolerable specimens,
but the cocoa-nut trees are most truly “palms in exile.”</p>
<p>I suppose that few people ever forget the first sight of a palm-tree
of any species. I vividly remember seeing one for the first time
at Malaga, but the coco-palm groves of the Pacific have a strangeness
and witchery of their own. As I write now I hear the moaning rustle
of the wind through their plume-like tops, and their long slender stems,
and crisp crown of leaves above the trees with shining leafage which
revel in damp, have a suggestion of Orientalism about them. How
do they come too, on every atoll or rock that raises its head throughout
this lonely ocean? They fringe the shores of these islands.
Wherever it is dry and fiercely hot, and the lava is black and hard,
and nothing else grows, or can grow, there they are, close to the sea,
sending their root-fibres seawards as if in search of salt water.
Their long, curved, wrinkled, perfectly cylindrical stems, bulging near
the ground like an apothecary’s pestle, rise to a height of from
sixty to one hundred feet. These stems are never straight, and
in a grove lean and curve every way, and are apparently capable of enduring
any force of wind or earthquake. They look as if they had never
been young, and they show no signs of growth, rearing their plumy tufts
so far aloft, and casting their shadows so far away, always supremely
lonely, as though they belonged to the heavens rather than the earth.
Then, while all else that grows is green they are yellowish. Their
clusters of nuts in all stages of growth are yellow, their fan-like
leaves, which are from twelve to twenty feet long, are yellow, and an
amber light pervades and surrounds them. They provide milk, oil,
food, rope, and matting, and each tree produces about one hundred nuts
annually.</p>
<p>The pandanus, or <i>lauhala</i>, is one of the most striking features
of the islands. Its funereal foliage droops in Hilo, and it was
it that I noticed all along the windward coast as having a most striking
peculiarity of aërial roots which the branches send down to the
ground, and which I now see have large cup-shaped spongioles.
These air-roots seem like props, and appear to vary in length from three
to twelve feet, according to the situation of the tree. There
is one variety I saw to-day, the “screw pine,” which is
really dangerous if one approached it unguardedly. It is a whorled
pandanus, with long sword-shaped leaves, spirally arranged in three
rows, and hard, saw-toothed edges, very sharp. When unbranched
as I saw them, they resemble at a distance pine-apple plants thirty
times magnified. But the mournful looking trees along the coast
and all about Hilo are mostly the Pandanus odoratissimus, a spreading
and branching tree which grows fully twenty-five feet high, supports
itself among inaccessible rocks by its prop-like roots, and is one of
the first plants to appear on the newly-formed Pacific islands. <a name="citation62"></a><a href="#footnote62">{62}</a>
Its foliage is singularly dense, although it is borne in tufts of a
quantity of long yucca-like leaves on the branches. The shape
of the tree is usually circular. The mournful look is caused by
the leaves taking a downward and very decided droop in the middle.
At present each tuft of leaves has in its centre an object like a green
pine-apple. This contains the seeds which are eatable, as is also
the fleshy part of the drupes. I find that it is from the seeds
of this tree and their coverings that the brilliant orange <i>leis</i>,
or garlands of the natives, are made. The soft white case of the
leaves and the terminal buds can also be eaten. The leaves are
used for thatching, and their tough longitudinal fibres for mats and
ropes. There is another kind, the Pandanus vacoa, the same as
is used for making sugar bags in Mauritius, but I have not seen it.</p>
<p>One does not forget the first sight of a palm. I think the
banana comes next, and I see them in perfection here for the first time,
as those in Honolulu grow in “yards,” and are tattered by
the winds. It transports me into the tropics in feeling, as I
am already in them in fact, and satisfies all my cravings for something
which shall represent and epitomize their luxuriance, as well as for
simplicity and grace in vegetable form. And here it is everywhere
with its shining shade, its smooth fat green stem, its crown of huge
curving leaves from four to ten feet long, and its heavy cluster of
a whorl of green or golden fruit, with a pendant purple cone of undeveloped
blossom below. It is of the tropics, tropical; a thing of beauty,
and gladness, and sunshine. It is indigenous here, and wild, but
never bears seeds, and is propagated solely by suckers, which spring
up when the parent plant has fruited, or by cuttings. It bears
seed, strange to say, only (so far as is known) in the Andaman Islands,
where, stranger still, it springs up as a second growth wherever the
forests are cleared. Go to the palm-house, find the Musa sapientum,
magnify it ten times, glorify it immeasurably, and you will have a laggard
idea of the banana groves of Hilo.</p>
<p>The ground is carpeted with a grass of preternaturally vivid green
and rankness of growth, mixed with a handsome fern, with a caudex a
foot high, the Sadleria cyathoides, and another of exquisite beauty,
the Micropia tenuifolia, which are said to be the commonest ferns on
Hawaii. It looks Elysian.</p>
<p>Hilo is a lively place for such a mere village; so many natives are
stirring about, and dashing along the narrow roads on horseback.
This is a large airy house, simple and tasteful, with pretty engravings
and water-colour drawings on the walls. There is a large bath-house
in the garden, into which a pure, cool stream has been led, and the
gurgle and music of many such streams fill the sweet, soft air.
There is a saying among sailors, “Follow a Pacific shower, and
it leads you to Hilo.” Indeed I think they have a rainfall
of from thirteen to sixteen feet annually. These deep verandahs
are very pleasant, for they render window-blinds unnecessary; so there
is nothing of that dark stuffiness which makes indoor life a trial in
the closed, shadeless Australian houses.</p>
<p>Miss Karpe, my travelling companion, is a lady of great energy, and
apparently an adept in the art of travelling. Undismayed by three
days of sea-sickness, and the prospect of the tremendous journey to
the volcano to-morrow, she extemporised a ride to the Anuenue Falls
on the Wailuku this afternoon, and I weakly accompanied her, a burly
policeman being our guide. The track is only a scramble among
rocks and holes, concealed by grass and ferns, and we had to cross a
stream, full of great holes, several times. The Fall itself is
very pretty, 110 feet in one descent, with a cavernous shrine behind
the water, filled with ferns. There were large ferns all round
the Fall, and a jungle of luxuriant tropical shrubs of many kinds.</p>
<p>Three miles above this Fall there are the Pei-pei Falls, very interesting
geologically. The Wailuku River is the boundary between the two
great volcanoes, and its waters, it is supposed by learned men, have
often flowed over heated beds of basalt, with the result of columnar
formation radiating from the bottom of the stream. This structure
is sometimes beautifully exhibited in the form of Gothic archways, through
which the torrent pours into a basin, surrounded by curved, broken,
and half-sunk prisms, black and prominent amidst the white foam of the
Falls. In several places the river has just pierced the beds of
lava, and in one passes under a thick rock bridge, several hundred feet
wide. Often, where the water flows over beds of dark grey basalt,
masses of trachyte, closely resembling syenite, have formed “potholes,”
and by mutual action have been worn to pebbles. At Pei-pei there
are three circular pools, each about fifty feet in diameter, and separated
by walls six feet thick, in a bed of columnar basalt. <a name="citation65"></a><a href="#footnote65">{65}</a>
During freshets the river sometimes rises thirty feet, and hides these
pools, but during the dry season the upper bed is bare, and after a
succession of cascades of various heights the stream pours into the
first basin, filling it with foam. From this there is no apparent
outlet, but leaves thrown in soon appear in the second basin, whose
tranquillity is only disturbed by a few bubbles. Between this
and the third there are two subterranean passages, and the water there
leaps over a fall about forty feet high, nearly covering a perfect Gothic
arch which is the entrance to a shallow cave. The scene is enclosed
by high and nearly perpendicular walls. <a name="citation66"></a><a href="#footnote66">{66}</a></p>
<p>Near the Anuenue Fall we stopped at a native house, outside which
a woman, in a rose-coloured chemise, was stringing roses for a necklace,
while her husband pounded the <i>kalo</i> root on a board. His
only clothing was the <i>malo</i>, a narrow strip of cloth wound round
the loins, and passed between the legs. This was the only covering
worn by men before the introduction of Christianity. Females wore
the <i>pau</i>, a short petticoat made of <i>tapa</i>, which reached
from the waist to the knees. To our eyes, the brown skin produces
nearly the effect of clothing.</p>
<p>Everything was new and interesting, but the ride was spoiled by my
insecure seat in my saddle, and the increased pain in my spine which
riding produced. Once in crossing a stream the horses have to
make a sort of downward jump from a rock, and I slipped round my horse’s
neck. Indeed on the way back I felt that on the ground of health
I must give up the volcano, as I would never consent to be carried to
it, like Lady Franklin, in a litter. When we returned, Mr. Severance
suggested that it would be much better for me to follow the Hawaiian
fashion, and ride astride, and put his saddle on the horse. It
was only my strong desire to see the volcano which made me consent to
a mode of riding against which I have so strong a prejudice, but the
result of the experiment is that I shall visit Kilauea thus or not at
all. The native women all ride astride, on ordinary occasions
in the full sacks, or <i>holukus</i>, and on gala days in the <i>pau</i>,
the gay, winged dress which I described in writing from Honolulu.
A great many of the foreign ladies on Hawaii have adopted the Mexican
saddle also, for greater security to themselves and ease to their horses,
on the steep and perilous bridle-tracks, but they wear full Turkish
trowsers and jauntily-made dresses reaching to the ankles.</p>
<p>It appears that Hilo is free from the universally admitted nuisance
of morning calls. The hours are simple--eight o’clock breakfasts,
one o’clock dinners, six o’clock suppers. If people
want anything with you, they come at any hour of the day, but if they
only wish to be sociable, the early evening is the recognized time for
“calling.” After supper, when the day’s work
is done, people take their lanterns and visit each other, either in
the verandahs or in the cheerful parlours which open upon them.
There are no door-bells, or solemn announcements by servants of visitors’
names, or “not-at-homes.” If people are in their parlours,
it is presumed that they receive their friends. Several pleasant
people came in this evening. They seem to take great interest
in two ladies going to the volcano without an escort, but no news has
been received from it lately, and I fear that it is not very active
as no glare is visible to-night. Mr. Thompson, the pastor of the
small foreign congregation here, called on me. He is a very agreeable,
accomplished man, and is acquainted with Dr. Holland and several of
my New England friends. He kindly brought his wife’s riding-costume
for my trip to Kilauea. The Rev. Titus Coan, one of the first
and most successful missionaries to Hawaii, also called. He is
a tall, majestic-looking man, physically well fitted for the extraordinary
exertions he has undergone in mission work, and intellectually also,
I should think, for his face expresses great mental strength, and nothing
of the weakness of a sanguine enthusiast. He has admitted about
12,000 persons into the Christian Church. He is the greatest authority
on volcanoes on the islands, and his enthusiastic manner and illuminated
countenance as he spoke of Kilauea, have raised my expectations to the
highest pitch. We are prepared for to-morrow, having engaged a
native named Upa, who boasts a little English, as our guide. He
provides three horses and himself for three days for the sum of thirty
dollars.<br /> I.L.B.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>LETTER V.</h3>
<p>VOLCANO OF KILAUEA, Jan. 31.</p>
<p>Bruised aching bones, strained muscles, and overwhelming fatigue,
render it hardly possible for me to undergo the physical labour of writing,
but in spirit I am so elated with the triumph of success, and so thrilled
by new sensations, that though I cannot communicate the incommunicable,
I want to write to you while the impression of Kilauea is fresh, and
by “the light that never was on sea or shore.”</p>
<p>By eight yesterday morning our preparations were finished, and Miss
Karpe, whose conversance with the details of travelling I envy, mounted
her horse on her own side-saddle, dressed in a short grey waterproof,
and a broad-brimmed Leghorn hat tied so tightly over her ears with a
green veil as to give it the look of a double spout. The only
pack her horse carried was a bundle of cloaks and shawls, slung together
with an umbrella on the horn of her saddle. Upa, who was most
picturesquely got up in the native style with garlands of flowers round
his hat and throat, carried our saddle-bags on the peak of his saddle,
a bag with bananas, bread, and a bottle of tea on the horn, and a canteen
of water round his waist. I had on my coarse Australian hat which
serves the double purpose of sunshade and umbrella, Mrs. Thompson’s
riding costume, my great rusty New Zealand boots, and my blanket strapped
behind a very gaily ornamented brass-bossed <i>demi-pique</i> Mexican
saddle, which one of the missionary’s daughters had lent me.
It has a horn in front, a low peak behind, large wooden stirrups with
leathern flaps the length of the stirrup-leathers, to prevent the dress
from coming in contact with the horse, and strong guards of hide which
hang over and below the stirrup, and cover it and the foot up to the
ancles, to prevent the feet or boots from being torn in riding through
the bush. Each horse had four fathoms of tethering rope wound
several times round his neck. In such fashion must all travelling
be done on Hawaii, whether by ladies or gentlemen.</p>
<p>Upa supplied the picturesque element, we the grotesque. The
morning was moist and unpropitious looking. As the greater part
of the thirty miles has to be travelled at a foot’s-pace the guide
took advantage of the soft grassy track which leads out of Hilo, to
go off at full gallop, a proceeding which made me at once conscious
of the demerits of my novel way of riding. To guide the horse
and to clutch the horn of the saddle with both hands were clearly incompatible,
so I abandoned the first as being the least important. Then my
feet either slipped too far into the stirrups and were cut, or they
were jerked out; every corner was a new terror, for at each I was nearly
pitched off on one side, and when at last Upa stopped, and my beast
stopped without consulting my wishes, only a desperate grasp of mane
and tethering rope saved me from going over his head. At this
ridiculous moment we came upon a bevy of brown maidens swimming in a
lakelet by the roadside, who increased my confusion by a chorus of laughter.
How fervently I hoped that the track would never admit of galloping
again!</p>
<p>Hilo fringes off with pretty native houses, <i>kalo</i> patches and
mullet ponds, and in about four miles the track, then formed of rough
hard lava, and not more than 24 inches wide, enters a forest of the
densest description, a burst of true tropical jungle. I could
not have imagined anything so perfectly beautiful, nature seemed to
riot in the production of wonderful forms, as if the moist hot-house
air encouraged her in lavish excesses. Such endless variety, such
depths of green, such an impassable and altogether inextricable maze
of forest trees, ferns, and lianas! There were palms, breadfruit
trees, <i>ohias</i>, eugenias, candle-nuts of immense size, <i>Koa</i>
(acacia), bananas, <i>noni</i>, bamboos, papayas (Carica papaya), guavas,
<i>ti</i> trees (Cordyline terminalis), treeferns, climbing ferns, parasitic
ferns, and ferns themselves the prey of parasites of their own species.
The lianas were there in profusion climbing over the highest trees,
and entangling them, with stems varying in size from those as thick
as a man’s arm to those as slender as whipcord, binding all in
an impassable network, and hanging over our heads in rich festoons or
tendrils swaying in the breeze. There were trailers, <i>i.e</i>.,
(Freycinetia scandens) with heavy knotted stems, as thick as a frigate’s
stoutest hawser, coiling up to the tops of tall <i>ohias</i> with tufted
leaves like yuccas, and crimson spikes of gaudy blossom. The shining
festoons of the yam and the graceful trailers of the <i>mailé</i>
(Alyxia Olivæformis), a sweet scented vine, from which the natives
make garlands, and glossy leaved climbers hung from tree to tree, and
to brighten all, huge morning glories of a heavenly blue opened a thousand
blossoms to the sun as if to give a tenderer loveliness to the forest.
Here trees grow and fall, and nature covers them where they lie with
a new vegetation which altogether obliterates their hasty decay.
It is four miles of beautiful and inextricable confusion, untrodden
by human feet except on the narrow track. “Of every tree
in this garden thou mayest freely eat,” and no serpent or noxious
thing trails its hideous form through this Eden.</p>
<p>It was quite intoxicating, so new, wonderful, and solemn withal,
that I was sorry when we emerged from its shady depths upon a grove
of cocoanut trees and the glare of day. Two very poor-looking
grass huts, with a ragged patch of sugar-cane beside them, gave us an
excuse for half an hour’s rest. An old woman in a red sack,
much tattooed, with thick short grey hair bristling on her head, sat
on a palm root, holding a nude brown child; a lean hideous old man,
dressed only in a <i>malo</i>, leaned against its stem, our horses with
their highly miscellaneous gear were tethered to a fern stump, and Upa,
the most picturesque of the party, served out tea. He and the
natives talked incessantly, and from the frequency with which the words
“<i>wahine haole</i>” (foreign woman) occurred, the subject
of their conversation was obvious. Upa has taken up the notion
from something Mr. S--- said, that I am a “high chief,”
and related to Queen Victoria, and he was doubtlessly imposing this
fable on the people. In spite of their poverty and squalor, if
squalor is a term which can be applied to aught beneath these sunny
skies, there was a kindliness about them which they made us feel, and
the <i>aloha</i> with which they parted from us had a sweet friendly
sound.</p>
<p>From this grove we travelled as before in single file over an immense
expanse of lava of the kind called <i>pahoehoe</i>, or satin rock, to
distinguish it from the <i>a-a</i>, or jagged, rugged, impassable rock.
Savants all use these terms in the absence of any equally expressive
in English. The <i>pahoehoe</i> extends in the Hilo direction
from hence about twenty-three miles. It is the cooled and arrested
torrent of lava which in past ages has flowed towards Hilo from Kilauea.
It lies in hummocks, in coils, in rippled waves, in rivers, in huge
convolutions, in pools smooth and still, and in caverns which are really
bubbles. Hundreds of square miles of the island are made up of
this and nothing more. A very frequent aspect of <i>pahoehoe</i>
is the likeness on a magnificent scale of a thick coat of cream drawn
in wrinkling folds to the side of a milk-pan. This lava is all
grey, and the greater part of its surface is slightly roughened.
Wherever this is not the case the horses slip upon it as upon ice.</p>
<p>Here I began to realize the universally igneous origin of Hawaii,
as I had not done among the finely disintegrated lava of Hilo.
From the hard black rocks which border the sea, to the loftiest mountain
dome or peak, every stone, atom of dust, and foot of fruitful or barren
soil bears the Plutonic mark. In fact, the island has been raised
heap on heap, ridge on ridge, mountain on mountain, to nearly the height
of Mont Blanc, by the same volcanic forces which are still in operation
here, and may still add at intervals to the height of the blue dome
of Mauna Loa, of which we caught occasional glimpses above the clouds.
Hawaii is actually at the present time being built up from the ocean,
and this great sea of <i>pahoehoe</i> is not to be regarded as a vindictive
eruption, bringing desolation on a fertile region, but as an architectural
and formative process.</p>
<p>There is no water, except a few deposits of rain-water in holes,
but the moist air and incessant showers have aided nature to mantle
this frightful expanse with an abundant vegetation, principally ferns
of an exquisite green, the most conspicuous being the Sadleria, the
Gleichenia Hawaiiensis, a running wire-like fern, and the exquisite
Microlepia tenuifolia, dwarf guava, with its white flowers resembling
orange flowers in odour, and <i>ohelos</i> (Vaccinium reticulatum),
with their red and white berries, and a profusion of small-leaved <i>ohias</i>
(Metrosideros polymorpha), with their deep crimson tasselled flowers,
and their young shoots of bright crimson, relieved the monotony of green.
These crimson tassels deftly strung on thread or fibres, are much used
by the natives for their <i>leis</i>, or garlands. The <i>ti</i>
tree (Cordyline terminalis) which abounds also on the lava, is most
valuable. They cook their food wrapped up in its leaves, the porous
root when baked, has the taste and texture of molasses candy, and when
distilled yields a spirit, and the leaves form wrappings for fish, hard
<i>poi</i>, and other edibles. Occasionally a clump of tufted
coco-palms, or of the beautiful candle-nut rose among the smaller growths.
To our left a fringe of palms marked the place where the lava and the
ocean met, while, on our right, we were seldom out of sight of the dense
timber belt, with its fringe of tree-ferns and bananas, which girdles
Mauna Loa.</p>
<p>The track, on the whole, is a perpetual upward scramble; for, though
the ascent is so gradual, that it is only by the increasing coolness
of the atmosphere that the increasing elevation is denoted, it is really
nearly 4,000 feet in thirty miles. Only strong, sure-footed, well-shod
horses can undertake this journey, for it is a constant scramble over
rocks, going up or down natural steps, or cautiously treading along
ledges. Most of the track is quite legible owing to the vegetation
having been worn off the lava, but the rock itself hardly shows the
slightest abrasion.</p>
<p>Upa had indicated that we were to stop for rest at the “Half
Way House;” and, as I was hardly able to sit on my horse owing
to fatigue, I consoled myself by visions of a comfortable sofa and a
cup of tea. It was with real dismay that I found the reality to
consist of a grass hut, much out of repair, and which, bad as it was,
was locked. Upa said we had ridden so slowly that it would be
dark before we reached the volcano, and only allowed us to rest on the
grass for half-an-hour. He had frequently reiterated “Half
Way House, you wear spur;” and, on our remounting, he buckled
on my foot a heavy rusty Mexican spur, with jingling ornaments and rowels
an inch and a half long. These horses are so accustomed to be
jogged with these instruments that they won’t move without them.
The prospect of five hours more riding looked rather black, for I was
much exhausted, and my shoulders and knee-joints were in severe pain.
Miss K.’s horse showed no other appreciation of a stick with which
she belaboured him than flourishes of his tail, so, for a time, he was
put in the middle, that Upa might add his more forcible persuasions,
and I rode first and succeeded in getting my lazy animal into the priestly
amble known at home as “a butter and eggs trot,” the favourite
travelling pace, but this not suiting the guide’s notion of progress,
he frequently rushed up behind with a torrent of Hawaiian, emphasized
by heavy thumps on my horse’s back, which so sorely jeopardised
my seat on the animal, owing to his resenting the interference by kicking,
that I “dropped astern” for the rest of the way, leaving
Upa to belabour Miss K.’s steed for his diversion.</p>
<p>The country altered but little, only the variety of trees gave place
to the <i>ohia</i> alone, with its sombre foliage. There were
neither birds nor insects, and the only travellers we encountered in
the solitude compelled us to give them a wide berth, for they were a
drove of half wild random cattle, led by a lean bull of hideous aspect,
with crumpled horns. Two picturesque native vaccheros on mules
accompanied them, and my flagging spirits were raised by their news
that the volcano was quite active. The owner of these cattle knows
that he has 10,000 head, and may have a great many more. They
are shot for their hides by men who make shooting and skinning them
a profession, and, near settlements, the owners are thankful to get
two cents a pound for sirloin and rump-steaks. These, and great
herds which are actually wild and ownerless upon the mountains, are
a degenerate breed, with some of the worst peculiarities of the Texas
cattle, and are the descendants of those which Vancouver placed on the
islands and which were under <i>Tabu</i> for ten years. They destroy
the old trees by gnawing the bark, and render the growth of young ones
impossible.</p>
<p>As it was getting dark we passed through a forest strip, where tree-ferns
from twelve to eighteen feet in height, and with fronds from five to
seven feet long, were the most attractive novelties. As we emerged,
“with one stride came the dark,” a great darkness, a cloudy
night, with neither moon nor stars, and the track was further obscured
by a belt of <i>ohias</i>. There were five miles of this, and
I was so dead from fatigue and want of food, that I would willingly
have lain down in the bush in the rain. I most heartlessly wished
that Miss K. were tired too, for her voice, which seemed tireless as
she rode ahead in the dark, rasped upon my ears. I could only
keep on my saddle by leaning on the horn, and my clothes were soaked
with the heavy rain. “A dreadful ride,” one and another
had said, and I then believed them. It seemed an awful solitude
full of mystery. Often, I only knew that my companions were ahead
by the sparks struck from their horse’s shoes.</p>
<p>It became a darkness which could be felt.</p>
<p>“Is that possibly a pool of blood?” I thought in horror,
as a rain puddle glowed crimson on the track. Not that indeed!
A glare brighter and redder than that from any furnace suddenly lightened
the whole sky, and from that moment brightened our path. There
sat Miss K. under her dripping umbrella as provokingly erect as when
she left Hilo. There Upa jogged along, huddled up in his poncho,
and his canteen shone red. There the <i>ohia</i> trees were relieved
blackly against the sky. The scene started out from the darkness
with the suddenness of a revelation. We felt the pungency of sulphurous
fumes in the still night air. A sound as of the sea broke on our
ears, rising and falling as if breaking on the shore, but the ocean
was thirty miles away. The heavens became redder and brighter,
and when we reached the crater-house at eight, clouds of red vapour
mixed with flame were curling ceaselessly out of a huge invisible pit
of blackness, and Kilauea was in all its fiery glory. We had reached
the largest active volcano in the world, the “place of everlasting
burnings.”</p>
<p>Rarely was light more welcome than that which twinkled from under
the verandah of the lonely crater-house into the rainy night.
The hospitable landlord of this unique dwelling lifted me from my horse,
and carried me into a pleasant room thoroughly warmed by a large wood
fire, and I hastily retired to bed to spend much of the bitterly cold
night in watching the fiery vapours rolling up out of the infinite darkness,
and in dreading the descent into the crater. The heavy clouds
were crimson with the reflection, and soon after midnight jets of flame
of a most peculiar colour leapt fitfully into the air, accompanied by
a dull throbbing sound.</p>
<p>This morning was wet and murky as many mornings are here, and the
view from the door was a blank up to ten o’clock, when the mist
rolled away and revealed the mystery of last night, the mighty crater
whose vast terminal wall is only a few yards from this house.
We think of a volcano as a cone. This is a different thing.
The abyss, which really is at a height of nearly 4,000 feet on the flank
of Mauna Loa, has the appearance of a great pit on a rolling plain.
But such a pit! It is nine miles in circumference, and its lowest
area, which not long ago fell about 300 feet, just as ice on a pond
falls when the water below it is withdrawn, covers six square miles.
The depth of the crater varies from 800 to 1,100 feet in different years,
according as the molten sea below is at flood or ebb. Signs of
volcanic activity are present more or less throughout its whole depth,
and for some distance round its margin, in the form of steam cracks,
jets of sulphurous vapour, blowing cones, accumulating deposits of acicular
crystals of sulphur, etc., and the pit itself is constantly rent and
shaken by earthquakes. Grand eruptions occur at intervals with
circumstances of indescribable terror and dignity, but Kilauea does
not limit its activity to these outbursts, but has exhibited its marvellous
phenomena through all known time in a lake or lakes in the southern
part of the crater three miles from this side.</p>
<p>This lake, the Hale-mau-mau, or House of Everlasting Fire of the
Hawaiian mythology, the abode of the dreaded goddess Pelé, is
approachable with safety except during an eruption. The spectacle,
however, varies almost daily, and at times the level of the lava in
the pit within a pit is so low, and the suffocating gases are evolved
in such enormous quantities, that travellers are unable to see anything.
There had been no news from it for a week, and as nothing was to be
seen but a very faint bluish vapour hanging round its margin, the prospect
was not encouraging.</p>
<p>When I have learned more about the Hawaiian volcanoes, I shall tell
you more of their phenomena, but tonight I shall only write to you my
first impressions of what we actually saw on this January 31st.
My highest expectations have been infinitely exceeded, and I can hardly
write soberly after such a spectacle, especially while through the open
door I see the fiery clouds of vapour from the pit rolling up into a
sky, glowing as if itself on fire.</p>
<p>We were accompanied into the crater by a comical native guide, who
mimicked us constantly, our Hilo guide, who “makes up” a
little English, a native woman from Kona, who speaks imperfect English
poetically, and her brother who speaks none. I was conscious that
we foreign women with our stout staffs and grotesque dress looked like
caricatures, and the natives, who have a keen sense of the ludicrous,
did not conceal that they thought us so.</p>
<p>The first descent down the terminal wall of the crater is very precipitous,
but it and the slope which extends to the second descent are thickly
covered with <i>ohias</i>, <i>ohelos</i> (a species of whortleberry),
sadlerias, polypodiums, silver grass, and a great variety of bulbous
plants many of which bore clusters of berries of a brilliant turquoise
blue. The “beyond” looked terrible. I could
not help clinging to these vestiges of the kindlier mood of nature in
which she sought to cover the horrors she had wrought. The next
descent is over rough blocks and ridges of broken lava, and appears
to form part of a break which extends irregularly round the whole crater,
and which probably marks a tremendous subsidence of its floor.
Here the last apparent vegetation was left behind, and the familiar
earth. We were in a new Plutonic region of blackness and awful
desolation, the accustomed sights and sounds of nature all gone.
Terraces, cliffs, lakes, ridges, rivers, mountain sides, whirlpools,
chasms of lava surrounded us, solid, black, and shining, as if vitrified,
or an ashen grey, stained yellow with sulphur here and there, or white
with alum. The lava was fissured and upheaved everywhere by earthquakes,
hot underneath, and emitting a hot breath.</p>
<p>After more than an hour of very difficult climbing we reached the
lowest level of the crater, pretty nearly a mile across, presenting
from above the appearance of a sea at rest, but on crossing it we found
it to be an expanse of waves and convolutions of ashy-coloured lava,
with huge cracks filled up with black iridescent rolls of lava, only
a few weeks old. Parts of it are very rough and ridgy, jammed
together like field ice, or compacted by rolls of lava which may have
swelled up from beneath, but the largest part of the area presents the
appearance of huge coiled hawsers, the ropy formation of the lava rendering
the illusion almost perfect. These are riven by deep cracks which
emit hot sulphurous vapours. Strange to say, in one of these,
deep down in that black and awful region, three slender metamorphosed
ferns were growing, three exquisite forms, the fragile heralds of the
great forest of vegetation, which probably in coming years will clothe
this pit with beauty. Truly they seemed to speak of the love of
God. On our right there was a precipitous ledge, and a recent
flow of lava had poured over it, cooling as it fell into columnar shapes
as symmetrical as those of Staffa. It took us a full hour to cross
this deep depression, and as long to master a steep hot ascent of about
400 feet, formed by a recent lava-flow from Hale-mau-mau into the basin.
This lava hill is an extraordinary sight--a flood of molten stone, solidifying
as it ran down the declivity, forming arrested waves, streams, eddies,
gigantic convolutions, forms of snakes, stems of trees, gnarled roots,
crooked water-pipes, all involved and contorted on a gigantic scale,
a wilderness of force and dread. Over one steeper place the lava
had run in a fiery cascade about 100 feet wide. Some had reached
the ground, some had been arrested midway, but all had taken the aspect
of stems of trees. In some of the crevices I picked up a quantity
of very curious filamentose lava, known as “Pelé’s
hair.” It resembles coarse spun glass, and is of a greenish
or yellowish-brown colour. In many places the whole surface of
the lava is covered with this substance seen through a glazed medium.
During eruptions, when fire-fountains play to a great height, and drops
of lava are thrown in all directions, the wind spins them out in clear
green or yellow threads two or three feet long, which catch and adhere
to projecting points.</p>
<p>As we ascended, the flow became hotter under our feet, as well as
more porous and glistening. It was so hot that a shower of rain
hissed as it fell upon it. The crust became increasingly insecure,
and necessitated our walking in single file with the guide in front,
to test the security of the footing. I fell through several times,
and always into holes full of sulphurous steam, so malignantly acid
that my strong dog-skin gloves were burned through as I raised myself
on my hands.</p>
<p>We had followed a lava-flow for thirty miles up to the crater’s
brink, and now we had toiled over recent lava for three hours, and by
all calculation were close to the pit, yet there was no smoke or sign
of fire, and I felt sure that the volcano had died out for once for
our especial disappointment. Indeed, I had been making up my mind
for disappointment since we left the crater-house, in consequence of
reading seven different accounts, in which language was exhausted in
describing Kilauea.</p>
<p>Suddenly, just above, and in front of us, gory drops were tossed
in air, and springing forwards we stood on the brink of Hale-mau-mau,
which was about 35 feet below us. I think we all screamed, I know
we all wept, but we were speechless, for a new glory and terror had
been added to the earth. It is the most unutterable of wonderful
things. The words of common speech are quite useless. It
is unimaginable, indescribable, a sight to remember for ever, a sight
which at once took possession of every faculty of sense and soul, removing
one altogether out of the range of ordinary life. Here was the
real “bottomless pit”--the “fire which is not quenched”--“the
place of hell”--“the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone”--the
“everlasting burnings”--the fiery sea whose waves are never
weary. There were groanings, rumblings, and detonations, rushings,
hissings, and splashings, and the crashing sound of breakers on the
coast, but it was the surging of fiery waves upon a fiery shore.
But what can I write! Such words as jets, fountains, waves, spray,
convey some idea of order and regularity, but here there was none.
The inner lake, while we stood there, formed a sort of crater within
itself, the whole lava sea rose about three feet, a blowing cone about
eight feet high was formed, it was never the same two minutes together.
And what we saw had no existence a month ago, and probably will be changed
in every essential feature a month hence.</p>
<p>What we did see was one irregularly-shaped lake, possibly 500 feet
wide at its narrowest part and nearly half a mile at its broadest, almost
divided into two by a low bank of lava, which extended nearly across
it where it was narrowest, and which was raised visibly before our eyes.
The sides of the nearest part of the lake were absolutely perpendicular,
but nowhere more than 40 feet high; but opposite to us on the far side
of the larger lake they were bold and craggy, and probably not less
than 150 feet high. On one side there was an expanse entirely
occupied with blowing cones, and jets of steam or vapour. The
lake has been known to sink 400 feet, and a month ago it overflowed
its banks. The prominent object was fire in motion, but the surface
of the double lake was continually skinning over for a second or two
with a cooled crust of a lustrous grey-white, like frosted silver, broken
by jagged cracks of a bright rose-colour. The movement was nearly
always from the sides to the centre, but the movement of the centre
itself appeared independent and always took a southerly direction.
Before each outburst of agitation there was much hissing and a throbbing
internal roaring, as of imprisoned gases. Now it seemed furious,
demoniacal, as if no power on earth could bind it, then playful and
sportive, then for a second languid, but only because it was accumulating
fresh force. On our arrival eleven fire fountains were playing
joyously round the lakes, and sometimes the six of the nearer lake ran
together in the centre to go wallowing down in one vortex, from which
they reappeared bulging upwards, till they formed a huge cone 30 feet
high, which plunged downwards in a whirlpool only to reappear in exactly
the previous number of fountains in different parts of the lake, high
leaping, raging, flinging themselves upwards. Sometimes the whole
lake, abandoning its usual centripetal motion, as if impelled southwards,
took the form of mighty waves, and surging heavily against the partial
barrier with a sound like the Pacific surf, lashed, tore, covered it,
and threw itself over it in clots of living fire. It was all confusion,
commotion, force, terror, glory, majesty, mystery, and even beauty.
And the colour! “Eye hath not seen” it! Molten
metal has not that crimson gleam, nor blood that living light!
Had I not seen this I should never have known that such a colour was
possible.</p>
<p>The crust perpetually wrinkled, folded over, and cracked, and great
pieces were drawn downwards to be again thrown up on the crests of waves.
The eleven fountains of gory fire played the greater part of the time,
dancing round the lake with a strength of joyousness which was absolute
beauty. Indeed after the first half hour of terror had gone by,
the beauty of these jets made a profound impression upon me, and the
sight of them must always remain one of the most fascinating recollections
of my life. During three hours, the bank of lava which almost
divided the lakes rose considerably, owing to the cooling of the spray
as it dashed over it, and a cavern of considerable size was formed within
it, the roof of which was hung with fiery stalactites, more than a foot
long. Nearly the whole time the surges of the further lake taking
a southerly direction, broke with a tremendous noise on the bold craggy
cliffs which are its southern boundary, throwing their gory spray to
a height of fully forty feet. At times an overhanging crag fell
in, creating a vast splash of fire and increased commotion.</p>
<p>Almost close below us there was an intermittent jet of lava, which
kept cooling round what was possibly a blowhole forming a cone with
an open top, which when we first saw it was about six feet high on its
highest side, and about as many in diameter. Up this cone or chimney
heavy jets of lava were thrown every second or two, and cooling as they
fell over its edge, raised it rapidly before our eyes. Its fiery
interior, and the singular sound with which the lava was vomited up,
were very awful. There was no smoke rising from the lake, only
a faint blue vapour which the wind carried in the opposite direction.
The heat was excessive. We were obliged to stand the whole time,
and the soles of our boots were burned, and my ear and one side of my
face were blistered. Although there was no smoke from the lake
itself, there was an awful region to the westward, of smoke and sound,
and rolling clouds of steam and vapour whose phenomena it was not safe
to investigate, where the blowing cones are, whose fires last night
appeared stationary. We were able to stand quite near the margin,
and look down into the lake, as you look into the sea from the deck
of a ship, the only risk being that the fractured ledge might give way.</p>
<p>Before we came away, a new impulse seized the lava. The fire
was thrown to a great height; the fountains and jets all wallowed together;
new ones appeared, and danced joyously round the margin, then converging
towards the centre they merged into one glowing mass, which upheaved
itself pyramidally and disappeared with a vast plunge. Then innumerable
billows of fire dashed themselves into the air, crashing and lashing,
and the lake dividing itself recoiled on either side, then hurling its
fires together and rising as if by upheaval from below, it surged over
the temporary rim which it had formed, passing downwards in a slow majestic
flow, leaving the central surface swaying and dashing in fruitless agony
as if sent on some errand it failed to accomplish.</p>
<p>Farewell, I fear for ever, to the glorious Hale-mau-mau, the grandest
type of force that the earth holds! “Break, break, break,”
on through the coming years,</p>
<p> “No more by thee my steps shall
be,<br /> No more again for ever!”</p>
<p>It seemed a dull trudge over the black and awful crater, and strange,
like half-forgotten sights of a world with which I had ceased to have
aught to do, were the dwarf tree-ferns, the lilies with their turquoise
clusters, the crimson myrtle blossoms, and all the fair things which
decked the precipice up which we slowly dragged our stiff and painful
limbs. Yet it was but the exchange of a world of sublimity for
a world of beauty, the “place of hell,” for the bright upper
earth, with its endless summer, and its perennial foliage, blossom,
and fruitage.</p>
<p>Since writing the above I have been looking over the “Volcano
Book,” which contains the observations and impressions of people
from all parts of the world. Some of these are painstaking and
valuable as showing the extent and rapidity of the changes which take
place in the crater, but there is an immense quantity of flippant rubbish,
and would-be wit, in which “Madam Pelé,” invariably
occurs, this goddess, who was undoubtedly one of the grandest of heathen
mythical creations, being caricatured in pencil and pen and ink, under
every ludicrous aspect that can be conceived. Some of the entries
are brief and absurd, “Not much of a fizz,” “a grand
splutter,” “Madam Pelé in the dumps,” and so
forth. These generally have English signatures. The American
wit is far racier, but depends mainly on the profane use of certain
passages of scripture, a species of wit which is at once easy and disgusting.
People are all particular in giving the precise time of the departure
from Hilo and arrival here, “making good time” being a thing
much admired on Hawaii, but few can boast of more than three miles an
hour. It is wonderful that people can parade their snobbishness
within sight of Hale-mau-mau.</p>
<p>This inn is a unique and interesting place. Its existence is
strikingly precarious, for the whole region is in a state of perpetual
throb from earthquakes, and the sights and sounds are gruesome and awful
both by day and night. The surrounding country steams and smokes
from cracks and pits, and a smell of sulphur fills the air. They
cook their <i>kalo</i> in a steam apparatus of nature’s own work
just behind the house, and every drop of water is from a distillery
similarly provided. The inn is a grass and bamboo house, very
beautifully constructed without nails. It is a longish building
with a steep roof divided inside by partitions which run up to the height
of the walls. There is no ceiling. The joists which run
across are concealed by wreaths of evergreens, from among which peep
out here and there stars on a blue ground. The door opens from
the verandah into a centre room with a large open brick fire place,
in which a wood fire is constantly burning, for at this altitude the
temperature is cool. Some chairs, two lounges, small tables, and
some books and pictures on the walls give a look of comfort, and there
is the reality of comfort in perfection. Our sleeping-place, a
neat room with a matted floor opens from this, and on the other side
there is a similar room, and a small eating-room with a grass cookhouse
beyond, from which an obliging old Chinaman who persistently calls us
“sir,” brings our food. We have had for each meal,
tea, preserved milk, coffee, <i>kalo</i>, biscuits, butter, potatoes,
goats’ flesh, and <i>ohelos</i>. The charge is five dollars
a day, but everything except the potatoes and <i>ohelos</i> has to be
brought twenty or thirty miles on mules’ backs. It is a
very pretty picturesque house both within and without, and stands on
a natural lawn of brilliant but unpalatable grass, surrounded by a light
fence covered with a small trailing double rose. It is altogether
a most magical building in the heart of a formidable volcanic wilderness.
Mr. Gilman, our host, is a fine picturesque looking man, half Indian,
and speaks remarkably good English, but his wife, a very pretty native
woman, speaks none, and he attends to us entirely himself.</p>
<p>A party of native travellers rainbound are here, and the native women
are sitting on the floor stringing flowers and berries for <i>leis</i>.
One very attractive-looking young woman, refined by consumption, is
lying on some blankets, and three native men are smoking by the fire.
Upa attempts conversation with us in broken English, and the others
laugh and talk incessantly. My inkstand, pen, and small handwriting
amuse them very much. Miss K., the typical American travelling
lady, who is encountered everywhere from the Andes to the Pyramids,
tireless, with an indomitable energy, Spartan endurance, and a genius
for attaining everything, and myself, a limp, ragged, shoeless wretch,
complete the group, and our heaps of saddles, blankets, spurs, and gear
tell of real travelling, past and future. It is a most picturesque
sight by the light of the flickering fire, and the fire which is unquenchable
burns without.</p>
<p>About 300 yards off there is a sulphur steam vapour-bath, highly
recommended by the host as a panacea for the woeful aches, pains, and
stiffness produced by the six-mile scramble through the crater, and
I groaned and limped down to it: but it is a truly spasmodic arrangement,
singularly independent of human control, and I have not the slightest
doubt that the reason why Mr. Gilman obligingly remained in the vicinity
was, lest I should be scalded or blown to atoms by a sudden freak of
Kilauea, though I don’t see that he was capable of preventing
either catastrophe! A slight grass shed has been built over a
sulphur steam crack, and within this there is a deep box with a sliding
lid and a hole for the throat, and the victim is supposed to sit in
this and be steamed. But on this occasion the temperature was
so high, that my hand, which I unwisely experimented upon, was immediately
peeled. In order not to wound Mr. Gilman’s feelings, which
are evidently sensitive on the subject of this irresponsible contrivance,
I remained the prescribed time within the shed, and then managed to
limp a little less, and go with him to what are called the Sulphur Banks,
on which sulphurous vapour is perpetually depositing the most exquisite
acicular sulphur crystals; these, as they aggregate, take entrancing
forms, like the featherwork produced by the “frost-fall”
in Colorado, but, like it, they perish with a touch, and can only be
seen in the wonderful laboratory where they are formed.</p>
<p>In addition to the natives before mentioned, there is an old man
here who has been a bullock-hunter on Hawaii for forty years, and knows
the island thoroughly. In common with all the residents I have
seen, he takes an intense interest in volcanic phenomena, and has just
been giving us a thrilling account of the great eruption in 1868, when
beautiful Hilo was threatened with destruction. Three weeks ago,
he says, a profound hush fell on Kilauea, and the summit crater of Mauna
Loa became active, and amidst throbbings, rumblings, and earthquakes,
broke into such magnificence that the light was visible 100 miles at
sea, a burning mountain 13,750 feet high! The fires after two
days died out as suddenly, and from here we can see the great dome-like
top, snow-capped under the stars, serene in an eternal winter.<br /> I.L.B.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>LETTER VI.</h3>
<p>HILO, HAWAII, Feb. 3.</p>
<p>My plans are quite overturned. I was to have ridden with the
native mail-carrier to the north of the island to take the steamer for
Honolulu, but there are freshets in the gulches on the road, making
the ride unsafe. There is no steamer from Hilo for three weeks,
and in the meantime Mr. and Mrs. S. have kindly consented to receive
me as a boarder; and I find the people, scenery, and life so charming,
that I only regret my detention on Mrs. Dexter’s account.
I am already rested from the great volcano trip.</p>
<p>We left Kilauea at seven in the morning of the 1st Feb. in a pouring
rain. The natives decorated us with <i>leis</i> of turquoise and
coral berries, and of crimson and yellow <i>ohia</i> blossoms.
The saddles were wet, the crater was blotted out by mist, water dripped
from the trees, we splashed through pools in the rocks, the horses plunged
into mud up to their knees, and the drip, drip, of vertical, earnest,
tepid, tropical rain accompanied us nearly to Hilo. Upa and Miss
K. held umbrellas the whole way, but I required both hands for holding
on to the horse whenever he chose to gallop. As soon as we left
the crater-house Upa started over the grass at full speed, my horse
of course followed, and my feet being jerked out of the stirrups, I
found myself ignominiously sitting on the animal’s back behind
the saddle, and nearly slid over his tail, before, by skilful efforts,
I managed to scramble over the peak back again, when I held on by horn
and mane until the others stopped. Happily I was last, and I don’t
think they saw me. Upa amused me very much on the way; he insists
that I am “a high chief.” He said a good deal about
Queen Victoria, whose virtues seem well known here: “Good Queen
make good people,” he said, “English very good!”
He asked me how many chiefs we had, and supposing him to mean hereditary
peers, I replied, over 500. “Too many, too many!”
he answered emphatically--“too much chief eat up people!”
He asked me if all people were good in England, and I was sorry to tell
him that this was very far from being the case. He was incredulous,
or seemed so out of flattery, and said, “You good Queen, you Bible
long time, you good!” I was surprised to find how much he
knew of European politics, of the liberation of Italy, and the Franco-German
war. He expressed a most orthodox horror of the Pope, who, he
said, he knew from his Bible was the “Beast!” He said,
“I bring band and serenade for good Queen sake,” but this
has not come off yet.</p>
<p>We straggled into Hilo just at dusk, thoroughly wet, jaded, and satisfied,
but half-starved, for the rain had converted that which should have
been our lunch into a brownish pulp of bread and newspaper, and we had
subsisted only on some half-ripe guavas. After the black desolation
of Kilauea, I realized more fully the beauty of Hilo, as it appeared
in the gloaming. The rain had ceased, cool breezes rustled through
the palm-groves and sighed through the funereal foliage of the pandanus.
Under thick canopies of the glossy breadfruit and banana, groups of
natives were twining garlands of roses and <i>ohia</i> blossoms.
The lights of happy foreign homes flashed from under verandahs festooned
with passion-flowers, and the low chant, to me nearly intolerable, but
which the natives love, mingled with the ceaseless moaning of the surf
and the sighing of the breeze through the trees, and a heavy fragrance,
unlike the faint sweet odours of the north, filled the evening air.
It was delicious.</p>
<p>I suffered intensely from pain and stiffness, and was induced to
try a true Hawaiian remedy, which is not only regarded as a cure for
all physical ills, but as the greatest of physical luxuries; <i>i.e.
lomi-lomi</i>. This is a compound of pinching, pounding, and squeezing,
and Moi Moi, the fine old Hawaiian nurse in this family, is an adept
in the art. She found out by instinct which were the most painful
muscles, and subjected them to a doubly severe pounding, laughing heartily
at my groans. However, I must admit that my arms and shoulders
were almost altogether relieved before the <i>lomi-lomi</i> was finished.
The first act of courtesy to a stranger in a native house is this, and
it is varied in many ways. Now and then the patient lies face
downwards, and children execute a sort of dance upon his spine. <a name="citation95"></a><a href="#footnote95">{95}</a>
Formerly, the chiefs, when not engaged in active pursuits, exacted <i>lomi-lomi</i>
as a constant service from their followers.</p>
<p>A number of Hilo folk came in during the evening to inquire how we
had sped, and for news of the volcano. I think the proximity of
Kilauea gives sublimity to Hilo, and helps to lift conversation out
of common-place ruts. It is no far-off spectacle, but an immediate
source of wonder and apprehension, for it rocks the village with earthquakes,
and renders the construction of stone houses and plastered ceilings
impossible. It rolls vast tidal waves with infinite destruction
on the coast, and of late years its fiery overflowings have twice threatened
this paradise with annihilation. Then there is the dead volcano
of Mauna Loa, from whose resurrection anything may be feared.
Even last night a false rumour that a light was to be seen on its summit
brought everyone out, but it was only an increased glare from the pit
of Hale-mau-mau. It is most interesting to be in a region of such
splendid possibilities.<br /> I.L.B.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>LETTER VII.</h3>
<p>HILO, HAWAII.</p>
<p>The white population here, which constitutes “society,”
is very small. There are two venerable missionaries “Father
Coan” and “Father Lyman,” the former pastor of a large
native congregation, which, though much shrunken, is not only self-sustaining,
but contributes $1200 a year to foreign missions, and the latter, though
very old and frail, the indefatigable head of an industrial school for
native young men. Their houses combine the trimness of New England,
with the luxuriance of the tropics; they are cool retreats, embowered
among breadfruit, tamarind, and bamboo, through whose graceful leafage
the blue waters of the bay are visible. Innumerable exotics are
domesticated round these fair homesteads. Two of “Father
Lyman’s” sons are influential residents, one being the Lieutenant-Governor
of the island. Other sons of former missionaries are settled here
in business, and there are a few strangers who have been attracted hither.
Dr. Wetmore, formerly of the mission, is a typical New Englander of
the old orthodox school. It is pleasant to see him brighten into
almost youthful enthusiasm on the subject of Hawaiian ferns. My
host, a genial, social, intelligent American, is sheriff of Hawaii,
postmaster, etc., and with his charming wife (a missionary’s daughter),
and some friends who live with them, make their large house a centre
of kindliness, friendliness, and hospitality. Mr. Thompson, pastor
of the foreign church, is a man of very liberal culture, as well as
wide sympathies. The lady principal of the Government school is
a handsome, talented Vermont girl, and besides being an immense favourite,
well deserves her unusual and lucrative position.</p>
<p>There are hardly any young ladies, and very few young men, but plenty
of rosy, blooming children, who run about barefoot all the year.
Besides the Hilo residents, there are some planters’ families
within seven miles, who come in to sewing circles, church, etc.
There is a small class of reprobate white men who have ostracized themselves
by means of drink and bad morals, and are a curse to the natives.
The half whites, among whom “Bill Ragsdale” is the leading
spirit, are not numerous. Hilo has no carriage roads and no carriages:
every one must ride or travel in a litter. People are very kind
to each other. Horses, dresses, patterns, books, and articles
of domestic use, are lent and borrowed continually. The smallness
of the society and the close proximity are too much like a ship.
People know everything about the details of each other’s daily
life, income, and expenditure, and the day’s doings of each member
of the little circle are matters for conversation. Indeed, were
it not for the volcano and its doings, conversation might degenerate
into gossip. There is an immense deal of personal talk; the wonder
is that there is so little ill-nature. Not only is what everybody
does here common property, but the sayings, doings, goings, comings,
and purchases of every one in all the other islands are common property
also, made so by letters and oral communication. It is all very
amusing, and on the whole very kindly, and human interests are always
interesting; but it has its perilous side. They are very kind
to each other. There is no distress which is not alleviated.
There is no nurse, and in cases of sickness the ladies take it by turns
to wait on the sufferer by day and night for weeks, and even months.
Such inevitable mutual dependence of course promotes friendliness.</p>
<p>The foreigners live very simply. The eating-rooms are used
solely for eating, the “parlours” are always cheerful and
tasteful, and the bedrooms very pretty, adorned with all manner of knick-knacks
made by the ladies, who are indescribably deft with their fingers.
Light Manilla matting is used instead of carpets. A Chinese man-cook,
who leaves at seven in the evening, is the only servant, except in one
or two cases, where, as here, a native woman condescends to come in
during the day as a nurse. In the morning the ladies, in their
fresh pretty wrappers and ruffled white aprons, sweep and dust the rooms,
and I never saw women look more truly graceful and refined than they
do, when engaged in the plain prose of these domestic duties.
They make all their own dresses, and when any lady is busy and wants
a dress in a hurry, two or three of them meet and make it for her.
I never saw people live such easy pleasant lives. They have such
good health, for one thing, partly no doubt because their domestic duties
give them wholesome exercise without pressing upon them. They
have abounding leisure for reading, music, choir practising, drawing,
fern-printing, fancy work, picnics, riding parties, and enjoy sociability
thoroughly. They usually ride in dainty bloomer costumes, even
when they don’t ride astride. All the houses are pretty,
and it takes little to make them so in this climate. One novel
fashion is to decorate the walls with festoons of the beautiful fern
Microlepia tenuifolia, which are renewed as soon as they fade, and every
room is adorned with a profusion of bouquets, which are easily obtained
where flowers bloom all the year. Many of the residents possess
valuable libraries, and these, with cabinets of minerals, volcanic specimens,
shells, and coral, with weapons, calabashes, ornaments, and cloth of
native manufacture, almost furnish a room in themselves. Some
of the volcanic specimens and the coral are of almost inestimable value,
as well as of exquisite beauty.</p>
<p>The gentlemen don’t seem to have near so much occupation as
the ladies. There are two stores on the beach, and at these and
at the Court-house they aggregate, for lack of club-house and exchange.
Business is not here a synonym for hurry, and official duties are light;
so light, that in these morning hours I see the governor, the sheriff,
and the judge, with three other gentlemen, playing an interminable croquet
game on the Court-house lawn. They purvey gossip for the ladies,
and how much they invent, and how much they only circulate can never
be known!</p>
<p>There is a large native population in the village, along the beach,
and on the heights above the Wailuku River. Frame houses with
lattices, and grass houses with deep verandahs, peep out everywhere
from among the mangoes and bananas. The governess of Hawaii, the
Princess Keelikalani, has a house on the beach shaded by a large umbrella-tree
and a magnificent clump of bamboos, 70 feet in height. The native
life with which one comes constantly in contact, is very interesting.</p>
<p>The men do whatever hard work is done in cultivating the <i>kalo</i>
patches and pounding the <i>kalo</i>. Thus <i>kalo</i>, the Arum
esculentum, forms the national diet. A Hawaiian could not exist
without his calabash of <i>poi</i>. The root is an object of the
tenderest solicitude, from the day it is planted until the hour when
it is lovingly eaten. The eating of <i>poi</i> seems a ceremony
of profound meaning; it is like the eating salt with an Arab, or a Masonic
sign. The <i>kalo</i> root is an ovate oblong, as bulky as a Californian
beet, and it has large leaves, shaped like a broad arrow, of a singularly
bright green. The best kinds grow entirely in water. The
patch is embanked and frequently inundated, and each plant grows on
a small hillock of puddled earth. The cutting from which it grows
is simply the top of the plant, with a little of the tuber. The
men stand up to their knees in water while cultivating the root.
It is excellent when boiled and sliced; but the preparation of <i>poi</i>
is an elaborate process. The roots are baked in an underground
oven, and are then laid on a slightly hollowed board, and beaten with
a stone pestle. It is hard work, and the men don’t wear
any clothes while engaged in it. It is not a pleasant-looking
operation. They often dip their hands in a calabash of water to
aid them in removing the sticky mass, and they always look hot and tired.
When it is removed from the board into large calabashes, it is reduced
to paste by the addition of water, and set aside for two or three days
to ferment. When ready for use it is either lilac or pink, and
tastes like sour bookbinders’ paste. Before water is added,
when it is in its dry state, it is called <i>paiai</i>, or hard food,
and is then packed in <i>ti</i> leaves in 20 lb. bundles for inland
carriage, and is exported to the Guano Islands. It is a prolific
and nutritious plant. It is estimated that forty square feet will
support an Hawaiian for a year.</p>
<p>The melon and <i>kalo</i> patches represent a certain amount of spasmodic
industry, but in most other things the natives take no thought for the
morrow. Why should they indeed? For while they lie basking
in the sun, without care of theirs, the cocoanut, the breadfruit, the
yam, the guava, the banana, and the delicious <i>papaya</i>, which is
a compound of a ripe apricot with a Cantaloupe melon, grow and ripen
perpetually. Men and women are always amusing themselves, the
men with surf-bathing, the women with making <i>leis</i>--both sexes
with riding, gossiping, and singing. Every man and woman, almost
every child, has a horse. There is a perfect plague of badly bred,
badly developed, weedy looking animals. The beach and the pleasant
lawn above it are always covered with men and women riding at a gallop,
with bare feet, and stirrups tucked between the toes. To walk
even 200 yards seems considered a degradation. The people meet
outside each others’ houses all day long, and sit in picturesque
groups on their mats, singing, laughing, talking, and quizzing the <i>haoles</i>,
as if the primal curse had never fallen. Pleasant sights of out-door
cooking gregariously carried on greet one everywhere. This style
of cooking prevails all over Polynesia. A hole in the ground is
lined with stones, wood is burned within it, and when the rude oven
has been sufficiently heated, the pig, chicken, breadfruit, or <i>kalo</i>,
wrapped in <i>ti</i> leaves is put in, a little water is thrown on,
and the whole is covered up. It is a slow but sure process.</p>
<p>Bright dresses, bright eyes, bright sunshine, music, dancing, a life
without care, and a climate without asperities, make up the sunny side
of native life as pictured at Hilo. But there are dark moral shadows,
the population is shrinking away, and rumours of leprosy are afloat,
so that some of these fair homes may be desolate ere long. However
many causes for regret exist, one must not forget that only forty years
ago the people inhabiting this strip of land between the volcanic wilderness
and the sea were a vicious, sensual, shameless herd, that no man among
them, except their chiefs, had any rights, that they were harried and
oppressed almost to death, and had no consciousness of any moral obligations.
Now, order and external decorum at least, prevail. There is not
a locked door in Hilo, and nobody makes anybody else afraid.</p>
<p>The people of Hawaii-nei are clothed and civilized in their habits;
they have equal rights; 6,500 of them have <i>kuleanas</i> or freeholds,
equable and enlightened laws are impartially administered; wrong and
oppression are unknown; they enjoy one of the best administered governments
in the world; education is universal, and the throne is occupied by
a liberal sovereign of their own race and election.</p>
<p>Few of them speak English. Their language is so easy that most
of the foreigners acquire it readily. You know how stupid I am
about languages, yet I have already picked up the names of most common
things. There are only twelve letters, but some of these are made
to do double duty, as K is also T, and L is also R. The most northern
island of the group, Kauai, is as often pronounced as if it began with
a T, and Kalo is usually Taro. It is a very musical language.
Each syllable and word ends with a vowel, and there are none of our
rasping and sibilant consonants. In their soft phraseology our
hard rough surnames undergo a metamorphosis, as Fisk into Filikina,
Wilson into Wilikina. Each vowel is distinctly pronounced, and
usually with the Italian sound. The volcano is pronounced as if
spelt Keel-ah-wee-ah, and Kauai as if Kah-wye-ee. The name Owhyhee
for Hawaii had its origin in a mistake, for the island was never anything
but Hawaii, pronounced Hah-wye-ee, but Captain Cook mistook the prefix
O, which is the sign of the nominative case, for a part of the word.
Many of the names of places, specially of those compounded with <i>wai</i>,
water, are very musical; Wailuku, “water of destruction;”
Waialeale, “rippling water;” Waioli, “singing water;”
Waipio, “vanquished water;” Kaiwaihae, “torn water.”
Mauna, “mountain,” is a mere prefix, and though always used
in naming the two giants of the Pacific, Mauna Kea, and Mauna Loa, is
hardly ever applied to Hualalai, “the offspring of the shining
sun;” or to Haleakala on Maui, “the house of the sun.”</p>
<p>I notice that the foreigners never use the English or botanical names
of trees or plants, but speak of <i>ohias</i>, <i>ohelos</i>, <i>kukui</i>
(candle-nut), <i>lauhala</i> (pandanus), <i>pulu</i> (tree fern), <i>mamané</i>,
<i>koa</i>, etc. There is one native word in such universal use
that I already find I cannot get on without it, <i>pilikia</i>.
It means anything, from a downright trouble to a slight difficulty or
entanglement. “I’m in a pilikia,” or “very
pilikia,” or “pilikia!” A revolution would be
“a pilikia.” The fact of the late king dying without
naming a successor was pre-eminently a pilikia, and it would be a serious
pilikia if a horse were to lose a shoe on the way to Kilauea.
<i>Hou-hou</i>, meaning “in a huff,” I hear on all sides;
and two words, <i>makai</i>, signifying “on the sea-side,”
and <i>mauka</i>, “on the mountain side.” These terms
are perfectly intelligible out of doors, but it is puzzling when one
is asked to sit on “the <i>mauka</i> side of the table.”
The word <i>aloha</i>, in foreign use, has taken the place of every
English equivalent. It is a greeting, a farewell, thanks, love,
goodwill. <i>Aloha</i> looks at you from tidies and illuminations,
it meets you on the roads and at house-doors, it is conveyed to you
in letters, the air is full of it. “My <i>aloha</i> to you,”
“he sends you his <i>aloha</i>,” “they desire their
<i>aloha</i>.” It already represents to me all of kindness
and goodwill that language can express, and the convenience of it as
compared with other phrases is, that it means exactly what the receiver
understands it to mean, and consequently, in all cases can be conveyed
by a third person. There is no word for “thank you.”
<i>Maikai</i> “good,” is often useful in its place, and
smiles supply the rest. There are no words which express “gratitude”
or “chastity,” or some others of the virtues; and they have
no word for “weather,” that which we understand by “weather”
being absolutely unknown.</p>
<p>Natives have no surnames. Our volcano guide is Upa, or Scissors,
but his wife and children are anything else. The late king was
Kamehameha, or the “lonely one.” The father of the
present king is called Kanaina, but the king’s name is Lunalilo,
or “above all.” Nor does it appear that a man is always
known by the same name, nor that a name necessarily indicates the sex
of its possessor. Thus, in signing a paper the signature would
be Hoapili <i>kanaka</i>, or Hoapili <i>wahine</i>, according as the
signer was man or woman. I remember that in my first letter I
fell into the vulgarism, initiated by the whaling crews, of calling
the natives <i>Kanakas</i>. This is universally but very absurdly
done, as <i>Kanaka</i> simply means man. If an Hawaiian word is
absolutely necessary, we might translate native and have <i>maole</i>,
pronounced <i>maori</i>, like that of the New Zealand aborigines.
<i>Kanaka</i> is to me decidedly objectionable, as conveying the idea
of canaille.</p>
<p>I had written thus far when Mr. Severance came in to say that a grand
display of the national sport of surf-bathing was going on, and a large
party of us went down to the beach for two hours to enjoy it.
It is really a most exciting pastime, and in a rough sea requires immense
nerve. The surf-board is a tough plank shaped like a coffin lid,
about two feet broad, and from six to nine feet long, well oiled and
cared for. It is usually made of the erythrina, or the breadfruit
tree. The surf was very heavy and favourable, and legions of natives
were swimming and splashing in the sea, though not more than forty had
their <i>Papa-he-nalu</i>, or “wave sliding boards,” with
them. The men, dressed only in <i>malos</i>, carrying their boards
under their arms, waded out from some rocks on which the sea was breaking,
and, pushing their boards before them, swam out to the first line of
breakers, and then diving down were seen no more till they re-appeared
as a number of black heads bobbing about like corks in smooth water
half a mile from shore.</p>
<p>What they seek is a very high roller, on the top of which they leap
from behind, lying face downwards on their boards. As the wave
speeds on, and the bottom strikes the ground, the top breaks into a
huge comber. The swimmers but appeared posing themselves on its
highest edge by dexterous movements of their hands and feet, keeping
just at the top of the curl, but always apparently coming down hill
with a slanting motion. So they rode in majestically, always just
ahead of the breaker, carried shorewards by its mighty impulse at the
rate of forty miles an hour, yet seeming to have a volition of their
own, as the more daring riders knelt and even stood on their surf-boards,
waving their arms and uttering exultant cries. They were always
apparently on the verge of engulfment by the fierce breaker whose towering
white crest was ever above and just behind them, but just as one expected
to see them dashed to pieces, they either waded quietly ashore, or sliding
off their boards, dived under the surf, taking advantage of the undertow,
and were next seen far out at sea, preparing for fresh exploits.</p>
<p>The great art seems to be to mount the roller precisely at the right
time, and to keep exactly on its curl just before it breaks. Two
or three athletes, who stood erect on their boards as they swept exultingly
shorewards, were received with ringing cheers by the crowd. Many
of the less expert failed to throw themselves on the crest, and slid
back into smooth water, or were caught in the combers which were fully
ten feet high, and after being rolled over and over, ignominiously disappeared
amidst roars of laughter, and shouts from the shore. At first
I held my breath in terror, thinking the creatures were smothered or
dashed to pieces, and then in a few seconds I saw the dark heads of
the objects of my anxiety bobbing about behind the rollers waiting for
another chance. The shore was thronged with spectators, and the
presence of the elite of Hilo stimulated the swimmers to wonderful exploits.</p>
<p>These people are truly amphibious. Both sexes seem to swim
by nature, and the children riot in the waves from their infancy.
They dive apparently by a mere effort of the will. In the deep
basin of the Wailuku River, a little below the Falls, the maidens swim,
float, and dive with garlands of flowers round their heads and throats.
The more furious and agitated the water is, the greater the excitement,
and the love of these watery exploits is not confined to the young.
I saw great fat men with their hair streaked with grey, balancing themselves
on their narrow surf-boards, and riding the surges shorewards with as
much enjoyment as if they were in their first youth. I enjoyed
the afternoon thoroughly.</p>
<p>Is it “always afternoon” here, I wonder? The sea
was so blue, the sunlight so soft, the air so sweet. There was
no toil, clang, or hurry. People were all holidaymaking (if that
can be where there is no work), and enjoying themselves, the surf-bathers
in the sea, and hundreds of gaily-dressed men and women galloping on
the beach. It was so serene and tropical. I sympathize with
those who eat the lotus, and remain for ever on such enchanted shores.</p>
<p>I am gaining health daily, and almost live in the open air.
I have hired the native policeman’s horse and saddle, and with
a Macgregor flannel riding costume, which my kind friends have made
for me, and a pair of jingling Mexican spurs am quite Hawaiianised.
I ride alone once or twice a day exploring the neighbourhood, finding
some new fern or flower daily, and abandon myself wholly to the fascination
of this new existence.<br /> I.L.B.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>LETTER VIII.</h3>
<p>ONOMEA, HAWAII. JUDGE AUSTIN’S.</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>This coast looked beautiful from the deck of the <i>Kilauea</i>,
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 <i>ti</i> and <i>lauhala</i>
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 <i>holukus</i>, weaving garlands, greet
us with “<i>Aloha</i>” as we pass. Then we come upon
a whole cluster of grass houses under <i>lauhalas</i> 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.</p>
<p>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 <i>nuhou</i>,
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 “<i>Aloha</i>.” 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, <i>ohias</i>, 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 <i>ohia</i>, or native apple, a species of Eugenia
(<i>Eugenia Malaccensis</i>), and the pandanus, with its aërial
roots, all looped together by large sky-blue convolvuli and the running
fern, and is marvellous with parasitic growths.</p>
<p>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 <i>kalo</i> patches. There are
sixty-nine of these extraordinary chasms within a distance of thirty
miles!</p>
<p>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 <i>lei</i>
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!</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <i>lunas</i>,
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.</p>
<p>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°, 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <i>rattoons</i> 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!</p>
<p>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. <a name="citation121"></a><a href="#footnote121">{121}</a>
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.<br /> I.L.B.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>LETTER IX.</h3>
<p>ONOMEA, HAWAII.</p>
<p>This is such a pleasant house and household, Mrs. A. is as bright
as though she were not an invalid, and her room, except at meals, is
the gathering-place of the family. The four boys are bright, intelligent
beings, out of doors, barefooted, all day, and with a passion for horses,
of which their father possesses about thirty. The youngest, Ephy,
is the brightest child for three years old that I ever saw, but absolutely
crazy about horses and mules. He talks of little else, and is
constantly asking me to draw horses on his slate. He is a merry,
audacious little creature, but came in this evening quite subdued.
The sun was setting gloriously behind the forest-covered slopes, flooding
the violet distances with a haze of gold, and, in a low voice, he said,
“I’ve seen God.”</p>
<p>There is the usual Chinese cook, who cooks and waits and looks good-natured,
and of course has his own horse, and his wife, a most minute Chinese
woman, comes in and attends to the rooms and to Mrs. A., and sews and
mends. She wears her native dress--a large, stiff, flat cane hat,
like a tray, fastened firmly on or to her head; a scanty loose frock
of blue denim down to her knees, wide trousers of the same down to her
ancles, and slippers. Her hair is knotted up; she always wears
silver armlets, and would not be seen without the hat for anything.
There is not a bell in this or any house on the islands, and the bother
of servants is hardly known, for the Chinamen do their work like automatons,
and disappear at sunset. In a land where there are no carpets,
no fires, no dust, no hot water needed, no windows to open and shut--for
they are always open--no further service is really required. It
is a simple arcadian life, and people live more happily than any that
I have seen elsewhere. It is very cheerful to live among people
whose faces are not soured by the east wind, or wrinkled by the worrying
effort to “keep up appearances,” which deceive nobody; who
have no formal visiting, but real sociability; who regard the light
manual labour of domestic life as a pleasure, not a thing to be ashamed
of; who are contented with their circumstances, and have leisure to
be kind, cultured, and agreeable; and who live so tastefully, though
simply, that they can at any time ask a passing stranger to occupy the
simple guest chamber, or share the simple meal, without any of the soul-harassing
preparations which often make the exercise of hospitality a thing of
terror to people in the same circumstances at home.</p>
<p>People will ask you, “What is the food?” We have
everywhere bread and biscuit made of California flour, griddle cakes
with molasses, and often cracked wheat, butter not very good, sweet
potatoes, boiled <i>kalo</i>, Irish potatoes, and <i>poi</i>.
I have not seen fish on any table except at the Honolulu Hotel, or any
meat but beef, which is hard and dry as compared with ours. We
have China or Japan tea, and island coffee. Honolulu is the only
place in which intoxicants are allowed to be sold; and I have not seen
beer, wine, or spirits in any house. Bananas are an important
article of diet, and sliced guavas, eaten with milk and sugar, are very
good. The cooking is always done in detached cook houses, in and
on American cooking stoves.</p>
<p>As to clothing. I wear my flannel riding dress for both riding
and walking, and a black silk at other times. The resident ladies
wear prints and silks, and the gentlemen black cloth or dark tweed suits.
Flannel is not required, neither are puggarees or white hats or sunshades
at any season. The changes of temperature are very slight, and
there is no chill when the sun goes down. The air is always like
balm; the rain is tepid and does not give cold; in summer it may be
three or four degrees warmer. Windows and doors stand open the
whole year. A blanket is agreeable at night, but not absolutely
necessary. It is a truly delightful climate and mode of living,
with such an abundance of air and sunshine. My health improves
daily, and I do not consider myself an invalid.</p>
<p>Between working, reading aloud, talking, riding, and “loafing,”
I have very little time for letter writing; but I must tell you of a
delightful fern-hunting expedition on the margin of the forest that
I took yesterday, accompanied by Mr. Thompson and the two elder boys.
We rode in the <i>mauka</i> direction, outside cane ready for cutting,
with silvery tassels gleaming in the sun, till we reached the verge
of the forest, where an old trail was nearly obliterated by a trailing
matted grass four feet high, and thousands of woody ferns, which conceal
streams, holes, and pitfalls. When further riding was impossible,
we tethered our horses and proceeded on foot. We were then 1,500
feet above the sea by the aneroid barometer, and the increased coolness
was perceptible. The mercury is about four degrees lower for each
1,000 feet of ascent--rather more than this indeed on the windward side
of the islands. The forest would be quite impenetrable were it
not for the remains of wood-hauling trails, which, though grown up to
the height of my shoulders, are still passable.</p>
<p>Underneath the green maze, invisible streams, deep down, made sweet
music, sweeter even than the gentle murmur of the cool breeze among
the trees. The forest on the volcano track, which I thought so
tropical and wonderful a short time ago, is nothing for beauty to compare
with this “garden of God.” I wish I could describe
it, but cannot; and as you know only our pale, small-leaved trees, with
their uniform green, I cannot say that it is like this or that.
The first line of a hymn, “Oh, Paradise! oh, Paradise!”
rings in my brain, and the rustic exclamation we used to hear when we
were children, “Well, I never!” followed by innumerable
notes of admiration, seems to exhaust the whole vocabulary of wonderment.
The former cutting of some trees gives atmosphere, and the tumbled nature
of the ground shows everything to the best advantage. There were
openings over which huge candle-nuts, with their pea-green and silver
foliage, spread their giant arms, and the light played through their
branches on an infinite variety of ferns. There were groves of
bananas and plantains with shiny leaves 8 feet long, like enormous hart’s-tongue,
the bright-leaved <i>noni</i>, the dark-leaved <i>koa</i>, the mahogany
of the Pacific; the great glossy-leaved Eugenia--a forest tree as large
as our largest elms; the small-leaved <i>ohia</i>, its rose-crimson
flowers making a glory in the forests, and its young shoots of carmine
red vying with the colouring of the New England fall; and the strange
<i>lauhala</i> hung its stiff drooping plumes, which creak in the faintest
breeze; and the superb breadfruit hung its untempting fruit, and from
spreading guavas we shook the ripe yellow treasures, scooping out the
inside, all juicy and crimson, to make drinking cups of the rind; and
there were trees that had surrendered their own lives to a conquering
army of vigorous parasites which had clothed their skeletons with an
unapproachable and indistinguishable beauty, and over trees and parasites
the tender tendrils of great mauve morning glories trailed and wreathed
themselves, and the strong, strangling stems of the <i>ié</i>
wound themselves round the tall <i>ohias</i>, which supported their
quaint yucca-like spikes of leaves fifty feet from the ground.</p>
<p>There were some superb plants of the glossy tropical-looking bird’s-nest
fern, or <i>Asplenium Nidus</i>, which makes its home on the stems and
branches of trees, and brightens the forest with its great shining fronds.
I got a specimen from a <i>koa</i> tree. The plant had nine fronds,
each one measuring from 4 feet 1 inch to 4 feet 7 inches in length,
and from 7 to 9 inches in breadth. There were some very fine tree-ferns
<i>(Cibotium Chamissoi</i>?), two of which being accessible, we measured,
and found them seventeen and twenty feet high, their fronds eight feet
long, and their stems four feet ten inches in circumference three feet
from the ground. They showed the most various shades of green,
from the dark tint of the mature frond, to the pale pea green of those
which were just uncurling themselves. I managed to get up into
a tree for the first time in my life to secure specimens of two beautiful
parasitic ferns (Polypodium tamariscinum and P. Hymenophylloides?).
I saw for the first time, too, a lygodium and the large climbing potato-fern
(Polypodium spectrum), very like a yam in the distance, and the Vittaria
elongata, whose long grassy fronds adorn almost every tree. The
beautiful Microlepia tenuifolia abounded, and there were a few plants
of the loveliest fern I ever saw (Trichomanes meifolium), in specimens
of which I indulged sparingly, and almost grudgingly, for it seemed
unfitting that a form of such perfect beauty should be mummied in a
herbarium. There was one fern in profusion, with from 90 to 130
pair of pinnæ on each frond; and the fronds, though often exceeding
five feet in length, were only two inches broad (Nephrolepis pectinata).
There were many prostrate trees, which nature has entirely covered with
choice ferns, specially the rough stem of the tree-fern. I counted
seventeen varieties on one trunk, and on the whole obtained thirty-five
specimens for my collection.</p>
<p>The forest soon became completely impenetrable, the beautiful Gleichenia
Hawaiiensis forming an impassable network over all the undergrowth.
And, indeed, without this it would have been risky to make further explorations,
for often masses of wonderful matted vegetation sustained us temporarily
over streams six or eight feet below, whose musical tinkle alone warned
us of our peril. I shall never again see anything so beautiful
as this fringe of the impassable timber belt. I enjoyed it more
than anything I have yet seen; it was intoxicating, my eyes were “satisfied
with seeing.” It was a dream, a rapture, this maze of form
and colour, this entangled luxuriance, this bewildering beauty, through
which we caught bright glimpses of a heavenly sky above, while far away,
below glade and lawn, shimmered in surpassing loveliness the cool blue
of the Pacific. To me, with my hatred of reptiles and insects,
it is not the least among the charms of Hawaii, that these glorious
entanglements and cool damp depths of a redundant vegetation give shelter
to nothing of unseemly shape and venomous proboscis or fang. Here,
in cool, dreamy, sunny Onomea, there are no horrid, drumming, stabbing,
mosquitoes as at Honolulu, to remind me of what I forget sometimes,
that I am not in Eden. <a name="citation128"></a><a href="#footnote128">{128}</a><br /> I.L.B.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>LETTER X.</h3>
<p>WAIPIO VALLEY, HAWAII.</p>
<p>There is something fearful in the isolation of this valley, open
at one end to the sea, and walled in on all others by <i>palis</i> or
precipices, from 1,000 to 2,000 feet in height, over the easiest of
which hangs the dizzy track, which after trailing over the country for
sixty difficult miles, connects Waipio with the little world of Hilo.
The evening is very sombre, and darkness comes on early between these
high walls. I am in a native house in which not a word of English
is spoken, and Deborah, among her own people, has returned with zest
to the exclusive use of her own tongue. This is more solitary
than solitude, and tired as I am with riding and roughing it, I must
console myself with writing to you. The natives, after staring
and giggling for some time, took this letter out of my hand, with many
exclamations, which, Deborah tells me, are at the rapidity and minuteness
of my writing. I told them the letter was to my sister, and they
asked if I had your picture. They are delighted with it, and it
is going round a large circle assembled without. They see very
few foreign women here, and are surprised that I have not brought a
foreign man with me.</p>
<p>There was quite a bustle of small preparations before we left Onomea.
Deborah was much excited, and I was not less so, for it is such a complete
novelty to take a five days’ ride alone with natives. D.
is a very nice native girl of seventeen, who speaks English tolerably,
having been brought up by Mr. and Mrs. Austin. She was lately
married to a white man employed on the plantation. Mr. A. most
kindly lent me a favourite mule, but declined to state that she would
not kick, or buck, or turn obstinate, or lie down in the water, all
which performances are characteristic of mules. She has, however,
as he expected, behaved as the most righteous of her species.
Our equipment was a matter for some consideration, as I had no waterproof;
but eventually I wore my flannel riding dress, and carried my plaid
in front of the saddle. My saddle-bags, which were behind, contained
besides our changes of clothes, a jar of Liebig’s essence of beef,
some potted beef, a tin of butter, a tin of biscuits, a tin of sardines,
a small loaf, and some roast yams. Deborah looked very <i>piquante</i>
in a bloomer dress of dark blue, with masses of shining hair in natural
ringlets falling over the collar, mixing with her <i>lei</i> of red
rose-buds. She rode a powerful horse, of which she has much need,
as this is the most severe road on horses on Hawaii, and it takes a
really good animal to come to Waipio and go back to Hilo.</p>
<p>We got away at seven in bright sunshine, and D.’s husband accompanied
us the first mile to see that our girths and gear were all right.
It was very slippery, but my mule deftly gathered her feet under her,
and slid when she could not walk. From Onomea to the place where
we expected to find the guide, we kept going up and down the steep sides
of ravines, and scrambling through torrents till we reached a deep and
most picturesque gulch, with a primitive school-house at the bottom,
and some grass-houses clustering under palms and <i>papayas</i>, a valley
scene of endless ease and perpetual afternoon. Here we found that
D.’s uncle, who was to have been our guide, could not go, because
his horse was not strong enough, but her cousin volunteered his escort,
and went away to catch his horse, while we tethered ours and went into
the school-house.</p>
<p>This reminded me somewhat of the very poorest schools connected with
the Edinburgh Ladies’ Highland School Association, but the teacher
had a remarkable paucity of clothing, and he seemed to have the charge
of his baby, which, much clothed, and indeed much muffled, lay on the
bench beside him. For there were benches, and a desk, and even
a blackboard and primers down in the deep wild gulch, where the music
of living waters, and the thunderous roll of the Pacific, accompanied
the children’s tuneless voices as they sang an Hawaiian hymn.
I shall remember nothing of the scholars but rows of gleaming white
teeth, and splendid brown eyes. I thought both teacher and children
very apathetic. There were lamentably few, though the pretty rigidly
enforced law, which compels all children between the ages of six and
fifteen to attend school for forty weeks of the year, had probably gathered
together all the children of the district. They all wore coloured
chemises and <i>leis</i> of flowers. Outside, some natives presented
us with some ripe <i>papayas</i>.</p>
<p>Mounting again, we were joined by two native women, who were travelling
the greater part of the way hither, and this made it more cheerful for
D. The elder one had nothing on her head but her wild black hair,
and she wore a black <i>holuku</i>, a <i>lei</i> of the orange seeds
of the pandanus, orange trousers and big spurs strapped on her bare
feet. A child of four, bundled up in a black poncho, rode on a
blanket behind the saddle, and was tied to the woman’s waist,
by an orange shawl. The younger woman, who was very pretty, wore
a sailor’s hat, <i>leis</i> of crimson <i>ohia</i> blossoms round
her hat and throat, a black <i>holuku</i>, a crimson poncho, and one
spur, and held up a green umbrella whenever it rained.</p>
<p>We were shortly joined by Kaluna, the cousin, on an old, big, wall-eyed,
bare-tailed, raw-boned horse, whose wall-eyes contrived to express mingled
suspicion and fear, while a flabby, pendant, lower lip, conveyed the
impression of complete abjectness. He looked like some human beings
who would be vicious if they dared, but the vice had been beaten out
of him long ago, and only the fear remained. He has a raw suppurating
sore under the saddle, glueing the blanket to his lean back, and crouches
when he is mounted. Both legs on one side look shorter than on
the other, giving a crooked look to himself and his rider, and his bare
feet are worn thin as if he had been on lava. I rode him for a
mile yesterday, and when he attempted a convulsive canter, with three
short steps and a stumble in it, his abbreviated off legs made me feel
as if I were rolling over on one side. Kaluna beats him the whole
time with a heavy stick; but except when he strikes him most barbarously
about his eyes and nose he only cringes, without quickening his pace.
When I rode him mercifully the true hound nature came out. The
sufferings of this wretched animal have been the great drawback on this
journey. I have now bribed Kaluna with as much as the horse is
worth to give him a month’s rest, and long before that time I
hope the owl-hawks will be picking his bones.</p>
<p>The horse has come before the rider, but Kaluna is no nonentity.
He is a very handsome youth of sixteen, with eyes which are remarkable,
even in this land of splendid eyes, a straight nose, a very fine mouth,
and beautiful teeth, a mass of wavy, almost curly hair, and a complexion
not so brown as to conceal the mantling of the bright southern blood
in his cheeks. His figure is lithe, athletic, and as pliable as
if he were an invertebrate animal, capable of unlimited doublings up
and contortions, to which his thin white shirt and blue cotton trousers
are no impediment. He is almost a complete savage; his movements
are impulsive and uncontrolled, and his handsome face looks as if it
belonged to a half-tamed creature out of the woods. He talks loud,
laughs incessantly, croons a monotonous chant, which sounds almost as
heathenish as tom-toms, throws himself out of his saddle, hanging on
by one foot, lingers behind to gather fruits, and then comes tearing
up, beating his horse over the ears and nose, with a fearful yell and
a prolonged sound like <i>har-r-r-ouche</i>, striking my mule and threatening
to overturn me as he passes me on the narrow track. He is the
most thoroughly careless and irresponsible being I ever saw, reckless
about the horses, reckless about himself, without any manners or any
obvious sense of right and propriety. In his mouth this musical
tongue becomes as harsh as the speech of a cocatoo or parrot.
His manner is familiar. He rides up to me, pokes his head under
my hat, and says, interrogatively, “Cold!” by which I understand
that the poor boy is shivering himself. In eating he plunges his
hand into my bowl of fowl, or snatches half my biscuit. Yet I
daresay he means well, and I am thoroughly amused with him, except when
he maltreats his horse.</p>
<p>It is a very strange life going about with natives, whose ideas,
as shown by their habits, are, to say the least of it, very peculiar.
Deborah speaks English fairly, having been brought up by white people,
and is a very nice girl. But were she one of our own race I should
not suppose her to be more than eleven years old, and she does not seem
able to understand my ideas on any subject, though I can be very much
interested and amused with hearing hers.</p>
<p>We had a perfect day until the middle of the afternoon. The
dimpling Pacific was never more than a mile from us as we kept the narrow
track in the long green grass; and on our left the blunt snow-patched
peaks of Mauna Kea rose from the girdle of forest, looking so delusively
near that I fancied a two-hours’ climb would take us to his lofty
summit. The track for twenty-six miles is just in and out of gulches,
from 100 to 800 feet in depth, all opening on the sea, which sweeps
into them in three booming rollers. The candle-nut or <i>kukui</i>
(aleurites triloba) tree, which on the whole predominates, has leaves
of a rich deep green when mature, which contrast beautifully with the
flaky silvery look of the younger foliage. Some of the shallower
gulches are filled exclusively with this tree, which in growing up to
the light to within 100 feet of the top, presents a mass and density
of leafage quite unique, giving the gulch the appearance as if billows
of green had rolled in and solidified there. Each gulch has some
specialty of ferns and trees, and in such a distance as sixty miles
they vary considerably with the variations of soil, climate, and temperature.
But everywhere the rocks, trees, and soil are covered and crowded with
the most exquisite ferns and mosses, from the great tree-fern, whose
bright fronds light up the darker foliage, to the lovely maiden-hair
and graceful selaginellas which are mirrored in pools of sparkling water.
Everywhere, too, the great blue morning glory opened to a heaven not
bluer than itself.</p>
<p>The descent into the gulches is always solemn. You canter along
a bright breezy upland, and are suddenly arrested by a precipice, and
from the depths of a forest abyss a low plash or murmur rises, or a
deep bass sound, significant of water which must be crossed, and one
reluctantly leaves the upper air to plunge into heavy shadow, and each
experience increases one’s apprehensions concerning the next.
Though in some gulches the <i>kukui</i> preponderates, in others the
<i>lauhala</i> whose aërial roots support it in otherwise impossible
positions, and in others the sombre <i>ohia</i>, yet there were some
grand clefts in which nature has mingled her treasures impartially,
and out of cool depths of ferns rose the feathery coco-palm, the glorious
breadfruit, with its green melon-like fruit, the large <i>ohia</i>,
ideal in its beauty,--the most gorgeous flowering tree I have ever seen,
with spikes of rose-crimson blossoms borne on the old wood, blazing
among its shining many-tinted leafage,--the tall <i>papaya</i> with
its fantastic crown, the profuse gigantic plantain, and innumerable
other trees, shrubs, and lianas, in the beauty and bounteousness of
an endless spring. Imagine my surprise on seeing at the bottom
of one gulch, a grove of good-sized, dark-leaved, very handsome trees,
with an abundance of smooth round green fruit upon them, and on reaching
them finding that they were orange trees, their great size, far exceeding
that of the largest at Valencia, having prevented me from recognizing
them earlier! In another, some large shrubs with oval, shining,
dark leaves, much crimped at the edges, bright green berries along the
stalks, and masses of pure white flowers lying flat, like snow on evergreens,
turned out to be coffee! The guava with its obtuse smooth leaves,
sweet white blossoms on solitary axillary stalks, and yellow fruit was
universal. The novelty of the fruit, foliage, and vegetation is
an intense delight to me. I should like to see how the rigid aspect
of a coniferous tree, of which there is not one indigenous to the islands,
would look by contrast. We passed through a long thicket of sumach,
an exotic from North America, which still retains its old habit of shedding
its leaves, and its grey, wintry, desolate-looking branches reminded
me that there are less-favoured parts of the world, and that you are
among mist, cold, murk, slush, gales, leaflessness, and all the dismal
concomitants of an English winter.</p>
<p>It is wonderful that people should have thought of crossing these
gulches on anything with four legs. Formerly, that is, within
the last thirty years, the precipices could only be ascended by climbing
with the utmost care, and descended by being lowered with ropes from
crag to crag, and from tree to tree, when hanging on by the hands became
impracticable to even the most experienced mountaineer. In this
last fashion Mr. Coan and Mr. Lyons were let down to preach the gospel
to the people of the then populous valleys. But within recent
years, narrow tracks, allowing one horse to pass another, have been
cut along the sides of these precipices, without any windings to make
them easier, and only deviating enough from the perpendicular to allow
of their descent by the sure-footed native-born animals. Most
of them are worn by water and animals’ feet, broken, rugged, jagged,
with steps of rock sometimes three feet high, produced by breakage here
and there. Up and down these the animals slip, jump, and scramble,
some of them standing still until severely spurred, or driven by some
one from behind. Then there are softer descents, slippery with
damp, and perilous in heavy rains, down which they slide dexterously,
gathering all their legs under them. On a few of these tracks
a false step means death, but the vegetation which clothes the <i>pali</i>
below, blinds one to the risk. I don’t think anything would
induce me to go up a swinging zigzag--up a terrible <i>pali</i> opposite
to me as I write, the sides of which are quite undraped.</p>
<p>All the gulches for the first twenty-four miles contain running water.
The great Hakalau gulch we crossed early yesterday, has a river with
a smooth bed as wide as the Thames at Eton. Some have only small
quiet streams, which pass gently through ferny grottoes. Others
have fierce strong torrents dashing between abrupt walls of rock, among
immense boulders into deep abysses, and cast themselves over precipice
after precipice into the ocean. Probably, many of these are the
courses of fire torrents, whose jagged masses of <i>a-a</i> have since
been worn smooth, and channelled into holes by the action of water.
A few are crossed on narrow bridges, but the majority are forded, if
that quiet conventional term can be applied to the violent flounderings
by which the horses bring one through. The transparency deceives
them, and however deep the water is, they always try to lift their fore
feet out of it, which gives them a disagreeable rolling motion.
(Mr. Brigham in his valuable monograph on the Hawaiian volcanoes quoted
below, <a name="citation138"></a><a href="#footnote138">{138}</a> appears
as much impressed with these gulches as I am.)</p>
<p>We lunched in one glorious valley, and Kaluna made drinking cups
which held fully a pint, out of the beautiful leaves of the Arum esculentum.
Towards afternoon turbid-looking clouds lowered over the sea, and by
the time we reached the worst <i>pali</i> of all, the south side of
Laupahoehoe, they burst on us in torrents of rain accompanied by strong
wind. This terrible precipice takes one entirely by surprise.
Kaluna, who rode first, disappeared so suddenly that I thought he had
gone over. It is merely a dangerous broken ledge, and besides
that it looks as if there were only foothold for a goat, one is dizzied
by the sight of the foaming ocean immediately below, and, when we actually
reached the bottom, there was only a narrow strip of shingle between
the stupendous cliff and the resounding surges, which came up as if
bent on destruction. The path by which we descended looked a mere
thread on the side of the precipice. I don’t know what the
word beetling means, but if it means anything bad, I will certainly
apply it to that <i>pali</i>.</p>
<p>A number of disastrous-looking native houses are clustered under
some very tall palms in the open part of the gulch, but it is a most
wretched situation; the roar of the surf is deafening, the scanty supply
of water is brackish, there are rumours that leprosy is rife, and the
people are said to be the poorest on Hawaii. We were warned that
we could not spend a night comfortably there, so wet, tired, and stiff,
we rode on another six miles to the house of a native called Bola-Bola,
where we had been instructed to remain. The rain was heavy and
ceaseless, and the trail had become so slippery that our progress was
much retarded. It was a most unpropitious-looking evening, and
I began to feel the painful stiffness arising from prolonged fatigue
in saturated clothes. I indulged in various imaginations as we
rode up the long ascent leading to Bola-Bola’s, but this time
they certainly were not of sofas and tea, and I never aspired to anything
beyond drying my clothes by a good fire, for at Hilo some people had
shrugged their shoulders, and others had laughed mysteriously at the
idea of our sleeping there, and some had said it was one of the worst
of native houses.</p>
<p>A single glance was enough. It was a dilapidated frame-house,
altogether forlorn, standing unsheltered on a slope of the mountain,
with one or two yet more forlorn grass piggeries, which I supposed might
be the cook house, and eating-house near it.</p>
<p>A prolonged <i>har-r-r-rouche</i> from Kaluna brought out a man with
a female horde behind him, all shuffling into clothes as we approached,
and we stiffly dismounted from the wet saddles in which we had sat for
ten hours, and stiffly hobbled up into the littered verandah, the water
dripping from our clothes, and squeezing out of our boots at every step.
Inside there was one room about 18 x 14 feet, which looked as if the
people had just arrived and had thrown down their goods promiscuously.
There were mats on the floor not over clean, and half the room was littered
and piled with mats rolled up, boxes, bamboos, saddles, blankets, lassos,
cocoanuts, <i>kalo</i> roots, bananas, quilts, pans, calabashes, bundles
of hard <i>poi</i> in <i>ti</i> leaves, bones, cats, fowls, clothes.
A frightful old woman, looking like a relic of the old heathen days,
with bristling grey hair cut short, her body tattooed all over, and
no clothing but a ragged blanket huddled round her shoulders; a girl
about twelve, with torrents of shining hair, and a piece of bright green
calico thrown round her, and two very good-looking young women in rose-coloured
chemises, one of them holding a baby, were squatting and lying on the
mats, one over another, like a heap of savages.</p>
<p>When the man found that we were going to stay all night he bestirred
himself, dragged some of the things to one side and put down a shake-down
of <i>pulu</i> (the silky covering of the fronds of one species of tree-fern),
with a sheet over it, and a gay quilt of orange and red cotton.
There was a thin printed muslin curtain to divide off one half of the
room, a usual arrangement in native houses. He then helped to
unsaddle the horses, and the confusion of the room was increased by
a heap of our wet saddles, blankets, and gear. All this time the
women lay on the floor and stared at us.</p>
<p>Rheumatism seemed impending, for the air up there was chilly, and
I said to Deborah that I must make some change in my dress, and she
signed to Kaluna, who sprang at my soaked boots and pulled them off,
and my stockings too, with a savage alacrity which left it doubtful
for a moment whether he had not also pulled off my feet! I had
no means of making any further change except putting on a wrapper over
my wet clothes.</p>
<p>Meanwhile the man killed and boiled a fowl, and boiled some sweet
potato, and when these untempting viands, and a calabash of <i>poi</i>
were put before us, we sat round them and eat; I with my knife, the
others with their fingers. There was some coffee in a dirty bowl.
The females had arranged a row of pillows on their mat, and all lay
face downwards, with their chins resting upon them, staring at us with
their great brown eyes, and talking and laughing incessantly.
They had low sensual faces, like some low order of animal. When
our meal was over, the man threw them the relics, and they soon picked
the bones clean. It surprised me that after such a badly served
meal the man brought a bowl of water for our hands, and something intended
for a towel.</p>
<p>By this time it was dark, and a stone, deeply hollowed at the top,
was produced, containing beef fat and a piece of rag for a wick, which
burned with a strong flaring light. The women gathered themselves
up and sat round a large calabash of <i>poi</i>, conveying the sour
paste to their mouths with an inimitable twist of the fingers, laying
their heads back and closing their eyes with a look of animal satisfaction.
When they had eaten they lay down as before, with their chins on their
pillows, and again the row of great brown eyes confronted me.
Deborah, Kaluna, and the women talked incessantly in loud shrill voices
till Kaluna uttered the word <i>auwé</i> with a long groaning
intonation, apparently signifying weariness, divested himself of his
clothes and laid down on a mat alongside our shake-down, upon which
we let down the dividing curtain and wrapped ourselves up as warmly
as possible.</p>
<p>I was uneasy about Deborah who had had a cough for some time, and
consequently took the outside place under the window which was broken,
and presently a large cat jumped through the hole and down upon me,
followed by another and another, till five wild cats had effected an
entrance, making me a stepping-stone to ulterior proceedings.
Had there been a sixth I think I could not have borne the infliction
quietly. Strips of jerked beef were hanging from the rafters,
and by the light which was still burning I watched the cats climb up
stealthily, seize on some of these, descend, and disappear through the
window, making me a stepping-stone as before, but with all their craft
they let some of the strips fall, which awoke Deborah, and next I saw
Kaluna’s magnificent eyes peering at us under the curtain.
Then the natives got up, and smoked and eat more <i>poi</i> at intervals,
and talked, and Kaluna and Deborah quarrelled, jokingly, about the time
of night she told me, and the moon through the rain-clouds occasionally
gave us delusive hopes of dawn, and I kept moving my place to get out
of the drip from the roof, and so the night passed. I was amused
all the time, though I should have preferred sleep to such nocturnal
diversions. It was so new, and so odd, to be the only white person
among eleven natives in a lonely house, and yet to be as secure from
danger and annoyance as in our own home.</p>
<p>At last a pale dawn did appear, but the rain was still coming down
heavily, and our poor animals were standing dismally with their heads
down and their tails turned towards the wind. Yesterday evening
I took a change of clothes out of the damp saddle-bags, and put them
into what I hoped was a dry place, but they were soaked, wetter even
than those in which I had been sleeping, and my boots and Deborah’s
were so stiff, that we gladly availed ourselves of Kaluna’s most
willing services. The mode of washing was peculiar: he held a
calabash with about half-a-pint of water in it, while we bathed our
faces and hands, and all the natives looked on and tittered. This
was apparently his idea of politeness, for no persuasion would induce
him to put the bowl down on the mat, and Deborah evidently thought it
was proper respect. We had a repetition of the same viands as
the night before for breakfast, and, as before, the women lay with their
chins on their pillows and stared at us.</p>
<p>The rain ceased almost as soon as we started, and though it has not
been a bright day, it has been very pleasant. There are no large
gulches on to-day’s journey. The track is mostly through
long grass, over undulating uplands, with park-like clumps of trees,
and thickets of guava and the exotic sumach. Different ferns,
flowers, and vegetation, with much less luxuriance and little water,
denoted a drier climate and a different soil. There are native
churches at distances of six or seven miles all the way from Hilo, but
they seem too large and too many for the scanty population.</p>
<p>We moved on in single file at a jog-trot wherever the road admitted
of it, meeting mounted natives now and then, which led to a delay for
the exchange of <i>nuhou</i>; and twice we had to turn into the thicket
to avoid what here seems to be considered a danger. There are
many large herds of semi-wild bullocks on the mountains, branded cattle,
as distinguished from the wild or unbranded, and when they are wanted
for food, a number of experienced <i>vaccheros</i> on strong shod horses
go up, and drive forty or fifty of them down. We met such a drove
bound for Hilo, with one or two men in front and others at the sides
and behind, uttering loud shouts. The bullocks are nearly mad
with being hunted and driven, and at times rush like a living tornado,
tearing up the earth with their horns. As soon as the galloping
riders are seen and the crooked-horned beasts, you retire behind a screen.
There must be some tradition of some one having been knocked down and
hurt, for reckless as the natives are said to be, they are careful about
this, and we were warned several times by travellers whom we met, that
there were “bullocks ahead.” The law provides that
the <i>vaccheros</i> shall station one of their number at the head of
a gulch to give notice when cattle are to pass through.</p>
<p>We jogged on again till we met a native who told us that we were
quite close to our destination; but there were no signs of it, for we
were still on the lofty uplands, and the only prominent objects were
huge headlands confronting the sea. I got off to walk, as my mule
seemed footsore, but had not gone many yards when we came suddenly to
the verge of a <i>pali</i>, about 1,000 feet deep, with a narrow fertile
valley below, with a yet higher <i>pali</i> on the other side, both
abutting perpendicularly on the sea. I should think the valley
is not more than three miles long, and it is walled in by high inaccessible
mountains. It is in fact, a gulch on a vastly enlarged scale.
The prospect below us was very charming, a fertile region perfectly
level, protected from the sea by sandhills, watered by a winding stream,
and bright with fishponds, meadow lands, <i>kalo</i> patches, orange
and coffee groves, figs, breadfruit, and palms. There were a number
of grass-houses, and a native church with a spire, and another up the
valley testified to the energy and aggressiveness of Rome. We
saw all this from the moment we reached the <i>pali</i>; and it enlarged,
and the detail grew upon us with every yard of the laborious descent
of broken craggy track, which is the only mode of access to the valley
from the outer world. I got down on foot with difficulty; a difficulty
much increased by the long rowels of my spurs, which caught on the rocks
and entangled my dress, the simple expedient of taking them off not
having occurred to me!</p>
<p>A neat frame-house, with large stones between it and the river, was
our destination. It belongs to a native named Halemanu, a great
man in the district, for, besides being a member of the legislature,
he is deputy sheriff. He is a man of property, also; and though
he cannot speak a word of English, he is well educated in Hawaiian,
and writes an excellent hand. I brought a letter of introduction
to him from Mr. Severance, and we were at once received with every hospitality,
our horses cared for, and ourselves luxuriously lodged. We walked
up the valley before dark to get a view of a cascade, and found supper
ready on our return. This is such luxury after last night.
There is a very light bright sitting-room, with papered walls, and manilla
matting on the floor, a round centre table with books and a photographic
album upon it, two rocking-chairs, an office-desk, another table and
chairs, and a Canadian lounge. I can’t imagine in what way
this furniture was brought here. Our bedroom opens from this,
and it actually has a four-post bedstead with mosquito bars, a lounge
and two chairs, and the floor is covered with native matting.
The washing apparatus is rather an anomaly, for it consists of a basin
and crash towel placed in the verandah, in full view of fifteen people.
The natives all bathe in the river.</p>
<p>Halemanu has a cook house and native cook, and an eating-room, where
I was surprised to find everything in foreign style--chairs, a table
with a snow white cover, and table napkins, knives, forks, and even
salt-cellars. I asked him to eat with us, and he used a knife
and fork quite correctly, never, for instance, putting the knife into
his mouth. I was amused to see him afterwards, sitting on a mat
among his family and dependants, helping himself to <i>poi</i> from
a calabash with his fingers. He gave us for supper delicious river
fish fried, boiled <i>kalo</i>, and Waipio coffee with boiled milk.</p>
<p>It is very annoying only to be able to converse with this man through
an interpreter; and Deborah, as is natural, is rather unwilling to be
troubled to speak English, now that she is among her own people.
After supper we sat by candlelight in the parlour, and he showed me
his photograph album. At eight he took a large Bible, put on glasses,
and read a chapter in Hawaiian; after which he knelt and prayed with
profound reverence of manner and tone. Towards the end I recognized
the Hawaiian words for “Our Father.” <a name="citation148"></a><a href="#footnote148">{148}</a>
Here in Waipio there is something pathetic in the idea of this Fatherhood,
which is wider than the ties of kin and race. Even here not one
is a stranger, an alien, a foreigner! And this man, so civilized
and Christianized, only now in middle life, was, he said, “a big
boy when the first teachers came,” and may very likely have witnessed
horrors in the <i>heiau</i>, or temple, close by, of which little is
left now.</p>
<p>This bedroom is thoroughly comfortable. Kaluna wanted to sleep
on the lounge here, probably because he is afraid of <i>akuas</i>, or
spirits, but we have exiled him to a blanket on the parlour lounge.<br /> I.L.B.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>LETTER X.--(continued.)</h3>
<p>We were thoroughly rested this morning, and very glad of a fine day
for a visit to the great cascade which is rarely seen by foreigners.
My mule was slightly galled with the girth, and having a strong fellow
feeling with Elisha’s servant, “Alas, master, for it was
borrowed!” I have bought for $20 a pretty, light, half-broken
bay mare, which I rode to-day and liked much.</p>
<p>After breakfast, which was a repetition of last night’s supper,
we three, with Halemanu’s daughter as guide, left on horseback
for the waterfall, though the natives tried to dissuade us by saying
that stones came down, and it was dangerous; also that people could
not go in their clothes, there was so much wading. In deference
to this last opinion, D. rode without boots, and I without stockings.
We rode through the beautiful valley till we reached a deep gorge turning
off from it, which opens out into a nearly circular chasm with walls
2,000 feet in height, where we tethered our horses. A short time
after leaving them, D. said, “She says we can’t go further
in our clothes,” but when the natives saw me plunge boldly into
the river in my riding dress, which is really not unlike a fashionable
Newport bathing suit, they thought better of it. It was a thoroughly
rough tramp, wading ten times through the river, which was sometimes
up to our knees, and sometimes to our waists, and besides the fighting
among slippery rocks in rushing water, we had to crawl and slide up
and down wet, mossy masses of dislodged rock, to push with eyes shut
through wet jungles of Indian shot, guava, and a thorny vine, and sometimes
to climb from tree to tree at a considerable height. When, after
an hour’s fighting we arrived in sight of the cascade, but not
of the basin into which it falls, our pretty guide declined to go further,
saying that the wind was rising, and that stones would fall and kill
us, but being incredulous on this point, I left them, and with great
difficulty and many bruises, got up the river to its exit from the basin,
and there, being unable to climb the rocks on either side, stood up
to my throat in the still tepid water till the scene became real to
me.</p>
<p>I do not care for any waterfall but Niagara, nor do I care in itself
for this one, for though its first leap is 200 feet and its second 1,600,
it is so frittered away and dissipated in spray, owing to the very magnitude
of its descent, that there is no volume of water within sight to create
mass or sound. But no words can paint the majesty of the surroundings,
the caverned, precipitous walls of rock coming down in one black plunge
from the blue sky above to the dark abyss of water below, the sullen
shuddering sound with which pieces of rock came hurtling down among
the trees, the thin tinkle of the water as it falls, the full rush of
the river, the feathery growth of ferns, gigantic below, but so diminished
by the height above, as only to show their presence by the green tinge
upon the rocks, while in addition to the gloom produced by the stupendous
height of the cliffs, there is a cool, green darkness of dense forest,
and mighty trees of strange tropical forms glass themselves in the black
mirror of the basin. For one moment a ray of sunshine turned the
upper part of the spray into a rainbow, and never to my eyes had the
bow of promise looked so heavenly as when it spanned the black, solemn,
tree-shadowed abyss, whose deep, still waters only catch a sunbeam on
five days of the year.</p>
<p>I found the natives regaling themselves on <i>papaya</i>, and on
live fresh-water shrimps, which they find in great numbers in the river.
I remembered that white people at home calling themselves civilized,
eat live, or at least raw, oysters, but the sight of these active, squirming
shrimps struggling between the white teeth of my associates was yet
more repulsive.</p>
<p>We finished our adventurous expedition with limbs much bruised, as
well as torn and scratched, and before we emerged from the chasm saw
a rock dislodged, which came crashing down not far from us, carrying
away an <i>ohia</i>. It is a gruesome and dowie den, but well
worth a visit.</p>
<p>We mounted again, and rode as far as we could up the valley, fording
the river in deep water several times, and coming down the other side.
The coffee trees in full blossom were very beautiful, and they, as well
as the oranges, have escaped the blight which has fallen upon both in
other parts of the island. In addition to the usual tropical productions,
there were some very fine fig trees and thickets of the castor-oil plant,
a very handsome shrub, when, as here, it grows to a height of from ten
to twenty-two feet. The natives, having been joined by some Waipio
women, rode at full gallop over all sorts of ground, and I enjoyed the
speed of my mare without any apprehension of being thrown off.
We rode among most extensive <i>kalo</i> plantations, and large artificial
fish-ponds, in which hundreds of gold-fish were gleaming, and came back
by the sea shore, green with the maritime convolvulus, and the smooth-bottomed
river, which the Waipio folk use as a road. Canoes glide along
it, brown-skinned men wade down it floating bundles of <i>kalo</i> after
them, and strings of laden horses and mules follow each other along
its still waters. I hear that in another and nearly unapproachable
valley, a river serves the same purpose. While we were riding
up it, a great gust lifted off its surface in fine spray, and almost
blew us from our horses. Hawaii has no hurricanes, but at some
hours of the day Waipio is subject to terrific gusts, which really justify
the people in their objection to visiting the cascade. Some time
ago, in one of these, this house was lifted up, carried twenty feet,
and deposited in its present position.</p>
<p>Supper was ready for us--<i>kalo</i>, yams, spatchcock, <i>poi</i>,
coffee, rolls, and Oregon kippered salmon; and when I told Halemanu
that the spatchcock and salmon reminded me of home, he was quite pleased,
and said he would provide the same for breakfast to-morrow.</p>
<p>The owner of the mare, which I have named “Bessie Twinker,”
had willingly sold her to me, though I told him I could not pay him
for her until I reached Onomea. I do not know what had caused
my credit to suffer during my absence, but D., after talking long with
him this evening, said to me, “He says he can’t let you
have the horse, because when you’ve taken it away, he thinks you
will never send him the money.” I told her indignantly to
tell him that English women never cheated people, a broad and totally
unsustainable assertion, which had the effect of satisfying the poor
fellow.</p>
<p>After Halemanu, Deborah, Kaluna, and a number of natives had eaten
their <i>poi</i>, Halemanu brought in a very handsome silver candlestick,
and expressed a wish that Deborah should interpret for us. He
asked a great many sensible questions about England, specially about
the state of the poor, the extent of the franchise, and the influence
of religion. When he heard that I had spent some years in Scotland,
he said, “Do you know Mr. Wallace?” I was quite puzzled,
and tried to recall any man of that name who I had heard of as having
visited Hawaii, when a happy flash of comprehension made me aware of
his meaning, and I replied that I had seen his sword several times,
but that he died long before I knew Scotland, and indeed before I was
born; but that the Scotch held his memory in great veneration, and were
putting up a monument to him. But for the mistake as to dates,
he seemed to have the usual notions as to the exploits of Wallace.
He deplores most deeply the dwindling of his people, and his manner
became very sad about it. D. said, “He’s very unhappy;
he says, soon there will be no more Kanakas.” He told me
that this beautiful valley was once very populous, and even forty years
ago, when Mr. Ellis visited it, there were 1,300 people here.
Now probably there are not more than 200.</p>
<p>Here was the <i>Puhonua</i>, or place of refuge for all this part
of the island. This, and the very complete one of Honaunau, on
the other side of Hawaii, were the Hawaiian “Cities of Refuge.”
Could any tradition of the Mosaic ordinance on this subject have travelled
hither? These two sanctuaries were absolutely inviolable.
The gates stood perpetually open, and though the fugitive was liable
to be pursued to their very threshold, he had no sooner crossed it than
he was safe from king, chief, or avenger. These gates were wide,
and some faced the sea, and others the mountains. Hither the murderer,
the manslayer, the <i>tabu</i>-breaker fled, repaired to the presence
of the idol, and thanked it for aiding him to reach the place of security.
After a certain time the fugitives were allowed to return to their families,
and none dared to injure those to whom the high gods had granted their
protection.</p>
<p>In time of war, tall spears from which white flags were unfurled,
were placed at each end of the enclosure, and until the proclamation
of peace invited the vanquished to enter. These flags were fixed
a short distance outside the walls, and no pursuing warrior, even in
the hot flush of victory, could pursue his routed foe one foot beyond.
Within was the sacred pale of <i>pahu tabu</i>, and anyone attempting
to strike his victim there would have been put to death by the priests
and their adherents. In war time the children, old people, and
many of the women of the neighbouring districts, were received within
the enclosure, where they awaited the issue of the conflict in security,
and were safe from violence in the event of defeat. These <i>puhonuas</i>
contain pieces of stone weighing from two to three tons, raised six
feet from the ground, and the walls, narrowing gradually towards the
top, are fifteen feet wide at the base and twelve feet high. They
are truly grand monuments of humanity in the midst of the barbarous
institutions of heathenism, and it shows a considerable degree of enlightenment
that even rebels in arms and fugitives from invading armies were safe,
if they reached the sacred refuge, for the priests of <i>Keawe</i> knew
no distinctions of party.</p>
<p>In dreadful contrast to this place of mercy, there were some very
large <i>heiaus</i> (or temples) here, on whose hideous altars eighty
human sacrifices are said to have been offered at one time. One
of the legends told me concerning this lovely valley is, that King Umi,
having vanquished the kings of the six divisions of Hawaii, was sacrificing
captives in one of these <i>heiaus</i>, when the voice of his god, <i>Kuahilo</i>,
was heard from the clouds, demanding more slaughter. Fresh human
blood streamed from the altars, but the insatiable demon continued to
call for more, till Umi had sacrificed all the captives and all his
own men but one, whom he at first refused to give up, as he was a great
favourite, but <i>Kuahilo</i> thundered from heaven, till the favourite
warrior was slain, and only the king and the sacrificing priest remained.</p>
<p>This valley of the “vanquished waters” abounds in legends.
Some of these are about a cruel monster, King Hooku, who lived here,
and whose memory, so far as he is remembered, is much execrated.
It is told of him that if a man were said to have a handsome head he
sent some of his warriors to behead him, and then hacked and otherwise
disfigured the face for a diversion. On one occasion he ordered
a man’s arm to be cut off and brought to him, simply because it
was said to be more beautifully tattooed than his own. It is fifty-four
years since the last human sacrifice was exposed on the Waipio altars,
but there are several old people here who must have been at least thirty
when Hawaii threw off idolatry for ever. Halemanu has again closed
the evening with the simple worship of the true God.<br /> I.L.B.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>LETTER XI.</h3>
<p>HILO, HAWAII.</p>
<p>There is a rumour that the king is coming as the guest of Admiral
Pennock in the <i>Benicia</i>. If it turns out to be true, it
will turn our quiet life upside down.</p>
<p>We met with fearful adventures in the swollen gulches between Laupahoehoe
and Onomea. It is difficult to begin my letter with the plain
prose of our departure from Waipio, which we accomplished on the morning
after I last wrote. On rising after a sound sleep, I found that
my potted beef, which I had carefully hung from a nail the night before,
had been almost carried away by small ants. These ants swarm in
every house on low altitudes. They assemble in legions as if by
magic, and by their orderly activity carry away all that they do not
devour, of all eatables which have not been placed on tables which have
rags dipped in a solution of corrosive sublimate wound round their legs.</p>
<p>We breakfasted by lamplight, and because I had said that some of
the viands reminded me of home, our kind host had provided them at that
early hour. He absolutely refused to be paid anything for the
accommodation of our party, and said he should be ashamed of himself
if he took anything from a lady travelling without a husband.</p>
<p>It was such a perfect morning. The full moon hung over the
enclosing <i>palis</i>, gleaming on coffee and breadfruit groves, and
on the surface of the river, which was just quivering under a soft sea
breeze. The dew was heavy, smoke curled idly from native houses,
the east was flushing with the dawn, and the valley looked the picture
of perfect peace. A number of natives assembled to see us start,
and they all shook hands with us, exchanging <i>alohas</i>, and presenting
us with <i>leis</i> of roses and <i>ohias</i>. D. looked very
pretty with a red hibiscus blossom in her shining hair. You would
have been amused to see me shaking hands with men dressed only in <i>malos</i>,
or in the short blue shirt reaching to the waist, much worn by them
when at work.</p>
<p>I rode my mare with some pride of proprietorship, and our baggage
for a time was packed on the mule, and we started up the tremendous
<i>pali</i> at the tail of a string of twenty mules and horses laden
with <i>kalo</i>. This was in the form of <i>paiai</i>, or hard
food, which is composed, as I think I mentioned before, of the root
baked and pounded, but without water. It is put up in bundles
wrapped in <i>ti</i> leaves, of from twenty to thirty pounds each, secured
with cocoanut fibre, in which state it will keep for months, and much
of the large quantity raised in Waipio is exported to the plantations,
the Waimea ranches, and the neighbouring districts. A square mile
of <i>kalo</i>, it is estimated, would feed 15,000 Hawaiians for a year.</p>
<p>It was a beautiful view from the top of the <i>pali</i>. The
white moon was setting, the earliest sunlight was lighting up the dewy
depths of the lonely valley, reddening with a rich rose red the huge
headland which forms one of its sentinels; heavy snow had fallen during
the night on Mauna Kea, and his great ragged dome, snow-covered down
to the forests, was blushing like an Alpine peak at the touch of the
early sun. It ripened into a splendid joyous day, which redeemed
the sweeping uplands of Hamakua from the dreariness which I had thought
belonged to them. There was a fresh sea-breeze, and the sun, though
unclouded, was not too hot. We halted for an early lunch at the
clean grass-house we had stopped at before, and later in the afternoon
at that of the woman with whom we had ridden from Hakalau, who received
us very cordially, and regaled us with <i>poi</i> and pork.</p>
<p>In order to avoid the amenities of Bola Bola’s we rode thirty-four
miles, and towards evening descended the tremendous steep, which leads
to the surf-deafened village of Laupahoehoe. Halemanu had given
me a note of introduction to a widow named Honolulu, which Deborah said
began thus, “As I know that you have the only clean house in L,”
and on presenting it we were made very welcome. Besides the widow,
a very redundant beauty, there were her two brothers and two male cousins,
and all bestirred themselves in our service, the men in killing and
cooking the supper, and the woman in preparing the beds. It was
quite a large room, with doors at the end and side, and fully a third
was curtained off by a calico curtain, with a gorgeous Crétonne
pattern upon it. I was delighted to see a four-post bed, with
mosquito bars, and a clean <i>pulu</i> mattrass, with a linen sheet
over it, covered with a beautiful quilt with a quaint arabesque pattern
on a white ground running round it, and a wreath of green leaves in
the centre. The native women exercise the utmost ingenuity in
the patterns and colours of these quilts. Some of them are quite
works of art. The materials, which are plain and printed cottons,
cost about $8, and a complete quilt is worth from $18 to $50.
The widow took six small pillows, daintily covered with silk, out of
a chest, the uses of which were not obvious, as two large pillows were
already on the bed. It was astonishing to see a native house so
handsomely furnished in so poor a place. The mats on the floor
were numerous and very fine. There were two tables, several chairs,
a bureau with a swinging mirror upon it, a basin, crash towels, a carafe
and a kerosene lamp. It is all very well to be able to rough it,
and yet better to enjoy doing so, but such luxuries add much to one’s
contentment after eleven hours in the saddle.</p>
<p>Honolulu wore a green chemise at first, but when supper was ready
she put a Macgregor tartan <i>holuku</i> over it. The men were
very active, and cooked the fowl in about the same time that it takes
to pluck one at home. They spread the finest mat I have seen in
the centre of the floor as a tablecloth, and put down on it bowls containing
the fowl and sweet potatoes, and the unfailing calabash of <i>poi</i>.
Tea, coffee and milk were not procurable, and as the water is slimy
and brackish, I offered a boy a dime to get me a cocoanut, and presently
eight great, misshapen things were rolled down at the door. The
outside is a smooth buff rind, underneath which is a fibrous covering,
enormously strong and about an inch thick, which when stripped off reveals
the nut as we see it, but of a very pale colour. Those we opened
were quite young, and each contained nearly three tumblers of almost
effervescent, very sweet, slightly acidulated, perfectly limpid water,
with a strong flavour of cocoanut. It is a delicious beverage.
The meat was so thin and soft that it could have been spooned out like
the white of an egg if we had had any spoons. We all sat cross-legged
round our meal, and all Laupahoehoe crowded into the room and verandah
with the most persistent, unwinking, gimleting stare I ever saw.
It was really unpleasant, not only to hear a Babel of talking, of which,
judging from the constant repetition of the words <i>wahine haole</i>,
I was the subject, but to have to eat under the focussed stare of twenty
pair of eyes. My folding camp-knife appears an object of great
interest, and it was handed round, inside and outside the house.
When I retired about seven, the assemblage was still in full session.</p>
<p>The stars were then bright, but when I woke the next morning a strong
breeze was blowing, the surf was roaring so loud as almost to drown
human voices, and rolling up in gigantic surges, and to judge from appearances,
the rain which was falling in torrents had been falling for some hours.
There was much buzzing among the natives regarding our prospects for
the day. I shall always think from their tone and manner, and
the frequent repetition of the names of the three worst gulches, that
the older men tried to dissuade us from going; but Deborah, who was
very anxious to be at home by Sunday, said that the verdict was that
if we started at once for our ride of twenty-three miles we might reach
Onomea before the freshet came on. This might have been the case
had it not been for Kaluna. Not only was his horse worn out, but
nothing would induce him to lead the mule, and she went off on foraging
expeditions continually, which further detained us. Kaluna had
grown quite polite in his savage way. He always insisted on putting
on and taking off my boots, carried me once through the Waipio river,
helped me to pack the saddle-bags, and even offered to brush my hair!
He frequently brought me guavas on the road, saying, “eat,”
and often rode up, saying interrogatively, “tired?” “cold?”
D. told me that he was very tired, and I was very sorry for him, for
he was so thinly and poorly dressed, and the natives are not strong
enough to bear exposure to cold as we can, and a temperature at 68°
is cold to them. But he was quite incorrigible, and thrashed his
horse to the last.</p>
<p>We breakfasted on fowl, <i>poi</i>, and cocoanut milk, in presence
of even a larger number of spectators than the night before, one of
them a very old man looking savagely picturesque, with a red blanket
tied round his waist, leaving his lean chest and arms, which were elaborately
tattooed, completely exposed.</p>
<p>The mule had been slightly chafed by the gear, and in my anxiety
about a borrowed animal, of which Mr. Austin makes a great joke, I put
my saddle-bags on my own mare, in an evil hour, and not only these,
but some fine cocoanuts, tied up in a waterproof which had long ago
proved its worthlessness. It was a grotesquely miserable picture.
The house is not far from the beach, and the surf, beyond which a heavy
mist hung, was coming in with such a tremendous sound that we had to
shout at the top of our voices in order to be heard. The sides
of the great gulch rose like prison walls, cascades which had no existence
the previous night hurled themselves from the summit of the cliffs directly
into the sea, the rain, which fell in sheets, not drops, covered the
ground to the depth of two or three inches, and dripped from the wretched,
shivering horses, which stood huddled together with their tails between
their legs. My thin flannel suit was wet through even before we
mounted. I dispensed with stockings, as I was told that wearing
them in rain chills and stiffens the limbs. D., about whom I was
anxious, as well as about the mule, had a really waterproof cloak, and
I am glad to say has quite lost the cough from which she suffered before
our expedition. She does not care about rain any more than I do.</p>
<p>We soon reached the top of the worst and dizziest of all the <i>palis</i>,
and then splashed on mile after mile, down sliding banks, and along
rocky tracks, from which the soil had been completely carried, the rain
falling all the time. In some places several feet of soil had
been carried away, and we passed through water-rents, the sides of which
were as high as our horses’ heads, where the ground had been level
a few days before. By noon the aspect of things became so bad
that I wished we had a white man with us, as I was uneasy about some
of the deepest gulches. When four hours’ journey from Onomea,
Kaluna’s horse broke down, and he left us to get another, and
we rode a mile out of our way to visit Deborah’s grandparents.</p>
<p>Her uncle carried us across some water to their cook-house, where,
happily, a <i>kalo</i> baking had just been accomplished, in a hole
in the ground, lined with stones, among which the embers were still
warm. In this very small hut, in which a man could hardly stand
upright, there were five men only dressed in <i>malos</i>, four women,
two of them very old, much tattooed, and huddled up in blankets, two
children, five pertinaciously sociable dogs, two cats, and heaps of
things of different kinds. They are a most gregarious people,
always visiting each other, and living in each other’s houses,
and so hospitable that no Hawaiian, however poor, will refuse to share
his last mouthful of <i>poi</i> with a stranger of his own race.
These people looked very poor, but probably were not really so, as they
had a nice grass-house, with very fine mats, within a few yards.</p>
<p>A man went out, cut off the head of a fowl, singed it in the flame,
cut it into pieces, put it into a pot to boil, and before our feet were
warm the bird was cooked, and we ate it out of the pot with some baked
<i>kalo</i>. D. took me out to see some mango trees, and a pond
filled with gold-fish, which she said had been hers when she was a child.
She seemed very fond of her relatives, among whom she looked like a
fairy princess; and I think they admired her very much, and treated
her with some deference. The object of our visit was to procure
a <i>lé</i> of birds’ feathers which they had been making
for her, and for which I am sure 300 birds must have been sacrificed.
It was a very beautiful as well as costly ornament, <a name="citation165"></a><a href="#footnote165">{165}</a>
and most ingeniously packed for travelling by being laid at full length
within a slender cylinder of bamboo.</p>
<p>We rode on again, somewhat unwillingly on my part, for though I thought
my apprehensions might be cowardly and ignorant, yet D. was but a child,
and had the attractive wilfulness of childhood, and she was, I saw,
determined to get back to her husband, and the devotion and affection
of the young wife were so pleasant to see, that I had not the heart
to offer serious opposition to her wishes, especially as I knew that
I might be exaggerating the possible peril. I gathered, however,
from what she said, that her people wanted us to remain until Monday,
especially as none of them could go with us, their horses being at some
distance. I thought it a sign of difficulties ahead, that on one
of the most frequented tracks in Hawaii, we had not met a single traveller,
though it was Saturday, a special travelling day.</p>
<p>We crossed one gulch in which the water was strong, and up to our
horses’ bodies, and came upon the incorrigible Kaluna, who, instead
of catching his horse, was recounting his adventures to a circle of
natives, but promised to follow us soon. D. then said that the
next gulch was rather a bad one, and that we must not wait for Kaluna,
but ride fast, and try to get through it. When we reached the
<i>pali</i> above it, we heard the roaring of a torrent, and when we
descended to its brink it looked truly bad, but D. rode in, and I waited
on the margin. She got safely across, but when she was near the
opposite side her large horse plunged, slipped, and scrambled in a most
unpleasant way, and she screamed something to me which I could not hear.
Then I went in, and</p>
<p> “At the first plunge the horse
sank low,<br /> And the water broke
o’er the saddle bow:”</p>
<p>but the brave animal struggled through, with the water up to the
top of her back, till she reached the place where D.’s horse had
looked so insecure. In another moment she and I rolled backwards
into deep water, as if she had slipped from a submerged rock.
I saw her fore feet pawing the air, and then only her head was above
water. I struck her hard with my spurs, she snorted, clawed, made
a desperate struggle, regained her footing, got into shallow water,
and landed safely. It was a small but not an agreeable adventure.</p>
<p>We went on again, the track now really dangerous from denudation
and slipperiness. The rain came down, if possible, yet more heavily,
and coursed fiercely down each <i>pali</i> track. Hundreds of
cascades leapt from the cliffs, bringing down stones with a sharp rattling
sound. We crossed a bridge over one gulch, where the water was
thundering down in such volume that it seemed as if it must rend the
hard basalt of the <i>palis</i>. Then we reached the lofty top
of the great Hakalau gulch, the largest of all, with the double river,
and the ocean close to the ford. Mingling with the deep reverberations
of the surf, I heard the sharp crisp rush of a river, and of “a
river that has no bridge.”</p>
<p>The dense foliage, and the exigencies of the steep track, which had
become very difficult, owing to the washing away of the soil, prevented
me from seeing anything till I got down. I found Deborah speaking
to a native, who was gesticulating very emphatically, and pointing up
the river. The roar was deafening, and the sight terrific.
Where there were two shallow streams a week ago, with a house and good-sized
piece of ground above their confluence, there was now one spinning,
rushing, chafing, foaming river, twice as wide as the Clyde at Glasgow,
the land was submerged, and, if I remember correctly, the house only
stood above the flood. And, most fearful to look upon, the ocean,
in three huge breakers, had come quite in, and its mountains of white
surge looked fearfully near the only possible crossing. I entreated
D. not to go on. She said we could not go back, that the last
gulch was already impassable, that between the two there was no house
in which we could sleep, that the river had a good bottom, that the
man thought if our horses were strong we could cross now, but not later,
etc. In short, she overbore all opposition, and plunged in, calling
to me, “spur, spur, all the time.”</p>
<p>Just as I went in, I took my knife and cut open the cloak which contained
the cocoanuts, one only remaining. Deborah’s horse I knew
was strong, and shod, but my unshod and untried mare, what of her?
My soul and senses literally reeled among the dizzy horrors of the wide,
wild tide, but with an effort I regained sense and self-possession,
for we were in, and there was no turning. D., ahead, screeched
to me what I could not hear; she said afterwards it was “spur,
spur, and keep up the river;” the native was shrieking in Hawaiian
from the hinder shore, and waving to the right, but the torrents of
rain, the crash of the breakers, and the rush and hurry of the river
confused both sight and hearing. I saw D.’s great horse
carried off his legs, my mare, too, was swimming, and shortly afterwards,
between swimming, struggling, and floundering, we reached what had been
the junction of the two rivers, where there was foothold, and the water
was only up to the seat of the saddles.</p>
<p>Remember, we were both sitting nearly up to our waists in water,
and it was only by screaming that our voices were heard above the din,
and to return or go on seemed equally perilous. Under these critical
circumstances the following colloquy took place, on my side, with teeth
chattering, and on hers, with a sudden forgetfulness of English produced
by her first sense of the imminent danger we were in.</p>
<p><i>Self</i>.--“My mare is so tired, and so heavily weighted,
we shall be drowned, or I shall.”</p>
<p><i>Deborah</i> (with more reason on her side).--“But can’t
go back, we no stay here, water higher all minutes, spur horse, think
we come through.”</p>
<p><i>Self</i>.--“But if we go on there is broader, deeper water
between us and the shore; your husband would not like you to run such
a risk.”</p>
<p><i>Deborah</i>.--“Think we get through, if horses give out,
we let go; I swim and save you.”</p>
<p>Even under these circumstances a gleam of the ludicrous shot through
me at the idea of this small fragile being bearing up my weight among
the breakers. I attempted to shift my saddle-bags upon her powerful
horse, but being full of water and under water, the attempt failed,
and as we spoke both our horses were carried off their vantage ground
into deep water.</p>
<p>With wilder fury the river rushed by, its waters whirled dizzily,
and, in spite of spurring and lifting with the rein, the horses were
swept seawards. It was a very fearful sight. I saw Deborah’s
horse spin round, and thought woefully of the possible fate of the bright
young wife, almost a bride; only the horses’ heads and our own
heads and shoulders were above water; the surf was thundering on our
left, and we were drifting towards it “broadside on.”
When I saw the young girl’s face of horror I felt increased presence
of mind, and raising my voice to a shriek, and telling her to do as
I did, I lifted and turned my mare with the rein, so that her chest
and not her side should receive the force of the river, and the brave
animal, as if seeing what she should do, struck out desperately.
It was a horrible suspense. Were we stemming the torrent, or was
it sweeping us back that very short distance which lay between us and
the mountainous breakers? I constantly spurred my mare, guiding
her slightly to the left, the side grew nearer, and after exhausting
struggles, Deborah’s horse touched ground, and her voice came
faintly towards me like a voice in a dream, still calling “Spur,
spur.” My mare touched ground twice, and was carried off
again before she fairly got to land some yards nearer the sea than the
bridle track.</p>
<p>When our tired horses were taking breath I felt as if my heart stopped,
and I trembled all over, for we had narrowly escaped death. I
then put our saddle-bags on Deborah’s horse. It was one
of the worst and steepest of the <i>palis</i> that we had to ascend;
but I can’t remember anything about the road except that we had
to leap some place which we could not cross otherwise. Deborah,
then thoroughly alive to a sense of risk, said that there was only one
more bad gulch to cross before we reached Onomea, but it was the most
dangerous of all, and we could not get across, she feared, but we might
go and look at it. I only remember the extreme solitude of the
region, and scrambling and sliding down a most precipitous <i>pali</i>,
hearing a roar like cataract upon cataract, and coming suddenly down
upon a sublime and picturesque scene, with only standing room, and that
knee-deep in water, between a savage torrent and the cliff. This
gulch, called the Scotchman’s gulch, I am told, because a Scotchman
was drowned there, must be at its crossing three-quarters of a mile
inland, and three hundred feet above the sea. In going to Waipio,
on noticing the deep holes and enormous boulders, some of them higher
than a man on horseback, I had thought what a fearful place it would
be if it were ever full; but my imagination had not reached the reality.
One huge compressed impetuous torrent, leaping in creamy foam, boiling
in creamy eddies, rioting in deep black chasms, roared and thundered
over the whole in rapids of the most tempestuous kind, leaping down
to the ocean in three grand broad cataracts, the nearest of them not
more than forty feet from the crossing. Imagine the Moriston at
the Falls, four times as wide and fifty times as furious, walled in
by precipices, and with a miniature Niagara above and below, and you
have a feeble illustration of it.</p>
<p>Portions of two or three rocks only could be seen, and on one of
these, about twelve feet from the shore, a nude native, beautifully
tattooed, with a lasso in his hands, was standing nearly up to his knees
in foam; and about a third of the way from the other side, another native
in deeper water, steadying himself by a pole. A young woman on
horseback, whose near relative was dangerously ill at Hilo, was jammed
under the cliff, and the men were going to get her across. Deborah,
to my dismay, said that if she got safely over we would go too, as these
natives were very skilful. I asked if she thought her husband
would let her cross, and she said “No.” I asked her
if she were frightened, and she said “Yes;” but she wished
so to get home, and her face was as pale as a brown face can be.
I only hope the man will prove worthy of her affectionate devotion.</p>
<p>Here, though people say it is a most perilous gulch, I was not afraid
for her life or mine, with the amphibious natives to help us; but I
was sorely afraid of being bruised, and scarred, and of breaking the
horses’ legs, and I said I would not cross, but would sleep among
the trees; but the tumult drowned our voices, though the Hawaiians by
screeching could make themselves understood. The nearest man then
approached the shore, put the lasso round the nose of the woman’s
horse, and dragged it into the torrent; and it was exciting to see a
horse creeping from rock to rock in a cataract with alarming possibilities
in every direction. But beasts may well be bold, as they have
not “the foreknowledge of death.” When the nearest
native had got the horse as far as he could, he threw the lasso to the
man who was steadying himself with the pole, and urged the horse on.
There was a deep chasm between the two into which the animal fell, as
he tried to leap from one rock to another. I saw for a moment
only a woman’s head and shoulders, a horse’s head, a commotion
of foam, a native tugging at the lasso, and then a violent scramble
on to a rock, and a plunging and floundering through deep water to shore.</p>
<p>Then Deborah said she would go, that her horse was a better and stronger
one; and the same process was repeated with the same slip into the chasm,
only with the variation that for a second she went out of sight altogether.
It was a terribly interesting and exciting spectacle with sublime accompaniments.
Though I had no fear of absolute danger, yet my mare was tired, and
I had made up my mind to remain on that side till the flood abated;
but I could not make the natives understand that I wished to turn, and
while I was screaming “No, no,” and trying to withdraw my
stiffened limbs from the stirrups, the noose was put round the mare’s
nose, and she went in. It was horrible to know that into the chasm
as the others went I too must go, and in the mare went with a blind
plunge. With violent plunging and struggling she got her fore
feet on the rock, but just as she was jumping up to it altogether she
slipped back snorting into the hole, and the water went over my eyes.
I struck her with my spurs, the men screeched and shouted, the hinder
man jumped in, they both tugged at the lasso, and slipping and struggling,
the animal gained the rock, and plunged through deep water to shore,
the water covering that rock with a rush of foam, being fully two feet
deep.</p>
<p>Kaluna came up just after we had crossed, undressed, made his clothes
into a bundle, and got over amphibiously, leaping, swimming, and diving,
looking like a water-god, with the horse and mule after him. His
dexterity was a beautiful sight; but on looking back I wondered how
human beings ever devised to cross such a flood. We got over just
in time. Some travellers who reached Laupahoehoe shortly after
we left, more experienced than we were, suffered a two days’ detention
rather than incur a similar risk. Several mules and horses, they
say, have had their legs broken in crossing this gulch by getting them
fast between the rocks.</p>
<p>Shortly after this, Deborah uttered a delighted exclamation, and
her pretty face lighted up, and I saw her husband spurring along the
top of the next <i>pali</i>, and he presently joined us, and I exchanged
my tired mare for his fresh, powerful horse. He knew that a freshet
was imminent, and believing that we should never leave Laupahoehoe,
he was setting off, provided with tackle for getting himself across,
intending to join us, and remain with us till the rivers fell.
The presence of a responsible white man seemed a rest at once.
We had several more gulches to cross, but none of them were dangerous;
and we rode the last seven miles at a great pace, though the mire and
water were often up to the horses’ knees, and came up to Onomea
at full gallop, with spirit and strength enough for riding other twenty
miles. Dry clothing, hot baths, and good tea followed delightfully
upon our drowning ride. I remained over Sunday at Onomea, and
yesterday rode here with a native in heavy rain, and received a warm
welcome. Our adventures are a nine days’ wonder, and every
one says that if we had had a white man or an experienced native with
us, we should never have been allowed to attempt the perilous ride.
I feel very thankful that we are living to tell of it, and that Deborah
is not only not worse but considerably better. E--- will expect
some reflections; but none were suggested at the time, and I will not
now invent what I ought to have thought and felt.</p>
<p>Due honour must be given to the Mexican saddle. Had I been
on a side-saddle, and encumbered with a riding-habit, I should have
been drowned. I feel able now to ride anywhere and any distance
upon it, while Miss Karpe, who began by being much stronger than I was,
has never recovered from the volcano ride, and seems quite ill.</p>
<p>Last night Kilauea must have been tremendously active. At ten
P.M., from the upper verandah, we saw the whole western sky fitfully
illuminated, and the glare reddened the snow which is lying on Mauna
Loa, an effect of fire on ice which can rarely be seen.<br /> I.L.B.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>LETTER XII.</h3>
<p>HILO, February 22.</p>
<p>My sojourn here is very pleasant, owing to the kindness and sociability
of the people. I think that so much culture and such a variety
of refined tastes can seldom be found in so small a community.
There have been pleasant little gatherings for sewing, while some gentlemen
read aloud, fern-printing in the verandah, microscopic and musical evenings,
little social luncheons, and on Sunday evenings what is colloquially
termed, “a sing,” at this most social house. One of
the things I have specially enjoyed has been spending an afternoon at
the Rev. Titus Coan’s. He is not only one of the most venerable
of the remaining missionaries, but such an authority on the Hawaiian
volcanoes as to entitle him to be designated “the high-priest
of Pélé!” In his modest, quiet way he told
thrilling stories of the old missionary days.</p>
<p>As you know, the islands cast off idolatry in 1819, but it was not
till 1835 that Mr. and Mrs. Coan arrived in Hilo, where Mr. and Mrs.
Lyman had been toiling for some time, and had produced a marked change
on the social condition of the people. Mr. C. was a fervid speaker,
and physically very robust, and when he had mastered the language, he
undertook much of the travelling and touring, and Mr. Lyman took charge
of the home mission station, and the boarding and industrial school
which he still indefatigably superintends. There were 15,000 natives
then in the district, and its extremes were 100 miles apart. Portions
of it could only be reached with peril to limbs and even life.
Horses were only regarded as wild animals in those days, and Mr. C.
traversed on foot the district I have just returned from, not lazily
riding down the gulch sides, but climbing, or being let down by ropes
from tree to tree, and from crag to crag. In times of rain like
last week, when it was impossible to ford the rivers, he sometimes swam
across, with a rope to prevent him from being carried away, through
others he rode on the broad shoulders of a willing native, while a company
of strong men locked hands and stretched themselves across the torrent,
between him and the cataract, to prevent him from being carried over
in case his bearer should fall. This experience was often repeated
three or four times a day. His smallest weekly number of sermons
was six or seven, and the largest from twenty-five to thirty.
He often travelled in drowning rain, crossed dangerous streams, climbed
slippery precipices, and frequently preached in wind and rain with all
his garments saturated. On every occasion he received aid from
the natives, who were so kind and friendly, that when he used to sleep
in the woods at night, he hung his watch on a tree, knowing that it
was perfectly safe from pilfering or curious touch. Indeed the
Christian teachers seem to have been regarded as <i>tabu</i>.</p>
<p>Before the end of that year, Mr. Coan had made the circuit of Hawaii,
a foot and canoe trip of 300 miles, in which he nearly suffered canoe-wreck
twice. In all, he has admitted into the Christian church by baptism,
12,000 persons, besides 4000 infants. He gave a most interesting
account of one great baptism. The greatest care was previously
taken in selecting, teaching, watching, and examining the candidates.
Those from the distant villages came and spent several months here for
preliminary instruction. Many of these were converts of two years’
standing, a larger class had been on the list for more than a year,
and a smaller one for a lesser period. The accepted candidates
were announced by name several weeks previously, and friends and enemies
everywhere were called upon to testify all that they knew about them.
On the first Sunday in July, 1838, 1705 persons, formerly heathens,
were baptised. They were seated close together on the earth-floor
in rows, with just space between for one to walk, and Mr. Lyman and
Mr. Coan passing through them, sprinkled every bowed head, after which
Mr. C. admitted the weeping hundreds into the fellowship of the Universal
Church by pronouncing the words, “I baptise you all in the Name
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” After
this, 2400 converts received the Holy Communion. I give Mr. C.’s
own words concerning those who partook of it, “who truly and earnestly
repented of their sins, and steadfastly purposed to lead new lives.”
“The old and decrepit, the lame, the blind, the maimed, the withered,
the paralytic, and those afflicted with divers diseases and torments;
those with eyes, noses, lips, and limbs consumed; with features distorted,
and figures depraved and loathsome: these came hobbling upon their staves,
or led and borne by others to the table of the Lord. Among the
throng you would have seen the hoary priest of idolatry, with hands
but recently washed from the blood of human victims, together with thieves,
adulterers, highway robbers, murderers, and mothers whose hands reeked
with the blood of their own children. It seemed like one of the
crowds the Saviour gathered, and over which He pronounced the words
of healing.”</p>
<p>Though the people cast off idolatry in 1819, before the arrival of
the missionaries, they were very indifferent to Christian teaching until
1837, the year before the great baptism, when a great religious stir
began, and for four years affected all the islands. I wish you
could have heard Mr. C. and Mrs. Lyman tell of that stirring time, when
nearly all the large population of the Hilo and Puna districts turned
out to hear the Gospel, and how the young people went up into the mountains
and carried the news of the love of God and the good life to come to
the sick and old, who were afterwards baptized, when often the only
water which could be obtained for the rite was that which dripped sparingly
from the roofs of caves. The Hawaiian notions of a future state,
where any existed, were peculiarly vague and dismal, and Mr. Ellis says
that the greater part of the people seemed to regard the tidings of
<i>ora loa ia Jesu</i> (endless life by Jesus) as the most joyful news
they had ever heard, “breaking upon them,” to use their
own phrase, “like light in the morning.” “Will
my spirit never die, and can this poor weak body live again?”
an old chiefess exclaimed, and this delighted surprise seemed the general
feeling of the natives. From less difficult distances the sick
and lame were brought on litters and on the backs of men, and the infirm
often crawled to the trail by which the missionary was to pass, that
they might hear of this good news which had come to Hawaii-nei.</p>
<p>There were but these two preachers for the 15,000 people scattered
for 100 miles, who were all ravenous to hear, and could not wait for
the tardy modes of evangelization. “If we die,” said they,
“let us die in the light.” So this strange thing fell
out, that whole villages from miles away gathered to the mission station.
Two-thirds of the population of the district came in, and within the
radius of a mile the grass and banana houses clustered as thick as they
could stand. Beautiful Hilo in a short time swelled from a population
of 1000 to 10,000; and at any hour of the day or night the sound of
the conch shell brought together from 3000 to 6000 worshippers.
It was a vast camp-meeting which continued for two years, but there
was no disorder, and a decent quiet ruled throughout the strangely extemporized
city. A new morality, a new social order, new notions on nearly
all subjects, had to be inculcated as well as a new religion.
Mrs. C. and Mrs. L. daily assembled the women and children, and taught
them the habits and industries of civilization, to attend to their persons,
to braid hats, and to wear and make clothes.</p>
<p>During this time, on November 7, 1837, one of the striking phenomena
which make the islands remarkable occurred. The crescent sand-beach,
said to be the most beautiful in the Pacific, the fringe of palms, the
far-reaching groves behind, and the great ocean, slept in summer calm,
as they sleep to-day. Four sermons, as usual, had been preached
to audiences of 6000 people. There had been a funeral, the natives
say, though Mr. C. does not remember it, and his text had been “Be
ye also ready,” and larger throngs than usual had followed the
preachers to their homes. The fatiguing day was over, the natives
were singing hymns in the still evening air, and Mr. C. “had gathered
his family for prayers” in the very room in which he told me this
story, when they were startled by “a sound as if a heavy mountain
had fallen on the beach.” There was at once a fearful cry,
wailing, and indescribable confusion. The quiet ocean had risen
in a moment in a gigantic wave, which, rushing in with the speed of
a racehorse, and uplifting itself over the shore, swept everything into
promiscuous ruin; men, women, children, dogs, houses, food, canoes,
clothing, floated wildly on the flood, and hundreds of people were struggling
among the billows in the midst of their earthly all. Some were
dashed on the shore, some were saved by friends who hurried to their
aid, some were carried out to sea by the retiring water, and some stout
swimmers sank exhausted; yet the loss of life was not nearly so great
as it would have been among a less amphibious people. Mr. C. described
the roaring of the ocean, the cries of distress, the shrieks of the
perishing, the frantic rush of hundreds to the shore, and the desolation
of the whole neighbourhood of the beach, as forming a scene of the most
thrilling and awful interest.</p>
<p>You will remember that I wrote from Kilauea regarding the terror
which the Goddess of the Crater inspired, and her high-priest was necessarily
a very awful personage. The particular high-priest of whom Mr.
Coan told me was six feet five inches in height, and his sister, who
was co-ordinate with him in authority, had a scarcely inferior altitude.
His chief business was to keep Pélé appeased. He
lived on the shore, but often went up to Kilauea with sacrifices.
If a human victim were needed, he had only to point to a native, and
the unfortunate wretch was at once strangled. He was not only
the embodiment of heathen piety, but of heathen crime. Robbery
was his pastime. His temper was so fierce and so uncurbed that
no native dared even to tread on his shadow. More than once he
had killed a man for the sake of food and clothes not worth fifty cents.
He was a thoroughly wicked savage. Curiosity attracted him into
one of the Hilo meetings, and the bad giant fell under the resistless,
mysterious influence which was metamorphosing thousands of Hawaiians.
“I have been deceived,” he said, “I have deceived
others, I have lived in darkness, and did not know the true God.
I worshipped what was no God. I renounce it all. The true
God has come. He speaks. I bow down to Him. I wish
to be His son.” The priestess, his sister, came soon afterwards,
and they remained here several months for instruction. They were
then about seventy years old, but they imbibed the New Testament spirit
so thoroughly that they became as gentle, loving, and quiet as little
children. After a long probationary period they were baptized,
and after several years of pious and lowly living, they passed gently
and trustfully away.</p>
<p>The old church which was the scene of these earlier assemblages,
came down with a crash after a night of heavy rain, the large timbers,
which were planted in the moist earth after the fashion of the country
to support the framework, having become too rotten to support the weight
of the saturated thatch. Without a day’s loss of time the
people began a new church. All were volunteers, some to remove
from the wreck of the old building such timbers as might still be of
service; some to quarry stone for a foundation, an extravagance never
before dreamed of by an islander; some to bring sand in gourd-shells
upon their heads, or laboriously gathered in the folds of bark-cloth
aprons; some to bring lime from the coral reefs twenty feet under water;
whilst the majority hurried to the forest belt, miles away on the mountain
side, to fell the straightest and tallest trees. Then 50 or 100
men, (for in that day horses and oxen were known only as wild beasts
of the wilderness,) attached hawsers to the butt ends of logs, and dragged
them away through bush and brake, through broken ground and river beds,
till they deposited them on the site of the new church. The wild,
monotonous chant, as the men hauled in the timber, lives in the memories
of the missionaries’ children, who say that it seemed to them
as if the preparations for Solomon’s temple could not have exceeded
the accumulations of the islanders!</p>
<p>I think that the greater number of the converts of those four years
must have died ere this. In 1867 the old church at Hilo was divided
into seven congregations, six of them with native pastors. To
meet the wants of the widely-scattered people, fifteen churches have
been built, holding from 500 up to 1000. The present Hilo church,
a very pretty wooden one, cost about $14,000. All these have been
erected mainly by native money and labour. Probably the native
Christians on Hawaii are not much better or worse than Christian communities
elsewhere, but they do seem a singularly generous people. Besides
liberally sustaining their own clergy, the Hilo Christians have contributed
altogether $100,000 for religious purposes. Mr. Coan’s native
congregation, sorely dwindled as it is, raises over $1200 annually for
foreign missions; and twelve of its members have gone as missionaries
to the islands of Southern Polynesia.</p>
<p>Poor people! It would be unfair to judge of them as we may
legitimately be judged of, who inherit the influences of ten centuries
of Christianity. They have only just emerged from a bloody and
sensual heathenism, and to the instincts and volatility of these dark
Polynesian races, the restraining influences of the Gospel are far more
severe than to our cold, unimpulsive northern natures. The greatest
of their disadvantages has been that some of the vilest of the whites
who roamed the Pacific had settled on the islands before the arrival
of the Christian teachers, dragging the people down to even lower depths
of depravity than those of heathenism, and that there are still resident
foreigners who corrupt and destroy them.</p>
<p>I must tell you a story which the venerable Mrs. Lyman told me yesterday.
In 1825, five years after the first missionaries landed, Kapiolani,
a female <i>alii</i> of high rank, while living at Kaiwaaloa (where
Captain Cook was murdered), became a Christian. Grieving for her
people, most of whom still feared to anger Pélé, she announced
that it was her intention to visit Kilauea, and dare the fearful goddess
to do her worst. Her husband and many others tried to dissuade
her, but she was resolute, and taking with her a large retinue, she
took a journey of one hundred miles, mostly on foot, over the rugged
lava, till she arrived near the crater. There a priestess of Pélé
met her, threatened her with the displeasure of the goddess if she persisted
in her hostile errand, and prophesied that she and her followers would
perish miserably. Then, as now, <i>ohelo</i> berries grew profusely
round the terminal wall of Kilauea, and there, as elsewhere, were sacred
to Pélé, no one daring to eat of them till he had first
offered some of them to the divinity. It was usual on arriving
at the crater to break a branch covered with berries, and turning the
face to the pit of fire, to throw half the branch over the precipice,
saying, “Pélé, here are your <i>ohelos</i>.
I offer some to you, some I also eat,” after which the natives
partook of them freely. Kapiolani gathered and eat them without
this formula, after which she and her company of eighty persons descended
to the black edge of Hale-mau-mau. There, in full view of the
fiery pit, she thus addressed her followers<i>:--“Jehovah is my
God. He kindled these fires. I fear not Pélé.
If I perish by the anger of Pélé, then you may fear the
power of Pélé; but if I trust in Jehovah, and he should
save me from the wrath of Pélé, when I break through her
tabus, then you must fear and serve the Lord Jehovah. All the
Gods of Hawaii are vain! Great is Jehovah’s goodness in
sending teachers to turn us from these vanities to the living God and
the way of righteousness!”</i> Then they sang a hymn.
I can fancy the strange procession winding its backward way over the
cracked, hot, lava sea, the robust belief of the princess hardly sustaining
the limping faith of her followers, whose fears would not be laid to
rest until they reached the crater’s rim without any signs of
the pursuit of an avenging deity. It was more sublime than Elijah’s
appeal on the soft, green slopes of Carmel, but the popular belief in
the Goddess of the Volcano survived this flagrant instance of her incapacity,
and only died out many years afterwards.</p>
<p>Besides these interesting reminiscences, I have been hearing most
thrilling stories from Mrs. Lyman and Mr. Coan of volcanoes, earthquakes,
and tidal waves. Told by eye-witnesses, and on the very spot where
the incidents occurred, they make a profound, and, I fear, an incommunicable
impression. I look on these venerable people as I should on people
who had seen the Deluge, or the burial of Pompeii, and wonder that they
eat and dress and live like other mortals! For they have felt
the perpetual shudder of earthquakes, and their eyes, which look so
calm and kind, have seen the inflowing of huge tidal waves, the dull
red glow of lava streams, and the leaping of fire cataracts into deep-lying
pools, burning them dry in a night time. There were years in which
there was no day in which the smoke of underground furnaces was out
of their sight, or night which was not lurid with flames. Once
they traced a river of lava burrowing its way 1500 feet below the surface,
and saw it emerge, break over a precipice, and fall hissing into the
ocean. Once from their highest mountain a pillar of fire 200 feet
in diameter lifted itself for three weeks 1000 feet into the air, making
night day, for a hundred miles round, and leaving as its monument a
cone a mile in circumference. We see a clothed and finished earth;
they see the building of an island, layer on layer, hill on hill, the
naked and deformed product of the melting, forging, and welding, which
go on perpetually in the crater of Kilauea.</p>
<p>I could fill many sheets with what I have heard, but must content
myself with telling you very little. In 1855 the fourth recorded
eruption of Mauna Loa occurred. The lava flowed directly Hilo-wards,
and for several months, spreading through the dense forests which belt
the mountain, crept slowly shorewards, threatening this beautiful portion
of Hawaii with the fate of the Cities of the Plain. Mr. C. made
several visits to the eruption, and on each return the simple people
asked him how much longer it would last. For five months they
watched the inundation, which came a little nearer every day.
“Should they fly or not? Would their beautiful homes become
a waste of jagged lava and black sand, like the neighbouring district
of Puna, once as fair as Hilo?” Such questions suggested
themselves as they nightly watched the nearing glare, till the fiery
waves met with obstacles which piled them up in hillocks, eight miles
from Hilo, and the suspense was over. Only gigantic causes can
account for the gigantic phenomena of this lava-flow. The eruption
travelled forty miles in a straight line, or sixty, including sinuosities.
It was from one to three miles broad, and from five to two hundred feet
deep, according to the contours of the mountain slopes over which it
flowed. It lasted for thirteen months, pouring out a torrent of
lava which covered nearly 300 square miles of land, and whose volume
was estimated at thirty-eight thousand millions of cubic feet!
In 1859 lava fountains 400 feet in height, and with a nearly equal diameter,
played on the summit of Mauna Loa. This eruption ran fifty miles
to the sea in eight days, but the flow lasted much longer, and added
a new promontory to Hawaii.</p>
<p>These magnificent overflows, however threatening, had done little
damage to cultivated regions, and none to human life; and people began
to think that the volcano was reformed. But in 1868 terrors occurred
which are without precedent in island history. While Mrs. L. was
giving me the narrative in her graphic but simple way, and the sweet
wind rustled through the palms, and brought the rich scent of the ginger
plant into the shaded room, she seemed to be telling me some weird tale
of another world. On March 27, five years ago, a series of earthquakes
began, and became more startling from day to day, until their succession
became so rapid that “the island quivered like the lid of a boiling
pot nearly all the time between the heavier shocks. The trembling
was like that of a ship struck by a heavy wave.” Then the
terminal crater of Mauna Loa (Mokuaweoweo) sent up columns of smoke,
steam, and red light, and it was shortly seen that the southern slope
of its dome had been rent, and that four separate rivers of molten stone
were pouring out of as many rents, and were flowing down the mountain
sides in diverging lines. Suddenly the rivers were arrested, and
the blue mountain dome appeared against the still blue sky without an
indication of fire, steam, or smoke. Hilo was much agitated by
the sudden lull. No one was deceived into security, for it was
certain that the strangely pent-up fires must make themselves felt.</p>
<p>The earthquakes became nearly continuous; scarcely an appreciable
interval occurred between them; “the throbbing, jerking, and quivering
motions grew more positive, intense, and sharp; they were vertical,
rotary, lateral, and undulating,” producing nausea, vertigo, and
vomiting. Late in the afternoon of a lovely day, April 2, the
climax came. “The crust of the earth rose and sank like
the sea in a storm.” Rocks were rent, mountains fell, buildings
and their contents were shattered, trees swayed like reeds, animals
were scared, and ran about demented; men thought the judgment had come.
The earth opened in thousands of places, the roads in Hilo cracked open,
horses and their riders, and people afoot, were thrown violently to
the ground; “it seemed as if the rocky ribs of the mountains,
and the granite walls and pillars of the earth were breaking up.”
At Kilauea the shocks were as frequent as the ticking of a watch.
In Kau, south of Hilo, they counted 300 shocks on this direful day;
and Mrs. L.’s son, who was in that district at the time, says
that the earth swayed to and fro, north and south, then east and west,
then round and round, up and down, in every imaginable direction, everything
crashing about them, “and the trees thrashing as if torn by a
strong rushing wind.” He and others sat on the ground bracing
themselves with hands and feet to avoid being rolled over. They
saw an avalanche of red earth, which they supposed to be lava, burst
from the mountain side, throwing rocks high into the air, swallowing
up houses, trees, men, and animals; and travelling three miles in as
many minutes, burying a hamlet, with thirty-one inhabitants and 500
head of cattle. The people of the valleys fled to the mountains,
which themselves were splitting in all directions, and collecting on
an elevated spot, with the earth reeling under them, they spent the
night of April 2 in prayer and singing. Looking towards the shore,
they saw it sink, and at the same moment a wave, whose height was estimated
at from forty to sixty feet, hurled itself upon the coast, and receded
five times, destroying whole villages, and even strong stone houses,
with a touch, and engulfing for ever forty-six people who had lingered
too near the shore.</p>
<p>Still the earthquakes continued, and still the volcano gave no sign.
The nerves of many people gave way in these fearful days. Some
tried to get away to Honolulu, others kept horses saddled on which to
fly, they knew not whither. The hourly question was, “What
of the volcano?” People put their ears to the quivering
ground, and heard, or thought they heard, the surgings of the imprisoned
lava sea rending its way among the ribs of the earth.</p>
<p>Five days after the destructive earthquake of April 2, the ground
south of Hilo burst open with a crash and roar which at once answered
all questions concerning the volcano. The molten river, after
travelling underground for twenty miles, emerged through a fissure two
miles in length with a tremendous force and volume. It was in
a pleasant pastoral region, supposed to be at rest for ever, at the
top of a grass-covered plateau sprinkled with native and foreign houses,
and rich in herds of cattle. Four huge fountains boiled up with
terrific fury, throwing crimson lava, and rocks weighing many tons,
to a height of from 500 to 1000 feet. Mr. Whitney, of Honolulu,
who was near the spot, says:--“From these great fountains to the
sea flowed a rapid stream of red lava, rolling, rushing, and tumbling,
like a swollen river, bearing along in its current large rocks that
made the lava foam as it dashed down the precipice and through the valley
into the sea, surging and roaring throughout its length like a cataract,
with a power and fury perfectly indescribable. It was nothing
else than a <i>river of fire</i> from 200 to 800 feet wide and twenty
deep, with a <i>speed varying from ten to twenty-five miles an hour!”</i>
This same intelligent observer noticed as a peculiarity of the spouting
that the lava was ejected by a <i>rotary motion</i>, and in the air
both lava and stones always rotated <i>towards the south</i>.
At Kilauea I noticed that the lava was ejected in a southerly direction.
From the scene of these fire fountains, whose united length was about
a mile, the river in its rush to the sea divided itself into four streams,
between which it shut up men and beasts. One stream hurried to
the sea in four hours, but the others took two days to travel ten miles.
The aggregate width was a mile and a half. Where it entered the
sea it extended the coast-line half a mile, but this worthless accession
to Hawaiian acreage was dearly purchased by the loss, for ages at least,
of 4000 acres of valuable pasture land, and a much larger quantity of
magnificent forest. The whole south-east shore of Hawaii sank
from four to six feet, which involved the destruction of several hamlets
and the beautiful fringe of cocoa-nut trees. Though the region
was very thinly peopled, 200 houses and 100 lives were sacrificed in
this week of horrors, and from the reeling mountains, the uplifted ocean,
and the fiery inundation, the terrified survivors fled into Hilo, each
with a tale of woe and loss. The number of shocks of earthquake
counted was 2000 in two weeks, an average of 140 a day; but on the other
side of the island the number was incalculable.<br /> I.L.B.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>LETTER XIII.</h3>
<p>HILO. HAWAII. February.</p>
<p>The quiet, dreamy, afternoon existence of Hilo is disturbed.
Two days ago an official intimation was received that the American Government
had placed the U.S. ironclad “Benicia” at the disposal of
King Lunalilo for a cruise round Hawaii, and that he would arrive here
the following morning with Admiral Pennock and the U.S. generals Scholfield
and Alexander.</p>
<p>Now this monarchy is no longer an old-time chieftaincy, made up of
calabashes and <i>poi</i>, feather-cloaks, <i>kahilis</i>, and a little
fuss, but has a civilized constitutional king, the equal of Queen Victoria,
a civil list, etc., and though Lunalilo comes here trying to be a private
individual and to rest from <i>Hookupus</i>, state entertainments, and
privy councils, he brings with him a royal chamberlain and an adjutant-general
in attendance. So the good people of Hilo have been decorating
their houses anew with ferns and flowers, furbishing up their clothes,
and holding mysterious consultations regarding etiquette and entertainments,
just as if royalty were about to drop down in similar fashion on Bude
or Tobermory. There were amusing attempts to bring about a practical
reconciliation between the free-and-easiness of Republican notions and
the respect due to a sovereign who reigns by “the will of the
people” as well as by “the grace of God,” but eventually
the tact of the king made everything go smoothly.</p>
<p>At eight yesterday morning the “Benicia” anchored inside
the reef, and Hilo blossomed into a most striking display of bunting;
the Hawaiian colours, eight blue, red and white stripes, with the English
union in the corner, and the flaunting flag of America being predominant.
My heart warmed towards our own flag as the soft breeze lifted its rich
folds among the glories of the tropical trees. Indeed, bunting
to my mind never looked so well as when floating and fainting among
cocoa-nut palms and all the shining greenery of Hilo, in the sunshine
of a radiant morning. It was bright and warm, but the cool bulk
of Mauna Kea, literally covered with snow, looked down as winter upon
summer. Natives galloped in from all quarters, brightly dressed,
wreathed, and garlanded, delighted in their hearts at the attention
paid to their sovereign by a great foreign power, though they had been
very averse to this journey, from a strange but prevalent idea that
once on board a U.S. ship the king would be kidnapped and conveyed to
America.</p>
<p>Lieut.-Governor Lyman and Mr. Severance, the sheriff, went out to
the “Benicia,” and the king landed at ten o’clock,
being “graciously pleased” to accept the Governor’s
house as his residence during his visit. The American officers,
naval and military, were received by the same loud, hospitable old whaling
captain who entertained the Duke of Edinburgh some years ago here, and
to judge from the hilarious sounds which came down the road from his
house, they had what they would call “a good time.”
I had seen Lunalilo in state at Honolulu, but it was much more interesting
to see him here, and this royalty is interesting in itself, as a thing
on sufferance, standing between this helpless nationality and its absorption
by America. The king is a very fine-looking man of thirty-eight,
tall, well formed, broad-chested, with his head well set on his shoulders,
and his feet and hands small. His appearance is decidedly commanding
and aristocratic: he is certainly handsome even according to our notions.
He has a fine open brow, significant at once of brains and straightforwardness,
a straight proportionate nose, and a good mouth. The slight tendency
to Polynesian overfulness about his lips is concealed by a well-shaped
moustache. He wears whiskers cut in the English fashion.
His eyes are large, dark-brown of course, and equally of course, he
has a superb set of teeth. Owing to a slight fulness of the lower
eyelid, which Queen Emma also has, his eyes have a singularly melancholy
expression, very alien, I believe, to his character. He is remarkably
gentlemanly looking, and has the grace of movement which seems usual
with Hawaiians. When he landed he wore a dark morning suit and
a black felt hat.</p>
<p>As soon as he stepped on shore, the natives, who were in crowds on
the beach, cheered, yelled, and waved their hats and handkerchiefs,
and then a procession was formed, or rather formed itself, to escort
him to the governor’s house. A rabble of children ran in
front, then came the king, over whom the natives had thrown some beautiful
garlands of <i>ohia</i> and <i>mailé</i> (Alyxia olivæformis),
with the governor on one side and the sheriff on the other, the chamberlain
and adjutant-general walking behind. Then a native staggering
under the weight of an enormous Hawaiian flag, the Hilo band, with my
friend Upa beating the big drum, and an irregular rabble (i.e. unorganised
crowd) of men, women, and children, going at a trot to keep up with
the king’s rapid strides. The crowd was unwilling to disperse
even when he entered the house, and he came out and made a short speech,
the gist of which was that he was delighted to see his native subjects,
and would hold a reception for them on the ensuing Monday, when we shall
see a most interesting sight, a native crowd gathered from all Southern
Hawaii for a <i>hookupu</i>, an old custom, signifying the bringing
of gift-offerings to a king or chief.</p>
<p>In the afternoon Dr. Wetmore and I rode to the beautiful Puna woods
on a botanising excursion. We were galloping down to the beach
round a sharp corner, when we had to pull our horses almost on their
haunches to avoid knocking over the king, the American admiral, the
captain of the “Benicia,” nine of their officers, and the
two generals. When I saw the politely veiled stare of the white
men it occurred to me that probably it was the first time that they
had seen a white woman riding cavalier fashion! We had a delicious
gallop over the sands to the Waiakea river, which we crossed, and came
upon one of the vast lava-flows of ages since, over which we had to
ride carefully, as the <i>pahoehoe</i> lies in rivers, coils, tortuosities,
and holes partially concealed by a luxuriant growth of ferns and convolvuli.
The country is thickly sprinkled with cocoa-nuts and bread-fruit trees,
which merge into the dense, dark, glorious forest, which tenderly hides
out of sight hideous broken lava, on which one cannot venture six feet
from the track without the risk of breaking one’s limbs.
All these tropical forests are absolutely impenetrable, except to axe
and billhook, and after a trail has been laboriously opened, it needs
to be cut once or twice a year, so rapid is the growth of vegetation.
This one, through the Puna woods, only admits of one person at a time.
It was really rapturously lovely. Through the trees we saw the
soft steel-blue of the summer sky: not a leaf stirred, not a bird sang,
a hush had fallen on insect life, the quiet was perfect, even the ring
of our horses’ hoofs on the lava was a discord. There was
a slight coolness in the air and a fresh mossy smell. It only
required some suggestion of decay, and the rustle of a fallen leaf now
and then, to make it an exact reproduction of a fine day in our English
October. The forest was enlivened by many natives bound for Hilo,
driving horses loaded with cocoa-nuts, bread-fruit, live fowls, <i>poi</i>
and <i>kalo</i>, while others with difficulty urged garlanded pigs in
the same direction, all as presents for the king. We brought back
some very scarce parasitic ferns.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>HILO, February 24.</p>
<p>I rode over by myself to Onomea on Saturday to get a little rest
from the excitements of Hilo. A gentleman lent me a strong showy
mare to go out on, telling me that she was frisky and must be held while
I mounted; but before my feet were fairly in the stirrups, she shook
herself from the Chinaman who held her, and danced away. I rode
her five miles before she quieted down. She pranced, jumped, danced,
and fretted on the edge of precipices, was furious at the scow and fords,
and seemed demented with good spirits. Onomea looked glorious,
and its serenity was most refreshing. I rode into Hilo the next
day in time for morning service, and the mare, after a good gallop,
subsided into a staidness of demeanour befitting the day. Just
as I was leaving, they asked me to take the news to the sheriff that
a man had been killed a few hours before. He was riding into Hilo
with a child behind him, and they went over by no means one of the worst
of the <i>palis</i>. The man and horse were killed, but the child
was unhurt, and his wailing among the deep ferns attracted the attention
of passers-by to the disaster. The natives ride over these dangerous
<i>palis</i> so carelessly, and on such tired, starved horses, that
accidents are not infrequent. Hilo had never looked so lovely
to me as in the pure bright calm of this Sunday morning.</p>
<p>The verandahs of all the native houses were crowded with strangers,
who had come in to share in the jubilations attending the king’s
visit. At the risk of emulating “Jenkins,” or the
“Court Newsman,” I must tell you that Lunalilo, who is by
no means an habitual churchgoer, attended Mr. Coan’s native church
in the morning, and the foreign church at night, when the choir sang
a very fine anthem. I don’t wish to write about his faults,
which have doubtless been rumoured in the English papers. It is
hoped that his new responsibilities will assist him to conquer them,
else I fear he may go the way of several of the Hawaiian kings.
He has begun his reign with marked good sense in selecting as his advisers
confessedly the best men in his kingdom, and all his public actions
since his election have shown both tact and good feeling. If sons,
as is often asserted, take their intellects from their mothers, he should
be decidedly superior, for his mother, Kekauluohi, a chieftainess of
the highest rank, and one of the queens of Kamehameha II., who died
in London, was in 1839 chosen for her abilities by Kamehameha III. as
his <i>kuhina nui</i>, or premier, an officer recognised under the old
system of Hawaiian government as second only in authority to the king,
and without whose signature even his act was not legal. As Kaahumanu
II. she continued to hold this important position until her death in
1845.</p>
<p>But the present king does not come of the direct line of the Hawaiian
kings, but of a far older family. His father is a commoner, but
Hawaiian rank is inherited through the mother. He received a good
English education at the school which the missionaries established for
the sons of chiefs, and was noted as a very bright scholar, with an
early developed taste for literature and poetry. His disposition
is said to be most amiable and genial, and his affability endeared him
especially to his own countrymen, by whom he was called <i>alii lokomaikai</i>,
“the kind chief.” In spite of his high rank, which
gave him precedence of all others on the islands, he was ignored by
two previous governments, and often complained that he was never allowed
any opportunity of becoming acquainted with public affairs, or of learning
whether he possessed any capacity for business. Thus, without
experience, but with noble and liberal instincts, and the highest and
most patriotic aspirations for the welfare and improvement of his “weak
little kingdom,” he was unexpectedly called to the throne about
three months ago, amidst such an enthusiasm as had never before been
witnessed on Hawaii-nei, as the unanimous choice of the people.
He called on Mr. Coan the day of his arrival; and when the flute band
of Mr. Lyman’s school serenaded him, he made the youths a kind
address, in which he said he had been taught as they were, and hoped
hereafter to profit by the instruction he had received.</p>
<p>This has been a great day in Hilo. The old native custom of
<i>hookupu</i> was revived, and it has been a most interesting spectacle.
I don’t think I ever enjoyed sight-seeing so much. The weather
has been splendid, which was most fortunate, for many of the natives
came in from distances of from sixty to eighty miles. From early
daylight they trooped in on their half broken steeds, and by ten o’clock
there were fully a thousand horses tethered on the grass by the sea.
Almost every house displayed flags, and the court-house, where the reception
was to take place, was most tastefully decorated. It is a very
pretty two-storied frame building, with deep double verandahs, and stands
on a large lawn of fine <i>manienie</i> grass, <a name="citation199"></a><a href="#footnote199">{199}</a>
with roads on three sides. Long before ten, crowds had gathered
outside the low walls of the lawn, natives and foreigners galloped in
all directions, boats and canoes enlivened the bay, bands played, and
the foreigners, on this occasion rather a disregarded minority, assembled
in holiday dress in the upper verandah of the court-house. Hawaiian
flags on tall bamboos decorated the little gateways which gave admission
to the lawn, an enormous standard on the government flagstaff could
be seen for miles, and the stars and stripes waved from the neighbouring
plantations and from several houses in Hilo. At ten punctually,
Lunalilo, Governor Lyman, the sheriff of Hawaii, the royal chamberlain,
and the adjutant-general, walked up to the court-house, and the king
took his place, standing in the lower verandah with his suite about
him. All the foreigners were either on the upper balcony, or on
the stairs leading to it, on which, to get the best possible view of
the spectacle, I stood for three mortal hours. The attendant gentlemen
were well dressed, but wore “shocking bad hats;” and the
king wore a sort of shooting suit, a short brown cut-away coat, an ash-coloured
waistcoat and ash-coloured trousers with a blue stripe. He stood
bareheaded. He dressed in this style in order that the natives
might attend the reception in every-day dress, and not run the risk
of spoiling their best clothes by Hilo torrents. The dress of
the king and his attendants was almost concealed by wreaths of <i>ohia</i>
blossoms and festoons of <i>mailé</i>, some of them two yards
long, which had been thrown over them, and which bestowed a fantastic
glamour on the otherwise prosaic inelegance of their European dress.
But indeed the spectacle, as a whole, was altogether poetical, as it
was an ebullition of natural, national, human feeling, in which the
heart had the first place. I very soon ceased to notice the incongruous
elements, which were supplied chiefly by the Americans present.
There were Republicans by birth and nature, destitute of traditions
of loyalty or reverence for aught on earth; who bore on their faces
not only republicanism, but that quintessence of puritan republicanism
which hails from New England; and these were subjects of a foreign king,
nay, several of them office-holders who had taken the oath of allegiance,
and from whose lips “His Majesty, Your Majesty,” flowed
far more copiously than from ours which are “to the manner born.”</p>
<p>On the king’s appearance, the cheering was tremendous,--regular
British cheering, well led, succeeded by that which is not British,
“three cheers and a tiger,” but it was “Hi, hi, hi,
hullah!” Every hat was off, every handkerchief in air, tears
in many eyes, enthusiasm universal, for the people were come to welcome
the king of their choice; the prospective restorer of the Constitution
“trampled upon” by Kamehameha V., “the kind chief,”
who was making them welcome to his presence after the fashion of their
old feudal lords. When the cheering had subsided, the eighty boys
of Missionary Lyman’s School, who, dressed in white linen with
crimson <i>leis</i>, were grouped in a hollow square round the flagstaff,
sang the Hawaiian national anthem, the music of which is the same as
ours. More cheering and enthusiasm, and then the natives came
through the gate across the lawn, and up to the verandah where the king
stood, in one continuous procession, till 2400 Hawaiians had enjoyed
one moment of infinite and ever to be remembered satisfaction in the
royal presence. Every now and then the white, pale-eyed, unpicturesque
face of a foreigner passed by, but these were few, and the foreign school
children were received by themselves after Mr. Lyman’s boys.
The Americans have introduced the villanous custom of shaking hands
at these receptions, borrowing it, I suppose, from a presidential reception
at Washington; and after the king had gone through this ceremony with
each native, the present was deposited in front of the verandah, and
the gratified giver took his place on the grass. Not a man, woman,
or child came empty handed. Every face beamed with pride, wonder,
and complacency, for here was a sovereign for whom cannon roared, and
yards were manned, of their own colour, who called them his brethren.</p>
<p>The variety of costume was infinite. All the women wore the
native dress, the sack or <i>holuku</i>, many of which were black, blue,
green, or bright rose colour, some were bright yellow, a few were pure
white, and others were a mixture of orange and scarlet. Some wore
very pretty hats made from cane-tops, and trimmed with hibiscus blossoms
or passion-flowers; others wore bright-coloured handkerchiefs, knotted
lightly round their flowing hair, or wreaths of the Microlepia tenuifolia.
Many had tied bandanas in a graceful knot over the left shoulder.
All wore two, three, four, or even six beautiful <i>leis</i>, besides
long festoons of the fragrant <i>mailé</i>. <i>Leis</i>
of the crimson <i>ohia</i> blossoms were universal; but besides these
there were <i>leis</i> of small red and white double roses, <i>pohas</i>,
<a name="citation203"></a><a href="#footnote203">{203}</a> yellow amaranth,
sugar cane tassels like frosted silver, the orange pandanus, the delicious
gardenia, and a very few of orange blossoms, and the great granadilla
or passion-flower. Few if any of the women wore shoes, and none
of the children had anything on their heads.</p>
<p>A string of 200 Chinamen passed by, “plantation hands,”
with boyish faces, and cunning, almond-shaped eyes. They were
dressed in loose blue denim trousers with shirts of the same, fastening
at the side over them, their front hair closely shaven, and the rest
gathered into pigtails, which were wound several times round their heads.
These all deposited money in the adjutant-general’s hand.
The dress of the Hawaiian men was more varied and singular than that
of the women, every kind of dress and undress, with <i>leis</i> of <i>ohia</i>
and garlands of <i>mailé</i> covering all deficiencies.
The poor things came up with pathetic innocence, many of them with nothing
on but an old shirt, and cotton trousers rolled up to the knees.
Some had red shirts and blue trousers, others considered that a shirt
was an effective outer garment. Some wore highly ornamental, dandified
shirts, and trousers tucked into high, rusty, mud-covered boots.
A few young men were in white straw hats, white shirts, and white trousers,
with crimson <i>leis</i> round their hats and throats. Some had
diggers’ scarves round their waists; but the most effective costume
was sported by a few old men, who had tied crash towels over their shoulders.</p>
<p>It was often amusing and pathetic at once to see them come up.
Obviously, when the critical moment arrived, they were as anxious to
do the right thing as a <i>débutante</i> is to back her train
successfully out of the royal presence at St. James’s. Some
were so agitated at last as to require much coaching from the governor
as to how to present their gifts and shake hands. Some half dropped
down on their knees, others passionately and with tears kissed the king’s
hand, or grasped it convulsively in both their own; while a few were
so embarrassed by the presents they were carrying that they had no hands
at all to shake, and the sovereign good-naturedly clapped them on the
shoulders. Some of them, in shaking hands, adroitly slipped coins
into the king’s palm, so as to make sure that he received their
loving tribute. There had been a <i>hui</i>, or native meeting,
which had passed resolutions, afterwards presented to Lunalilo, setting
forth that whereas he received a great deal of money in revenue from
the <i>haoles</i>, they, his native people, would feel that he did not
love them if he would not receive from their own hands contributions
in silver for his support. So, in order not to wound their feelings,
he accepted these rather troublesome cash donations.</p>
<p>One woman, sorely afflicted with quaking palsy, dragged herself slowly
along. One hand hung by her side helpless, and the other grasped
a live fowl so tightly that she could not loosen it to shake hands,
whereupon the king raised the helpless arm, which called forth much
cheering. There was one poor cripple who had only the use of his
arms. His knees were doubled under him, and he trailed his body
along the ground. He had dragged himself two miles “to lie
for a moment at the king’s feet,” and even his poor arms
carried a gift. He looked hardly like a human shape, as his desire
was realised; and, I doubt not, would have been content then and there
to die. There were ancient men, tattooed all over, who had passed
their first youth when the idols were cast away, and who remembered
the old days of tyranny when it was an offence, punishable with death,
for a man to let his shadow fall on the king; and when none of “the
swinish multitude” had any rights which they could sustain against
their chiefs. These came up bewildered, trembling, almost falling
on their knees, hardly daring to raise their eyes to the king’s
kind, encouraging face, and bathed his hand with tears while they kissed
it. Numbers of little children were led up by their parents; there
were babies in arms, and younglings carried on parents’ backs,
and the king stooped and shook hands with all, and even pulled out the
babies’ hands from under their mufflings, and the old people wept,
and cheers rent the air.</p>
<p>Next in interest to this procession of beaming faces, and the blaze
of colour, was the sight of the presents, and the ungrudging generosity
with which they were brought. Many of the women presented live
fowls tied by the legs, which were deposited, one upon another, till
they formed a fainting, palpitating heap under the hot sun. Some
of the men brought decorated hogs tied by one leg, which squealed so
persistently in the presence of royalty, that they were removed to the
rear. Hundreds carried nets of sweet potatoes, eggs, and <i>kalo</i>,
artistically arranged. Men staggered along in couples with bamboos
between them, supporting clusters of bananas weighing nearly a hundredweight.
Others brought yams, cocoa-nuts, oranges, onions, pumpkins, early pineapples,
and even the great delicious granadilla, the fruit of the large passion-flower.
A few maidens presented the king with bouquets of choice flowers, and
costly <i>leis</i> of the yellow feathers of the Melithreptes Pacifica.
There were fully two tons of <i>kalo</i> and sweet potatoes in front
of the court house, hundreds of fowls, and piles of bananas, eggs, and
cocoa-nuts. The <i>hookupu</i> was a beautiful sight, all the
more so that not one of that radiant, loving, gift-offering throng came
in quest of office, or for any other thing that he could obtain.
It was just the old-time spirit of reverence for the man who typifies
rule, blended with the extreme of personal devotion to the prince whom
a united people had placed upon the throne. The feeling was genuine
and pathetic in its intensity. It is said that the natives like
their king better, because he was truly, “above all,” the
last of a proud and imperious house, which, in virtue of a pedigree
of centuries, looked down upon the nobility of the Kamehamehas.</p>
<p>When the last gift was deposited, the lawn in front of the court-house
was one densely-packed, variegated mass of excited, buzzing Hawaiians.
While the king was taking a short rest, two ancient and hideous females,
who looked like heathen priestesses, chanted a monotonous and heathenish-sounding
chant or mêlé, in eulogy of some ancient idolater.
It just served to remind me that this attractive crowd was but one generation
removed from slaughter-loving gods and human sacrifices.</p>
<p>The king and his suite re-appeared in the upper balcony, where all
the foreigners were assembled, including the two venerable missionaries
and a French priest of benign aspect, and his appearance was the signal
for a fresh outburst of enthusiasm. Advancing to the front, he
made an extemporaneous speech, of which the following is a literal translation:--</p>
<p>“To all present I tender my warmest <i>aloha</i>. This
day, on which you are gathered to pay your respects to me, I will remember
to the day of my death. (Cheers.) I am filled with love
for you all, fellow-citizens (<i>makaainana</i>), who have come here
on this occasion, and for all the people, because by your unanimous
choice I have been made your King, a young sovereign, to reign over
you, and to fill the very distinguished office which I now occupy.
(Cheers.) You are parents to me, and I will be your Father.
(Tremendous cheering.) Formerly, in the days of our departed ancestors,
you were not permitted to approach them; they and you were kept apart;
but now we meet and associate together. (Cheers.) I urge
you all to persevere in the right, to forsake the ignorant ways of the
olden time. There is but one God, whom it is our duty to obey.
Let us forsake every kind of idolatry.</p>
<p>“In the year 1820 Rev. Messrs. Bingham, Thurston, and others
came to these Islands and proclaimed the Word of God. It is their
teachings which have enabled you to be what you are to-day. Now
they have all gone to that spirit land, and only Mrs. Thurston remains.
We are greatly indebted to them. (Cheers.) There are also
among us here (alluding to Revs. Coan and Lyman) old and grey-haired
fathers, whose examples we should endeavour to imitate, and obey their
teachings.</p>
<p>“I am very glad to see the young men of the present time so
well instructed in knowledge--perhaps some of them are your children.
You must persevere in your search of wisdom and in habits of morality.
Do not be indolent. (Cheers.) Those who have striven hard
after knowledge and good character, are the ones who deserve and shall
receive places of trust hereafter under the government.</p>
<p>“At the present time I have four foreigners as my ministerial
advisers. But if, among these young men now standing before me,
and under this flag, there are any who shall qualify themselves to fill
these positions, then I will select them to fill their places.
(Loud cheers.) <i>Aloha</i> to you all.”</p>
<p>His manner as a speaker was extremely good, with sufficient gesticulation
for the emphasis of particular points. The address was frequently
interrupted by applause, and when at its conclusion he bowed gracefully
to the crowd and said, “My <i>aloha</i> to you all,” the
cheering and enthusiasm were absolutely unbounded. And so the
great <i>hookupu</i> ended, and the assemblage broke up into knots to
discuss the royal speech and the day’s doings.<br /> I.L.B.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>LETTER XIV.</h3>
<p>HILO. HAWAII.</p>
<p>The king “signified his intention to honour Mr. and Mrs. Severance
with his company” on the evening of the day after the reception,
and this involved a regular party and supper. You can hardly imagine
the difficulties connected with “refreshments,” where few,
if any, of the materials which we consider necessary for dishes suitable
for such occasions can be procured at the stores, and even milk and
butter are scarce commodities. I had won a reputation as a cook
by making a much appreciated Bengal curry, and an English “roly-poly”
pudding, and when I offered my services, Mrs. S. kindly accepted them,
and she and I, with the Chinese cook and a Chinese prisoner to assist
us, have been cooking for a day and a half. I wanted to make a
gigantic trifle, a dish not known here, and we hunted every store, hoping
to find almonds and raspberry jam among the “assorted notions,”
but in vain; however, grated cocoa-nut supplied the place of the first,
and a kind friend sent a pot of the last. The Chinamen were very
diverting. The cook looked on, and laughed constantly, and perhaps
was a little jealous: at all events when he thought we had spoilt some
cakes in the oven, he capered into Mrs. S.’s room, gesticulating,
and exclaiming satirically, “Lu, Lu! cakes so good, cakes so fine!”
No intoxicants were to be used on the occasion, Hilo notions being rigid
on this subject; but I hope it was not a crime that I clandestinely
used two glasses of sherry, without which my trifle would have been
a failure. We worked hard, and made trifle, sponge cake, pound
cake, spiced cake, dozens of cocoa-nut cakes and drops; custards, and
sandwiches of potted meat, and enjoyed our preparations so much that
we found it hard to exchange kitchen for social duties, and go to “Father
Lyman,” who entertained the king and a number of Hilo folk in
the evening.</p>
<p>Their rooms, not very large, were quite full. When the king
entered, the company received him standing, and the flute band in the
verandah played the national anthem, and afterwards at intervals during
the evening sang some Hawaiian songs of the king’s composition.
I was presented to him, and as he is very courteous to strangers, he
talked to me a good deal. He is a very gentlemanly, courteous,
unassuming man, hardly assuming enough in fact, and apparently very
intelligent and well read. I was exceedingly pleased with him.
He spoke a good deal of Queen Emma’s reception in England, and
of her raptures with Venice, and some other cities of the continent.
He said he had the greatest desire to visit some parts of Europe, Great
Britain specially, because he thought that by coming in contact with
some of our leading statesmen, he might gain a more accurate knowledge
than he possessed of the principles of constitutional government.
He said he hoped that in two years Hawaii-nei would be so settled as
to allow of his travelling, and that in the meantime he was studying
French with a view to enjoying the continent.</p>
<p>He asked a great many questions regarding things at home, especially
concerning the limitation of the power of the Crown. He cannot
reconcile the theoretical right of the sovereign to choose his advisers
with his practically submitting to receive them from a Parliamentary
majority. He seemed to find a difficulty in understanding that
the sovereign’s right to refuse his assent to a Bill which had
passed both Houses was by no means the same thing in practice as the
possession of a veto. He said that in his reading of our constitutional
history, the power of the sovereign seemed almost absolute, while if
he understood facts rightly, the throne was more of an “ornament,”
or “figure-head,” than a power at all. He asked me
if it was true that Republican feeling was spreading very much in England,
and if I thought that the monarchy would survive the present sovereign,
on whose prudence and exalted virtues he seemed to think it rested.
He said he thought his little kingdom had aped the style of the great
monarchies too much, and that he should like to abolish a good many
high sounding titles, sinecure offices, the household troops, and some
of the “imitation pomp” of his court. He said he had
never enjoyed anything so much since his accession as the <i>hookupu</i>
of the morning, and asked me what I thought of it. I was glad
to be able to answer truthfully that I had never seen a state pageant
or ceremonial that I had enjoyed half so much, or that had impressed
me so favourably. He has a very musical voice, and a natural nobility
and refinement of manner, with an obvious tact and good feeling, rather,
I should think, the result of amiable and gentlemanly instincts than
of training or consideration, all which combine to make him interesting,
altogether apart from his position as a Polynesian sovereign.</p>
<p>Where there are no servants, a party involves the hosts and their
friends in the bustle of personal preparation, but all worked with a
will, and by sunset the decorations were completed. All the Chinese
lamps in Hilo were hung in the front verandah, and seats were placed
in the front and side verandahs, on which the drawing-room opens by
four doors, so there was plenty of room, though there were thirty people.
The side verandah was enclosed by a drapery of flags, and the whole
was tastefully decorated with festoons and wreaths of ferns. The
king arrived early with his attendants, and was received by the host
and hostess, and like a perfectly civilized guest, he handed Mrs. S.
into the room. The great wish of the genial entertainers was to
prevent stiffness and give the king a really social evening, so the
“chair game,” magical music, and a refined kind of blind
man’s buff, better suited to the occasion, but less “jolly”
than the old riotous game, were shortly introduced. Lunalilo only
looked on at first, and then entered into the games with a heartiness
and zest which showed that he at least enjoyed the evening. Supper
was served at nine. Several nests of Japanese tables had been
borrowed, and these, dispersed about the room and verandah, broke up
the guests into little social knots. Three Hilo ladies and I were
the waitresses, and I was pleased to see that the good things were thoroughly
appreciated, and that the trifle was universally popular. After
supper there was a little dancing, and as few of the Hilo people knew
any dance correctly, it was very amusing for the onlookers. There
was a great deal of promenading in the verandah, and a great deal of
talking and merriment, which were enjoyed by a crowd of natives who
stood the whole evening outside the garden fence. I don’t
think that any of the Hilo people are so unhappy as to possess an evening
dress, and the pretty morning dresses of the ladies, and the thick boots,
easy morning coats, and black ties of the gentlemen, gave a jolly “break-down”
look to the affair, which would have been deemed inadmissible in less
civilized society.</p>
<p>Some of my photographs of some of our eminent literary and scientific
men were lying on the table, and the king in looking at them showed
a surprising amount of knowledge of what they had written or done, quite
entitling him to unite in Stanley’s “Communion of Educated
Men.” I had previously asked him for his signature for my
autograph collection, and he said he had composed a stanza for me which
he thought I might like to have in addition. He called with it
on the following afternoon, apologising for his dress, a short jacket
and blue trowsers, stuffed into boots plastered with mud up to the knees.
I was surprised when he asked me if the lines were correctly spelt,
for he speaks English remarkably well. They are simply a kind
wish, unaffectedly expressed.</p>
<p> HILO.
HAWAII, Feb. 26.</p>
<p> “Wheresoe’er thou may’st
roam,<br /> Wheresoe’er thou
mak’st thy home,<br /> May
God thy footsteps guide,<br /> Watch
o’er thee and provide.<br /> This
is my earnest prayer for thee,<br /> Welcome,
stranger, from over the sea.”<br /> LUNALILO
R.</p>
<p>It startles one sometimes to hear American vulgarisms uttered in
his harmonious tones. The American admiral and generals had just
arrived from the volcano, stiff, sore, bruised, jaded, “done,”
and the king said, “I guess the Admiral’s about used up.”
He is really remarkably attractive, but I am sorry to observe a look
of irresolution about his mouth, indicative of a facility of disposition
capable of being turned to the worst account. I think from what
I have heard that the Hawaiian kings have fallen victims rather to unscrupulous
foreigners, than to their own bad instincts.</p>
<p>My last day has been taken up with farewell visits, and I finish
this on board the “Kilauea.” Miss Karpe and I had
to ride two miles, to a point at which it was possible to embark without
risk, a heavy surf having for three weeks rendered it impossible for
loaded boats to communicate with the shore at Hilo. My clothes
were soaked when we reached the rocks, and Upa, very wet, carried us
into a wet whale-boat, with water up to our ancles, which brought us
over a heavy sickening swell into this steamer, which is dirty as well
as wet. I told Upa to lead my mare, and ride his own horse, but
the last I saw of him was on the mare’s back, racing a troop of
natives along the beach. <a name="citation215"></a><a href="#footnote215">{215}</a><br /> I.L.B.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>LETTER XV.</h3>
<p>WAIMEA. HAWAII.</p>
<p>There is no limit to the oddities of the steam-ship “Kilauea.”
She lay rolling on the Hilo swell for two hours, and two hours after
we sailed her machinery broke down, and we lay-to for five hours, in
what they here call a heavy gale and sea. It was a miserable night.
No privacy: the saloon both hot and wet, almost every one sick.
I lay in my berth in my soaked clothes watching the proceedings of a
gigantic cockroach, and listening, not without amusement, to the awful
groans of a Chinaman, and a “rough customer” from California,
who occupied the next berths.</p>
<p>In the middle of the night the water came in great dashes through
the skylight upon the table, and soon the saloon was afloat to the depth
of from four to six inches. When the “Kilauea” rolled,
and the water splashed in simultaneously, we were treated to vigorous
“douches” in our berths, which soon saturated the pillows,
mattresses, and our clothing. One sea put out the lamp, and a
ship’s lantern, making “darkness visible,” was swung
in its stead. In an English ship there would have been a great
fuss and a great flying about of stewards, or pretence of mending matters,
but when the passengers shouted for our good steward, the serene creature
came in with a melancholy smile on his face, said nothing, but quietly
sat down on the transom, with his bare feet in the water, contemplating
it with a comic air of helplessness. Breakfast, of course, could
not be served, but a plate was put at one end of the table for the silent
old Scotch captain, who tucked up his feet and sat with his oilskins
and sou’-wester on, while the charming steward, with trousers
rolled up to his knees, waded about, pacifying us by bringing us excellent
curry as we sat on the edges of our berths, and putting on a sweetly
apologetic manner, as if penitent for the gross misbehaviour of the
ship. Such a man would reconcile me to far greater discomfort
than that of the “Kilauea.” I wonder if he is ever
unamiable, or tired, or perturbed?</p>
<p>The next day was fine, and we were all much on deck to dry our clothes
in the sun. The southern and leeward coasts of Hawaii as far as
Kawaaloa are not much more attractive than coal-fields. Contrasted
with the shining shores of Hilo, they are as dust and ashes; long reaches
of black lava and miles of clinkers marking the courses of lava-flows,
whose black desolation and deformity nature, as yet, has done almost
nothing to clothe. Cocoa-nut trees usually, however, fringe the
shore, but were it not for the wonderful colour of the ocean, like liquid
transparent turquoise, revealing the coral forests shelving down into
purple depths, and the exciting proximity of sharks, it would have been
wearisome. After leaving the bay where Captain Cook met his death,
we passed through a fleet of twenty-seven canoes, each one hollowed
out of the trunk of a single tree, from fifteen to twenty-five feet
long, about twenty inches deep, hardly wide enough for a fat man, and
high and pointed at both ends. On one side there is an outrigger
formed of two long bent sticks, to the outer ends of which is bound
a curved beam of light wood, which skims along the surface of the water,
rendering the canoe secure from an upset on that side, while the weight
of the outrigger makes an upset on the other very unlikely. In
calms they are paddled, and shoot over the water with great rapidity,
but whenever there is any breeze a small sprit-sail is used. They
are said to be able to stand very rough water, but they are singularly
precarious and irresponsible looking contrivances, and for these, as
well as for all other seas, I should much prefer a staunch whale-boat.
We sailed for some hours along a lava coast, streamless, rainless, verdureless,
blazing under the fierce light of a tropical sun, and some time after
noon anchored in the scorching bay of Kawaihae.</p>
<p>A foreign store, a number of native houses, a great <i>heiau</i>,
or heathen temple on a height, a fringe of cocoa-nut palms, and a background
of blazing hills, flaring with varieties of red, hardly toned down by
any attempt at vegetation, a crystalline atmosphere palpitating with
heat, deep, rippleless, clear water, with coral groves below, and a
view of the three great Hawaiian mountains, are the salient features
of this outlet of Hawaiian commerce. But ah! how soft and mild
and blue the sky was, looking inland, where, for the first time, I saw
far aloft, above solid masses of white cloud, sky hung, strangely uplifted,
the great volcanic domes of Mauna Kea, Mauna Loa, and Hualalai, looking
as if they had all passed into an endless repose.</p>
<p>This bay, which affords excellent holding ground, and is screened
by highlands from the sudden and violent gusts of wind, called “<i>mumuku</i>,”
which sweep down between the mountains with almost irresistible fury,
used to be a great place of call for whalers, who purchased large quantities
of “recruits” here; yams in the earlier days, and more lately
Irish potatoes, which flourish in the thirsty soil. But whaling
in the North Pacific seems to be nearly “played out,” and
the arrival of a whaler is not a common occurrence.</p>
<p>Shortly before we arrived I found that the sailing of the San Francisco
steamer is put off for a week, so I took advantage of a kind invitation
I received some time ago to visit Waimea, and go from thence to Waimanu,
a wonderful valley beyond Waipio, very little visited by foreigners.
A gentleman and lady rode up here with me, and I got a horse on the
beach with a native bullock saddle on him, an uncouth contrivance of
wood not covered with hide, and a strong lassoing horn. The great
wooden stirrups could not be shortened, but I soon found myself able,
in true savage fashion, to gallop up and down hill without any.</p>
<p>The chief object of interest on this ride is the great <i>heiau</i>,
which stands on a bare steep hill above the sea, not easy of access.
It was the last heathen temple built on Hawaii. On entering the
huge pile, which stood gaunt and desolate in the thin red air, the story
of the old bloody heathenism of the islands flashed upon my memory.
The entrance is by a narrow passage between two high walls, and it was
by this that the sacrificing priests dragged the human victims into
the presence of Tairi, a hideous wooden idol, crowned with a helmet,
and covered with red feathers, the favourite war-god of Kamehameha the
Great, by whom this temple was built, before he proceeded to the conquest
of Oahu.</p>
<p>The shape is an irregular parallelogram, 224 feet long, and 100 wide.
At each end, and on the <i>mauka</i> side, the walls, which are very
solid and compact, though built of lava stones without mortar, are twenty
feet high, and twelve feet wide at the bottom, but narrow gradually
towards the top, where they are finished with a course of smooth stones
six feet broad. On the sea side, the wall, which has been partly
thrown down, was not more than six or seven feet high, and there were
paved platforms for the accommodation of the <i>alii</i>, or chiefs,
and the people in their orders. The upper terrace is spacious,
and paved with flat smooth stones which were brought from a considerable
distance, the greater part of the population of the island having been
employed on the building. At the south end there was an inner
court, where the principal idol stood, surrounded by a number of inferior
deities, for the Hawaiians had “gods many, and lords many.”
Here also was the <i>anu</i>, a lofty frame of wickerwork, shaped like
an obelisk, hollow, and five feet square at its base. Within this,
the priest, who was the oracle of the god, stood, and of him the king
used to inquire concerning war or peace, or any affair of national importance.
It appears that the tones of the oracular voice were more distinct than
the meaning of the utterances. However, the supposed answers were
generally acted upon.</p>
<p>On the outside of this inner court was the <i>lélé</i>,
or altar, on which human and other sacrifices were offered. On
the day of the dedication of the temple to Tairi, vast offerings of
fruit, dogs, and hogs were presented, and eleven human beings were immolated
on the altar. These victims were taken from among captives, or
those who had broken <i>Tabu</i>, or had rendered themselves obnoxious
to the chiefs, and were often blind, maimed, or crippled persons.
Sometimes they were dispatched at a distance with a stone or club, and
their bodies were dragged along the narrow passage up which I walked
shuddering; but oftener they were bound and taken alive into the <i>heiau</i>
to be slain in the outer court. The priests, in slaying these
sacrifices, were careful to mangle the bodies as little as possible.
From two to twenty were offered at once. They were laid in a row
with their faces downwards on the altar before the idol, to whom they
were presented in a kind of prayer by the priest, and, if offerings
of hogs were presented at the same time, these were piled upon them,
and the whole mass was left to putrify.</p>
<p>The only dwellings within the <i>heiau</i> were those of the priests,
and the “sacred house” of the king, in which he resided
during the seasons of strict <i>Tabu</i>. A doleful place this
<i>heiau</i> is, haunted not only by the memories of almost unimaginable
terrors, but by the sore thought that generations of Hawaiians lived
and died in the unutterable darkness of this ignorant worship, passing
in long procession from these grim rites into the presence of the Father
whose infinite compassions they had never known.</p>
<p>Every hundred feet of ascent from the rainless, fervid beach of Kawaihae
increased the freshness of the temperature, and rendered exercise more
delightful. From the fringe of palms along the coast to the damp
hills north of Waimea, a distance of ten miles, there is not a tree
or stream, though the scorched earth is deeply scored by the rush of
fierce temporary torrents. Hitherto, I have only travelled over
the green coast which faces the trade winds, where clouds gather and
shed their rains, and this desert, which occupies a great part of leeward
Hawaii, displeases me. It lies burning in the fierce splendours
of a zone, which, until now, I had forgotten was the torrid zone, unwatered
and unfruitful, red and desolate under the sun. The island is
here only twenty-two miles wide, and strong winds sweep across it, whirling
up its surface in great brown clouds, so that the uplands in part appear
a smoking plain, backed by naked volcanic cones. No water, no
grass, no ferns. Some thornless thistles, a little brush of sapless-looking
indigo, and some species of compositæ struggle for a doleful existence.
There is nothing tropical about it but the intense heat. The red
soil becomes suffused with a green tinge ten miles from the beach, and
at the summit of the ascent the desert blends with this beautiful Waimea
plain, one of the most marked features of Hawaii. The air became
damp and cool; miles of fine smooth green grass stretched out before
us; high hills, broken, pinnacled, wooded, and cleft with deep ravines,
rose on our left; we heard the clash and music of falling water: to
the north it was like the Munster Thal, to the south altogether volcanic.
The tropics had vanished. There were frame houses sheltered from
the winds by artificial screens of mulberry trees, and from the incursions
of cattle by rough walls of lava stones five feet high; a mission and
court house, a native church, much too large for the shrunken population,
and other indications of an inhabited region. Except for the woods
which clothe the hills, the characteristic of the scenery is baldness.</p>
<p>On clambering over the wall which surrounds my host’s kraal
of dwellings, I heard in the dusk strange sweet voices crying rudely
and emphatically, “Who are you? What do you want?”
and was relieved to find that the somewhat inhospitable interrogation
only proceeded from two Australian magpies. Mr. S--- is a Tasmanian,
married to a young half-white lady: and her native mother and seven
or eight dark girls are here, besides a number of natives and Chinese,
and half Chinese, who are employed about the place. Sheep are
the source of my host’s wealth. He has 25,000 at three stations
on Mauna Kea, and, at an altitude of 6000 feet they flourish, and are
free from some of the maladies to which they are liable elsewhere.
Though there are only three or four sheep owners on the islands, they
exported 288,526 lbs. of wool last year. <a name="citation223"></a><a href="#footnote223">{223}</a>
Mr. S--- has also 1000 head of cattle and 50 horses.</p>
<p>The industry of Waimea is cattle raising, and some feeble attempts
are being made to improve the degenerate island breed by the importation
of a few short-horn cows from New Zealand. These plains afford
magnificent pasturage as well as galloping ground. They are a
very great thoroughfare. The island, which is an equilateral triangle,
about 300 miles in “circuit,” can only be crossed here.
Elsewhere, an impenetrable forest belt, and an impassable volcanic wilderness,
compel travellers to take the burning track of adamant which snakes
round the southern coast, when they are minded to go from one side of
Hawaii to the other. Waimea also has the singular distinction
of a road from the beach, which is traversed on great occasions by two
or three oxen and mule teams, and very rarely by a more ambitious conveyance.
There are few hours of day or night in which the tremulous <i>thud</i>
of shoeless horses galloping on grass is not heard in Waimea.</p>
<p>The altitude of this great table-land is 2500 feet, and the air is
never too hot, the temperature averaging 64° Fahrenheit. There
is mist or rain on most days of the year for a short time, and the mornings
and evenings are clear and cool. The long sweeping curves of the
three great Hawaiian mountains spring from this level. The huge
bulk of Mauna Kea without shoulders or spurs, rises directly from the
Waimea level on the south to the altitude of 14,000 feet, and his base
is thickly clustered with tufa-cones of a bright red colour, from 300
to 1000 feet in height. Considerably further back, indeed forty
miles away, the smooth dome of Mauna Loa appears very serene now, but
only thirteen years ago the light was so brilliant, from one of its
tremendous eruptions, that here it was possible to read a newspaper
by it, and during its height candles were unnecessary in the evenings!
Nearer the coast, and about thirty miles from here, is the less conspicuous
dome of the dead volcano of Hualalai. If all Hawaii, south of
Waimea, were submerged to a depth of 8000 feet, three nearly equi-distant,
dome-shaped volcanic islands would remain, the highest of which would
have an altitude of 6000 feet. To the south of these plains violent
volcanic action is everywhere apparent, not only in tufa cones, but
in tracts of ashes, scoriæ, and volcanic sand. Near the
centre there are some very curious caves, possibly “lava bubbles,”
which were used by the natives as places of sepulture. The Kohala
hills, picturesque, wooded, and abrupt, bound Waimea on the north, with
their exquisite grassy slopes, and bring down an abundance of water
to the plain, but owing to the lightness of the soil and the evaporation
produced by the tremendous winds, the moisture disappears within two
miles of the hills, and an area of rich soil, ten miles by twelve, which,
if irrigated, would be invaluable, is nothing but a worthless dusty
desert, perpetually encroaching on the grass. As soon as the plains
slope towards the east, the vegetation of the tropics reappears, and
the face of the country is densely covered with a swampy and impenetrable
bush hardly at all explored, which shades the sources of the streams
which fall into the Waipio and Waimanu Valleys, and is supposed to contain
water enough to irrigate the Saharas of leeward Hawaii.</p>
<p>The climate of the plain is most invigorating. If there were
waggon roads and obtainable comforts, Waimea, with its cool equable
temperature, might become the great health resort of invalids from the
Pacific coast. But Hawaii is not a place for the sick or old;
for, if people cannot ride on horseback, they can have neither society
nor change. Mr. Lyons, one of the most famous of the early missionaries,
still clings to this place, where he has worked for forty years.
He is an Hawaiian poet; and, besides translating some of our best hymns,
has composed enough to make up the greater part of a bulky volume, which
is said to be of great merit. He says that the language lends
itself very readily to rhythmical expression. He was indefatigable
in his youth, and was four times let down the <i>pali</i> by ropes to
preach in the Waimanu Valley. Neither he nor his wife can mount
a horse now, and it is very dreary for them, as the population has receded
and dwindled from about them. Their house is made lively, however,
by some bright little native girls, who board with them, and receive
an English and industrial education.</p>
<p>The moral atmosphere of Waimea has never been a wholesome one.
The region was very early settled by a class of what may be truly termed
“mean whites,” the “beach-combers” and riff-raff
of the Pacific. They lived infamous lives, and added their own
to the indigenous vices of the islands, turning the district into a
perfect sink of iniquity, in which they were known by such befitting
aliases as “Jake the Devil,” etc. The coming of the
missionaries, and the settlement of moral, orderly whites on Hawaii,
have slowly created a public opinion averse to flagrant immorality,
and the outrageous license of former years would now meet with legal
penalties. Many of the old settlers are dead, and others have
drifted to regions beyond restraining influences, but still “the
Waimea crowd” is not considered up to the mark. Most of
the present set of foreigners are Englishmen who have married native
women. It was in such quarters as this that the great antagonistic
influence to the complete Christianization of the natives was created,
and it is from such suspicious sources that the aspersions on missionary
work are usually derived.</p>
<p>Waimea has its own beauty--the grand breezy plain, the gigantic sweep
of the mountain curves, the incessant changes of colour, and the morning
view of Mauna Kea, with the pure snow on its ragged dome, rose-flushed
in the early sunlight. I don’t agree with Disraeli that
“happiness is atmosphere;” yet constant sunshine, and a
climate which never threatens one with discomfort or ills, certainly
conduce to equable cheerfulness.</p>
<p>I am quite interested with a native lady here, the first I have met
with who has been able to express her ideas in English. She is
extremely shrewd and intelligent, very satirical, and a great mimic.
She very cleverly burlesques the way in which white people express their
admiration of scenery, and, in fact, ridicules admiration of scenery
for itself. She evidently thinks us a sour, morose, worrying,
forlorn race. “We,” she said, “are always happy;
we never grieve long about anything; when any one dies we break our
hearts for some days, and then we are happy again. We are happy
all day long, not like white people, happy one moment, gloomy another:
we’ve no cares, the days are too short. What are <i>haoles</i>
always unhappy about?” Perhaps she expresses the general
feeling of her careless, pleasure-loving, mirth-loving people, who,
whatever commands they disobey, fulfil the one, “Take no thought
for the morrow.” The fabrication of the beautiful quilts
I before wrote of is a favourite occupation of native women, and they
make all their own and their husbands’ clothes; but making <i>leis</i>,
going into the woods to collect materials for them, talking, riding,
bathing, visiting, and otherwise amusing themselves, take up the greater
part of their time. Perhaps if we white women always wore <i>holukus</i>
of one shape, we should have fewer gloomy moments!<br /> I.L.B.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>LETTER XVI.</h3>
<p>WAIMANU VALLEY. HAWAII.</p>
<p>I am sitting at the door of a grass lodge, at the end of all things,
for no one can pass further by land than this huge lonely cleft.
About thirty natives are sitting about me, all staring, laughing, and
chattering, and I am the only white person in the region. We have
all had a meal, sitting round a large calabash of <i>poi</i> and a fowl,
which was killed in my honour, and roasted in one of their stone ovens.
I have forgotten my knife, and have had to help myself after the primitive
fashion of aborigines, not without some fear, for some of them I am
sure are in an advanced stage of leprosy. The brown tattooed limbs
of one man are stretched across the mat, the others are sitting cross-legged,
making <i>lauhala leis</i>. One man is making fishing-lines of
a beautifully white and marvellously tenacious fibre, obtained from
an Hawaiian “flax” plant (possibly <i>Urtica argentea</i>),
very different from the New Zealand <i>Phormium tenax</i>. Nearly
all the people of the valley are outside, having come to see the <i>wahine
haole</i>: only one white woman, and she a resident of Hawaii, having
been seen in Waimanu before. I am really alone, miles of mountain
and gulch lie between me and the nearest whites. This is a wonderful
place: a ravine about three miles long and three-quarters of a mile
wide, without an obvious means of ingress, being walled in by precipices
from 2000 to 4000 feet high. Five cascades dive from the <i>palis</i>
at its head, and unite to form a placid river about up to a horse’s
body here, and deep enough for a horse to swim in a little below.
Dense forests of various shades of green fill up the greater part of
the valley, concealing the basins into which the cascades leap, and
the grey basalt of the <i>palis</i> is mostly hidden by greenery.
At the open end, two bald bluffs, one of them 2000 feet in height, confront
the Pacific, and its loud booming surf comes up to within one hundred
yards of the house where I am writing, but is banked off by a heaped-up
barrier of colossal shingle.</p>
<p>Hot and silent, a sunset world of an endless afternoon, it seems
a palpable and living dream. And a few of these people, I understand,
have dreamed away their lives here, never having been beyond their valley,
at least by land. But it is a dream of ceaseless speech and rippling
laughter. They are the merriest people I have yet seen, and doubtless
their isolated life is dear to them.</p>
<p>I wish I could sketch this most picturesque scene. In the verandah,
which is formed of mats, two handsome youths, and five women in green,
red, and orange chemises, all with <i>leis</i> of ferns round their
hair, are reclining on the ground. Outside of this there is a
pavement of large lava stones, and groups in all colours, wreathed and
garlanded, including some much disfigured old people, crouching in red
and yellow blankets, are sitting and lying there. Some are fondling
small dogs; and a number of large ones, with a whole tribe of amicable
cats, are picking bones. Surf-boards, paddles, saddles, lassos,
spurs, gear, and bundles of <i>ti</i> leaves are lying about.
Thirteen horses are tethered outside, some of which brought the riders
who escorted me triumphantly from the head of the valley. The
foreheads of the precipices opposite are reddening in the sunset, and
between them and me horses and children are constantly swimming across
the broad, still stream which divides the village into two parts; and
now and then a man in a <i>malo</i>, and children who have come up the
river swimming, with their clothes in one hand, increase the assemblage.</p>
<p>All are intently watching me, but are as kind and good-natured as
possible; and my guide from Waipio is discoursing to them about me.
He knows a little abrupt, disjointed, almost unintelligible English,
and comes up every now and then with an interrogation in his manner,
“Father? mother? married? watch? How came?”
“You” appears beyond his efforts. “<i>Kilauea?
Lunalilo?”</i> Then he goes back and orates rapidly, gesticulating
emphatically. A very handsome, pleasant-looking man, with a red
sash round his waist, who, I understand from signs, is the schoolmaster,
emerged from the throng, and sat down beside me; but his English appears
limited to these words, “How old?” When I told him
by counting on my fingers he laughed heartily, and said “Too old,”
and he told the others, and they all laughed. I have photographs
of Queen Victoria and Mr. Coan in my writing-book, and when I exhibited
them they crowded round me clapping their hands, and screaming with
delight when they recognized Mr. Coan. The king’s handwriting
was then handed round amidst reverent “ahs” and “ohs,”
or what sounded like them. This letter was also passed round and
examined lengthwise, sidewise, and upside down. They shrieked
with satirical laughter when I pressed some fragile ferns in my blotting-book.
The natives think it quite idiotic in us to attach any value to withered
leaves. My inkstand with its double-spring lids has been a great
amusement. Each one opened both, and shut them again, and a chorus
of “<i>maikai, maikai</i>,” (good) ran round the circle.
They seem so simple and good that at last I have trusted them with my
watch, which excites unbounded admiration, probably because of its small
size. It is now on its travels; but I am not the least anxious
about it. A man pointed to a hut some distance on the other side
of the river, and appeared interrogative, and on my replying affirmatively,
he mounted a horse and carried off the watch in the direction indicated.
Mr. Ellis came to this valley in a canoe, and he mentions that when
he preached, the natives, who seemed to be very indifferent to the general
truths of Christianity, became very deeply interested when they heard
of <i>Ora loa ia Jesu</i> (endless life by Jesus). While I was
up the valley the poor people made a wonderful bed of seven fine mats,
one over the other, on one side of the house, and screened it off with
a flaring muslin curtain; but on the other side there are ten pillows
in a row, so that I wonder how many are to occupy the den during the
night. I am now writing inside the house, with a hollowed stone,
with some beef fat and a wick in it, for a light, and two youths seem
delegated to attend upon me. One holds my ink, and if I look up,
the other rushes for something that I am supposed to want. They
insist on thinking that I am cold because my clothes are wet, and have
thrown over me several folds of <i>tapa</i>, made from the inner bark
of the <i>wauti</i> or cloth plant (<i>Broussonetia papyrifera</i>).
They brought me a <i>kalo</i> leaf containing a number of living freshwater
shrimps, and were quite surprised when I did not eat them.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>WAIPIO, March 5th.</p>
<p>It seems fully a week since I left Waimea yesterday morning, so many
new experiences have been crowded into the time. I will try to
sketch my expedition while my old friend Halemanu is preparing dinner.
The morning opened gloriously. The broad Waimea plains were flooded
with red and gold, and the snowy crest of Mauna Kea was cloudless.
We breakfasted by lamp light (the days of course are short in this latitude),
and were away before six. My host kindly provided me with a very
fine horse and some provisions in a leather wallet, and with another
white man and a native accompanied me as far as this valley, where they
had some business. The morning deepened into gorgeousness.
A blue mist hung in heavy folds round the violet bases of the mountains,
which rose white and sharp into the rose-flushed sky; the dew lay blue
and sparkling on the short crisp grass; the air was absolutely pure,
and with a suspicion of frost in it. It was all very fair, and
the horses enjoyed the morning freshness, and danced and champed their
bits as though they disliked being reined in. We rode over level
grass-covered ground, till we reached the Hamakua bush, fringed with
dead trees, and full of <i>ohias</i> and immense fern trees, some of
them with a double tier of fronds, far larger and finer than any that
I saw in New Zealand. There are herds of wild goats, cattle, and
pigs on the island, and they roam throughout this region, trampling,
grubbing, and rending, grinding the bark of the old trees and eating
up the young ones. This ravaging is threatening at no distant
date to destroy the beauty and alter the climate of the mountainous
region of Hawaii. The cattle are a hideous breed--all bones, hide,
and horns.</p>
<p>We were at the top of the Waipio <i>pali</i> at eight, and our barefooted
horses, used to the soft pastures of Waimea, refused to carry us down
its rocky steep, so we had to walk. I admired this lonely valley
far more than before. It was full of infinite depths of blue--blue
smoke in lazy spirals curled upwards; it was eloquent in a morning silence
that I felt reluctant to break. Against its dewy greenness the
beach shone like coarse gold, and its slow silver river lingered lovingly,
as though loth to leave it, and be merged in the reckless loud-tongued
Pacific. Across the valley, the track I was to take climbed up
in thready zigzags, and disappeared round a bold headland. It
was worth a second visit just to get a glimpse of such a vision of peace.</p>
<p>Halemanu, with hospitable alacrity, soon made breakfast ready, after
which Mr. S., having arranged for my further journey, left me here,
and for the first time I found myself alone among natives ignorant of
English. For the Waimanu trip it is essential to have a horse
bred in the Waimanu Valley and used to its dizzy <i>palis</i>, and such
a horse was procured, and a handsome native, called Hananui, as guide.
We were away by ten, and galloped across the valley till we came to
the nearly perpendicular <i>pali</i> on the other side. The sight
of this air-hung trail from Halemanu’s house has turned back several
travellers who were bent on the trip, but I had been told that it was
quite safe on a Waimanu horse; and keeping under my fears as best I
could, I let Hananui precede me, and began the ascent, which is visible
from here for an hour. The <i>pali</i> is as nearly perpendicular
as can be. Not a bush or fern, hardly a tuft of any green thing,
clothes its bare, scathed sides. It terminates precipitously on
the sea at a height of 2000 feet. Up this shelving wall, something
like a sheep track, from thirty to forty-six inches broad, goes in great
swinging zigzags, sometimes as broken steps of rock breast high, at
others as a smooth ledge with hardly foothold, in three places carried
away by heavy rains--altogether the most frightful track that imagination
can conceive. <a name="citation235"></a><a href="#footnote235">{235}</a>
It was most unpleasant to see the guide’s horse straining and
scrambling, looking every now and then as if about to fall over backwards.
My horse went up wisely and nobly, but slipping, jumping, scrambling,
and sending stones over the ledge, now and then hanging for a second
by his fore feet. The higher we went the narrower and worse it
grew. The girth was loose, so as not to impede the horse’s
respiration, the broad cinch which usually passes under the body having
been fastened round his chest, and yet it was once or twice necessary
to run the risk of losing my balance by taking my left foot out of the
stirrup to press it against the horse’s neck to prevent it from
being crushed, while my right hung over the precipice. We came
to a place where the path had been carried away, leaving a declivity
of loose sand and gravel. You can hardly realize how difficult
it was to dismount, when there was no margin outside the horse.
I somehow slid under him, being careful not to turn the saddle, and
getting hold of his hind leg, screwed myself round carefully behind
him. It was alarming to see these sure-footed creatures struggle
and slide in the deep gravel as though they must go over, and not less
so to find myself sliding, though I was grasping my horse’s tail.</p>
<p>Between the summit and Waimanu, a distance of ten miles, there are
nine gulches, two of them about 900 feet deep, all very beautiful, owing
to the broken ground, the luxuriant vegetation, and the bright streams,
but the <i>kona</i>, or south wind, was blowing, bringing up the hot
breath of the equatorial belt, and the sun was perfectly unclouded,
so that the heat of the gorges was intense. They succeed each
other occasionally with very great rapidity. Between two of the
deepest and steepest there is a ridge not more than fifty yards wide.</p>
<p>Soon after noon we simultaneously stopped our horses. The Waimanu
Valley lay 2500 feet (it is said) below us, and the trail struck off
into space. It was a scene of loneliness to which Waipio seems
the world. In a second the eye took in the twenty grass lodges
of its inhabitants, the five cascades which dive into the dense forests
of its upper end, its river like a silver ribbon, and its meadows of
living green. In ten seconds a bird could have spanned the ravine
and feasted on its loveliness, but we could only tip over the dizzy
ridge that overhangs the valley, and laboriously descend into its heat
and silence. The track is as steep and broken as that which goes
up from hence, but not nearly so narrow, and without its elements of
terror, for <i>kukuis, lauhalas, ohias</i>, and <i>ti</i> trees, with
a lavish growth of ferns and trailers, grow luxuriantly in every damp
rift of rock, and screen from view the precipices of the <i>pali</i>.
The valley looks as if it could only be reached in a long day’s
travel, so very far it is below, but the steepness of the track makes
it accessible in an hour from the summit. As we descended, houses
and a church which had looked like toys at first, dilated on our sight,
the silver ribbon became a stream, the specks on the meadows turned
into horses, the white wavy line on the Pacific beach turned into a
curling wave, and lower still, I saw people, who had seen us coming
down, hastily shuffling into clothes.</p>
<p>There were four houses huddled between the <i>pali</i> and the river,
and six or eight, with a church and schoolhouse on the other side; and
between these and the ocean a steep narrow beach, composed of large
stones worn as round and smooth as cannon balls, on which the surf roars
the whole year round. The <i>pali</i> which walls in the valley
on the other side is inaccessible. The school children and a great
part of the population had assembled in front of the house which I described
before. There was a sort of dyke of rough lava stones round it,
difficult to climb, but the natives, though they are very kind, did
not, on this or any similar occasion, offer me any help, which neglect,
I suppose, arises from the fact that the native women never need help,
as they are as strong, fearless, and active as the men, and rival them
in swimming and other athletic sports. An old man, clothed only
with his dark skin, was pounding baked <i>kalo</i> for <i>poi</i>, in
front of the house; a woman with flowers in her hair, but apparently
not otherwise clothed, was wading up to her waist in the river, pushing
before her a light trumpet-shaped basket used for catching shrimps,
and the other women wore the usual bright-coloured chemises.</p>
<p>I wanted to make the most of the six hours of daylight left, and
we remounted our horses and rode for some distance up the river, which
is the highway of the valley, all the children swimming on our right
and left, each holding up a bundle of clothes with one hand, and two
canoes paddled behind us. The river is still and clear, with a
smooth bottom, but comes halfway up a horse’s body, and riders
take their feet out of the stirrups, bring them to a level with the
saddle, lean slightly back, and hold them against the horse’s
neck. Equestrians following this fashion, canoes gliding, children
and dogs swimming, were a most amusing picture. Several of the
children swim to and from school every day. I was anxious to get
rid of this voluntary escort, and we took a gallop over the soft springy
grass till we reached some very pretty grass houses, under the shade
of the most magnificent bread-fruit trees on Hawaii, loaded with fruit.
There were orange trees in blossom, and coffee trees with masses of
sweet white flowers lying among their flaky branches like snow, and
the unfailing cocoa-nut rising out of banana groves, and clusters of
gardenia smothering the red hibiscus. Here Hananui adopted a showman’s
air; he made me feel as if I were one of Barnum’s placarded monsters.
I had nothing to do but sit on my horse and be stared at. I felt
that my bleached face was unpleasing, that my eyes and hair were faded,
and that I had a great deal to answer for in the way of colour and attire.
From the way in which he asked me unintelligible questions, I gathered
that the people were catechizing him about me, and that he was romancing
largely at my expense. They brought me some bananas and cocoa-nut
milk, which were most refreshing.</p>
<p>Beyond the houses the valley became a jungle of Indian shot (<i>Canna
indica</i>), eight or nine feet high, guavas and <i>ohias</i>, with
an entangled undergrowth of ferns rather difficult to penetrate, and
soon Hananui, whose soul was hankering after the delights of society,
stopped, saying, “<i>Lios</i> (horses) no go.” “We’ll
try,” I replied, and rode on first. He sat on his horse
laughing immoderately, and then followed me. I see that in travelling
with natives it is essential to have a definite plan of action in one’s
own mind, and to verge on self-assertion in carrying it out. We
fought our way a little further, and then he went out of sight altogether
in the jungle, his horse having floundered up to his girths in soft
ground, on which we dismounted and tethered the horses. H. had
never been any further, and as I failed to make him understand that
I desired to visit the home of the five cascades, I had to reverse our
positions and act as guide. We crept along the side of a torrent
among exquisite trees, moss, and ferns, till we came to a place where
it divided. There were three horses tethered there, some wearing
apparel lying on the rocks, and some human footprints along one of the
streams, which decided me in favour of the other. H. remonstrated
by signs, as doubtless he espied an opportunity for much gossip in the
other direction, but on my appearing persistent, he again laughed and
followed me.</p>
<p>From this point it was one perfect, rapturous, intoxicating, supreme
vision of beauty, and I felt, as I now believe, that at last I had reached
a scene on which foreign eyes had never looked. The glories of
the tropical forest closed us in with their depth, colour, and redundancy.
Here the operations of nature are rapid and decisive. A rainfall
of eleven feet in a year and a hothouse temperature force every plant
into ceaseless activity, and make short work of decay. Leafage,
blossom, fruitage, are simultaneous and perennial. The river,
about as broad as the Cam at Cambridge, leaped along, clear like amber,
pausing to rest awhile in deep bright pools, where fish were sporting
above the golden sand, a laughing, sparkling, rushing, terrorless stream,
“without mysteries or agonies,” broken by rocks, green with
mosses and fragile ferns, and in whose unchilled waters, not more than
three feet deep, wading was both safe and pleasant. It was not
possible to creep along its margin, the forest was so dense and tangled,
so we waded the whole way, and wherever the water ran fiercely my unshod
guide helped me. One varied, glorious maze of vegetation came
down to it, and every green thing leant lovingly towards it, or stooped
to touch it, and over its whole magic length was arched and interlaced
the magnificent large-leaved <i>ohia</i>, whose millions of spikes of
rose-crimson blossoms lit up the whole arcade, and the light of the
afternoon sun slanted and trickled through them, dancing in the mirthful
water, turning its far-down sands to gold, and brightening the many-shaded
greens of candlenut and breadfruit. It shone on majestic fern-trees,
on the fragile <i>Polypodium tamariscinum</i>, which clung tremblingly
to the branches of the <i>ohia</i>, on the beautiful lygodium, which
adorned the uncouth trunk of the breadfruit; on shining banana leaves
and glossy trailing yams; on gigantic lianas, which, climbing to the
tops of the largest trees, descended in vast festoons, passing from
tree to tree, and interlacing the forest with a living network; and
on lycopodiums of every kind, from those which wrapped the rocks in
feathery green to others hardly distinguishable from ferns. But
there were twilight depths too, where no sunlight penetrated the leafy
gloom, damp and cool: dreamy shades, in which the music of the water
was all too sweet, and the loveliness too entrancing, creating that
sadness, hardly “akin to pain,” which is latent in all intense
enjoyment. Here and there a tree had fallen across the river,
from which grew upwards and trailed downwards, fairy-like, semi-transparent
mosses and ferns, all glittering with moisture and sunshine, and now
and then a scarlet tropic bird heightened the effect by the flash of
his plumage.</p>
<p>After an hour of wading we emerged into broad sunny daylight at the
home of the five cascades, which fall from a semicircular precipice
into three basins. It is not, however, possible to pass from one
to the other. This great gulf is a grand sight, with its dark
deep basin from which it seemed so far to look up to the heavenly blue,
and the water falling calmly and unhurriedly, amidst innumerable rainbows,
from a height of 3000 feet. The sides were draped with ferns flourishing
under the spray, and at the base the rock was very deeply caverned.
I enjoyed a delicious bath, relying on sun and wind to dry my clothes,
and then reluctantly waded down the river. At its confluence with
another stream, still arched by <i>ohias</i>, a man and two women appeared
rising out of the water, like a vision of the elder world in the days
of Fauns, and Naiads, and Hamadryads. The water was up to their
waists, and <i>leis</i> of <i>ohia</i> blossoms and ferns, and masses
of unbound hair fantastically wreathed with moss, fell over their faultless
forms, and their rich brown skin gleamed in the slant sunshine.
They were catching shrimps with trumpet-shaped baskets, perhaps rather
a prosaic occupation. They joined us, and we waded down together
to the place where they had left their horses. The women slipped
into their <i>holukus</i>, and the man insisted on my riding his barebacked
horse to the place where we had left our own, and then we all galloped
over the soft grass.</p>
<p>Waimanu had turned out to meet us about thirty people on horseback,
all of whom shook hands with me, and some of them threw over me garlands
of <i>ohia</i>, pandanus, and hibiscus. Where our cavalcade entered
the river, a number of children and dogs and three canoes awaited us,
and thus escorted I returned triumphantly to the house. The procession
on the river of paddling canoes, swimming children, and dogs, and more
than thirty riders, with their feet tucked up round their horses’
necks, all escorting a “pale face,” was grotesque and enchanting,
and I revelled in this lapse into savagery, and enjoyed heartily the
kindliness and goodwill of this unsophisticated people.</p>
<p>When darkness spread over the valley, clear voices ascended in a
weird recitative, the room filled up with people, pipes circulated freely,
<i>poi</i> was again produced, and calabashes of cocoa-nut milk.
The <i>mêlés</i> were long, and I crept within my curtain
and lay down, but the drowsiness which legitimately came over me after
riding thirty miles and wading two, was broken in upon by two monstrous
cockroaches really as large as mice, with fierce-looking antennæ
and prominent eyes, both of which mounted guard on my pillow.
On rising to drive them away, I found to my dismay that they were but
the leaders of a host, which only made a temporary retreat, rustling
over the mat and dried grass with the crisp tread of mice, and scaring
away sleep for some hours. Worse than these were the mosquitoes,
also an imported nuisance, which stabbed and stung without any preliminary
droning; and the heat was worse still, for thirteen human beings were
lying on the floor and the door was shut. Had I known that two
of these were lepers, I should have felt far from comfortable.
As it was, I got up soon after midnight, and cautiously stepping among
the sleeping forms, went out of doors. Everything favoured reflection,
but I think the topics to which my mind most frequently reverted were
my own absolute security--a lone white woman among “savages,”
and the civilizing influence which Christianity has exercised, so that
even in this isolated valley, gouged out of a mountainous coast, there
was nothing disagreeable or improper to be seen. The night was
very still, but the sea was moaning; the river rippled very gently as
it brushed past the reeds; there was a hardly perceptible vibration
in the atmosphere, which suggested falling water and quivering leaves;
and the air was full of a heavy, drowsy fragrance, the breath of orange
flowers, perhaps, and of the night-blowing Cereus, which had opened
its ivory urn to the moon. I should have liked to stay out all
night in the vague, delicious moonlight, but the dew was heavy, and
moreover I had not any boots on, so I reluctantly returned to the grass
house, which was stifling with heat and smells of cocoa-nut oil, tobacco,
and the rancid smoke from beef fat.</p>
<p>Before sunrise this morning my horse was saddled, and a number of
natives had assembled. Hananui had disappeared, but the man who
lent me his bare-backed horse yesterday was ready to act as guide.
My boots could not then be found, so I adopted the native fashion of
riding with bare feet. We again rode up the river in that slow
and solemn fashion in which horses walk in water, galloped over a stretch
of grass, crossed a bright stream several times, and then entered a
dense jungle of Indian shot, plantains, and sadlerias, with breadfruit,
<i>kukui</i>, and <i>ohia</i> rising out of it. There were thousands
of plantains, a fruit resembling the banana, but that it requires cooking.
The Indian shot, the yellow-blossomed variety, was of a gigantic size.
Its hard, black seeds put into a bladder furnish the <i>chic-chac</i>,
which in many places is used as an accompaniment to the utterly abominable
and heathenish tom-tom. Here guavas as large as oranges and as
yellow as lemons ripened and fell unheeded. Sometimes deep down
we heard the rush of water, and Paalau got down and groped for it on
his hands and knees; sometimes we heard a noise as of hippopotami, but
nothing could be seen but the tips of ears, as a herd of happy, unbroken
horses, scared by our approach, crashed away through the jungle.
Clear rapid streams, fern-fringed, sometimes offered us a few yards
of highway, but the jungle ever grew more dense, the forest trees larger,
the lianas more tangled, the streams more sunk and rocky, and though
the horses shut their eyes and boldly pushed through the tangle, we
were fairly foiled when within half a mile from the head of the valley.
I thoroughly appreciated the unsightly leather guards which are here
used to cover the stirrups and feet, as without them I could not have
ridden ten yards. We were so hemmed in that it was difficult to
dismount, but I bound some wild <i>kalo</i> leaves round my feet, and
managed to get over some broken rock to a knoll, from which I obtained
a superb view of the wonderful cleft. <i>Palis</i> 3000 feet in
height walled in its head with a complete inaccessibility. It
lay in cool dewy shadow till the sudden sun flushed its precipices with
pink, and a broad bar of light revealed the great chasm in which it
terminates, while far off its portals opened upon the red eastern sky.
This little lonely world had become so very dear to me, that I found
it hard to leave it.</p>
<p>There was some stir near the sea, for a man was about to build a
grass house, and they were preparing a stone pavement for it.
Thirty people sat on the ground in a line from the beach, and passed
stones from hand to hand, as men pass buckets at a fire. It seemed
a very attractive occupation, and I could hardly get Hananui to leave
it. The natives are most gregarious and social in their habits.
They assemble together for everything that has to be made or done, and
their occupations and amusements are shared by both sexes. In
old days it is said that a king of Hawaii assembled most of the adults
of the then populous island, and formed a human chain three miles long
to pass up stones for the building of the great <i>Heiau</i> in Kona.
It is said that this valley had 2000 inhabitants forty years ago, but
they have dwindled to 117. The former estimate is probably not
an excessive one, for nearly the whole valley is suitable for the culture
of <i>kalo</i>, and a square mile of <i>kalo</i> will feed 15,000 natives
for a year.</p>
<p>Two women were shrimping in the river, the children were swimming
to school, blue smoke curled up into the still air, <i>kalo</i> was
baking among the stones, and a group of women sat sewing and making
<i>leis</i> on the ground. The Waimanu day had begun; and it was
odd to think that through the long summer years days dawned like this,
and that the people of the valley grew grey and old in shrimping and
sewing and <i>kalo</i> baking. All Waimanu shook hands with me,
the kindly “<i>Aloha</i>” filled the air, and the women
threw garlands over us both. I could hardly induce my host to
accept a dollar and a half for my entertainment. From the dizzy
summit of the <i>pali</i>, where the sun was high and hot, I looked
my last on the dark, cool valley, slumbering in an endless calm, the
deepest, greenest, quaintest cleft on all the island.</p>
<p>The sun was fierce and bright, the ocean had a metallic glint, the
hot breath of the <i>kona</i> was scorching. My hands, swollen
from mosquito bites, could not be stuffed into my gloves, and inflamed
under the sun, and my wet boots baked and stiffened on my feet.
Hananui plaited a crown of leaves for my hot head, which I found a great
relief. I was still minded to linger, for one side of each glorious
gulch was cool with shadow and dripping with dew. The blue morning
glories were yet unwilted, rivulets dropped down into ferny grottoes
and lingered there, rose <i>ohia</i> blossoms lighted shady places,
orange flowers gleamed like stars amidst the dense leafage, and the
crimped-leaved coffee shrubs were white with their mimic snow.
It was my last tropical dream, and I was rudely roused by finding myself
on the unsightly verge of the great bluff on the north side of this
valley, which plunges to the sea with an uncompromising perpendicular
dip of 2000 feet, and carries on its dizzy brow a shelving trail not
more than two feet wide!</p>
<p>I felt that I must go back and live and die in Waimanu rather than
descend that scathed steep, and being stupid with terror flung myself
from my horse, forgetting that it was much safer to trust to his four
feet than to my two, and to an animal without “nerves,”
dizziness, or “the fore-knowledge of death,” than to my
palsied, cowardly self. I had intended to go into details of the
horrible descent, but the “<i>pilikia</i>” is over now,
and Halemanu claps me on the shoulder with an approving smile, ejaculating,
“<i>Maikai, maikai</i>” (good). Besides, my returning
senses inform me that I have not tasted food since yesterday, and some
delicious river fishes are smoking on the table. . . . .<br /> I.L.B.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>LETTER XVII.</h3>
<p>STR. KILAUEA.</p>
<p>. . . I have been spending the day at Lahaina on Maui, on my
way from Kawaihae to Honolulu. Lahaina is thoroughly beautiful
and tropical looking, with its white latticed houses peeping out from
under coco palms, breadfruit, candlenut, tamarinds, mangoes, bananas,
and oranges, with the brilliant green of a narrow strip of sugar-cane
for a background, and above, the flushed mountains of Eeka, riven here
and there by cool green chasms, rise to a height of 6000 feet.
Beautiful Lahaina! It is an oasis in a dazzling desert, straggling
for nearly two miles along the shore, but compressed into a width of
half a mile. It was a great missionary centre, as well as a great
whaling station, but the whalers have deserted it, and missions are
represented now only by the seminary of Lahainaluna on the hillside.
An old palace, the remains of a fort, a custom-house, and a native church
are the most conspicuous buildings. The stores and dwellings of
the foreign residents are scattered along the shore, and the light frame
house, with its green verandah, buried amid gorgeous exotics and shaded
by candlenut and breadfruit, looks as seemly and in keeping as in far-off
Massachusetts, under hickory and elm. The grass houses of the
natives cluster along the waters’ edge, or in lanes dark with
mangoes and bananas, and fragrant with gardenia fringing the cane-fields.
These, with adobe houses and walls, the flush of the soil, the gaudy
dresses of the natives, the masses of brilliant exotics, the intense
blue of the sea, and the dry blaze of the tropical heat, give a decided
individuality to the capital of Maui. The heat of Lahaina is a
dry, robust, bracing, joyous heat. The mercury stood at 80°,
the usual temperature of the “flare” or sea level on the
leeward side of the islands; but I strolled through the cane-fields
and along the glaring beach without suffering the least inconvenience
from the sun, and found the unusual precaution of a white umbrella perfectly
needless.</p>
<p>The beach is formed of pure white broken coral; the sea is blue with
the calm, pure blue of turquoise, but crystalline in its purity, and
breaks for ever over the environing coral reef with a low deep music.
Blue water stretched to the far horizon, the sky was blazing blue, the
leafage was almost dazzling to the eye, the mountainous island of Molokai
floated like a great blue morning glory on the yet bluer sea; a sweet,
soft breeze rustled through the palms, lazy ripples plashed lightly
on the sand; humanity basked, flower-clad, in sunny indolence; everything
was redundant, fervid, beautiful. How can I make you realize the
glorious, bountiful, sun-steeped tropics under our cold grey skies,
and amidst our pale, monotonous, lustreless greens?</p>
<p>Yet Molokai is only enchanting in the distance, for its blue petals
enfold 400 lepers doomed to endless isolation, and 300 more are shortly
to be weeded out and sent thither. In to-day’s paper appeared
the painful notice, “All lepers are required to report themselves
to the Government health officer within fourteen days from this date
for inspection, and final banishment to Molokai.” It is
hoped that leprosy may be “stamped out” by these stringent
measures, but the leprous taint must be strong in many families, and
the social, gregarious natives smoke each other’s pipes and wear
each other’s clothes, and either from fatalism or ignorance have
disregarded all precautions regarding this woful disease; and now that
measures are being taken for the isolation of lepers, they are concealing
them under mats and in caves and woods. This forlorn malady, called
here Chinese leprosy, in the cases that I have seen, confers nothing
of the white, scaly look attributed to Syrian leprosy; but the face
is red, puffed, bloated, and shining, and the eyes glazed, and I am
told that in its advanced stage the swollen limbs decay and drop off.
It is a fresh item of the infinite curse which has come upon this race,
and with Molokai in sight the Hesperides vanished, and I ceased to believe
that the Fortunate Islands exist here or elsewhere on this weary earth.</p>
<p>My destination was the industrial training and boarding school for
girls, taught and superintended by two English ladies of Miss Sellon’s
sisterhood, Sisters Mary Clara and Phœbe; and I found it buried
under the shade of the finest candlenut trees I have yet seen.
A rude wooden cross in front is a touching and fitting emblem of the
Saviour, for whom these pious women have sacrificed friends, sympathy,
and the social intercourse and amenities which are within daily reach
of our workers at home. The large house, which is either plastered
stone or adobe, contains the dormitories, visitors’ room, and
oratory, and three houses at the back, all densely shaded, are used
as schoolroom, cook-house, laundry, and refectory. There is a
playground under some fine tamarind trees, and an adobe wall encloses,
without secluding, the whole. The visitors’ room is about
twelve feet by eight feet, very bare, with a deal table and three chairs
in it, but it was vacant, and I crossed to the large, shady, airy schoolroom,
where I found the senior sister engaged in teaching, while the junior
was busy in the cook-house. These ladies in eight years have never
left Lahaina. Other people may think it necessary to leave its
broiling heat and seek health and recreation on the mountains, but their
work has left them no leisure, and their zeal no desire, for a holiday.
A very solid, careful English education is given here, as well as a
thorough training in all housewifely arts, and in the more important
matters of modest dress and deportment, and propriety in language.
There are thirty-seven boarders, native and half-native, and mixed native
and Chinese, between the ages of four and eighteen. They provide
their own clothes, beds, and bedding, and I think pay forty dollars
a year. The capitation grant from Government for two years was
2325 dollars. Sister Phœbe was my cicerone, and I owe her
one of the pleasantest days I have spent on the islands. The elder
Sister is in middle life, but though fragile-looking, has a pure complexion
and a lovely countenance; the younger is scarcely middle-aged, one of
the brightest, bonniest, sweetest-looking women I ever saw, with fun
dancing in her eyes and round the corners of her mouth; yet the regnant
expression on both faces was serenity, as though they had attained to
“the love which looketh kindly, and the wisdom which looketh soberly
on all things.”</p>
<p>I never saw such a mirthful-looking set of girls. Some were
cooking the dinner, some ironing, others reading English aloud; but
each occupation seemed a pastime, and whenever they spoke to the Sisters
they clung about them as if they were their mothers. I heard them
read the Bible and an historical lesson, as well as play on a piano
and sing, and they wrote some very difficult passages from dictation
without any errors, and in a flowing, legible handwriting that I am
disposed to envy. Their accent and intonation were pleasing, and
there was a briskness and emulation about their style of answering questions,
rarely found in country schools with us, significant of intelligence
and good teaching. All but the younger girls spoke English as
fluently as Hawaiian. I cannot convey a notion of the blitheness
and independence of manner of these children. To say that they
were free and easy would be wrong; it was rather the manner of very
frolicsome daughters to very indulgent mothers or aunts. It was
a family manner rather than a school manner, and the rule is obviously
one of love. The Sisters are very wise in adapting their discipline
to the native character and circumstances. The rigidity which
is customary in similar institutions at home would be out of place,
as well as fatal here, and would ultimately lead to a rebound of a most
injurious description. Strict obedience is of course required,
but the rules are few and lenient, and there is no more pressure of
discipline than in a well-ordered family. The native amusements
generally are objectionable, but Hawaiians are a dancing people, and
will dance, or else indulge in less innocent pastimes; so the Sisters
have taught them various English dances, and I never saw anything prettier
or more graceful than their style of dancing. There is no uniform
dress. The girls wear pretty print frocks, made in the English
style, and several of them wore the hibiscus in their shining hair.
Some of the older girls were beautiful in face as well as graceful in
figure, but there was a snaky undulation about their movements which
I never saw among Europeans. All looked bubbling over with fun
and frolic, and there was a refinement and intelligence about their
expression which contrasted favourably with that of the ordinary female
face on the islands.</p>
<p>There are two dormitories, excellently ventilated, with a four-post
bed, with mosquito-bars, for each girl, and the beds were covered with
those brilliant-coloured quilts in which the natives delight, and in
which they exercise considerable ingenuity as well as individuality
of taste. One Sister sleeps in each dormitory, and these highly-educated
and refined women have no place of retirement except a very plain oratory;
and having taken the vow of poverty, they have of course no possessions,
none of the books, pictures, and knick-knacks wherewith others adorn
their surroundings. Their whole lives, with the exception of the
time passed in the oratory, are spent with the girls, and in visiting
the afflicted at their homes, and this through eight blazing years,
with the mercury always at 80°!</p>
<p>The Hawaiian women have no notions of virtue as we understand it,
and if there is to be any future for this race it must come through
a higher morality. Consequently the removal of these girls from
evil and impure surroundings, the placing them under the happiest influences
in favour of purity and goodness, the forming and fostering of industrious
and housewifely habits, and the raising them in their occupations and
amusements above those which are natural to their race, are in themselves
a noble, and in some degree, a hopeful work, but it admits of neither
pause nor relaxation. Those who carry it on are truly “the
lowest in the meanest task,” for they have undertaken not only
the superintendence of menial work (so called), but the work itself,
in teaching by example and instruction the womanly industries of home.
They have no society, until lately no regular Liturgical worship, and
of necessity a very infrequent celebration of the Holy Communion; and
they have undergone the trial which arose very naturally out of the
ecclesiastical relations of the American missionaries, of being regarded
as enemies, or at least dangerous interlopers, by the excellent men
who had long resided on the islands as Christian teachers, and with
whose views on such matters as dress and recreation their own are somewhat
at variance. In the first instance, the habit they wore, their
designations, the presence of Miss Sellon, the fame of whose Ritualistic
tendencies had reached the islands, and their manifest connection with
a section of the English Church which is regarded here with peculiar
disfavour, roused a strongly antagonistic feeling regarding their work
and the drift of their religious teaching. They are not connected
with what is known at home as the “Honolulu Mission.” <a name="citation256"></a><a href="#footnote256">{256}</a><br /> I.L.B.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>LETTER XVIII.</h3>
<p>HAWAIIAN HOTEL, HONOLULU. March 20th.</p>
<p>Oahu, with its grey pinnacles, its deep valleys, its cool chasms,
its ruddy headlands, and volcanic cones, all clothed in green by the
recent rains, looked unspeakably lovely as we landed by sunrise in a
rose-flushed atmosphere, and Honolulu, shady, dew-bathed, and brilliant
with flowers, deserved its name, “The Paradise of the Pacific.”
The hotel is pleasant, and Mrs. D.’s presence makes it sweet and
homelike; but in a very few days I have lost much of the health I gained
on Hawaii, and the “Rolling Moses” and the Rocky Mountains
can hardly come too soon. For Honolulu is truly a metropolis,
gay, hospitable, and restless, and this hotel centralizes the restlessness.
Visiting begins at breakfast time, when it ends I know not, and receiving
and making visits, court festivities, entertainments given by the commissioners
of the great powers, riding parties, picnics, verandah parties, “sociables,”
and luncheon and evening parties on board the ships of war, succeed
each other with frightful rapidity. This is all on the surface,
but beneath and better than this is a kindness which leaves no stranger
to a sense of loneliness, no want uncared for, and no sorrow unalleviated.
This, more than its beauty and its glorious climate, makes Honolulu
“Paradise” for the many who arrive here sick and friendless.
I notice that the people are very intimate with each other, and generally
address each other by their Christian names. Very many are the
descendants of the clerical and secular members of the mission, and
these, besides being naturally intimate, are further drawn and held
together by a society called “The Cousins’ Society,”
the objects of which are admirable. The people take an intense
interest in each other, and love each other unusually. Possibly
they may hate each other as cordially when occasion offers. It
is a charming town, and the society is delightful. I wish I were
well enough to enjoy it.</p>
<p>For people in the early stages of consumption this climate is perfect,
owing to its equability, as also for bronchial affections. Unlike
the health resorts of the Mediterranean, Algeria, Madeira, and Florida,
where great summer heats or an unhealthy season compel half-cured invalids
to depart in the spring, to return the next winter with fresh colds
to begin the half-cure process again, people can live here until they
are completely cured, as the climate is never unhealthy, and never too
hot. Though the regular trades, which blow for nine months of
the year, have not yet set in, and the mercury stands at 80°, there
is no sultriness: a tremulous sea-breeze and a mountain breeze fan the
town, and the purple nights, when the stars hang out like lamps, and
the moon gives a light which is almost golden, are cool and delicious.
Roughly computed, the annual mean temperature is 75° 55’,
with a divergence in either direction of only 7° 55’.
As a general rule the temperature is cooler by four degrees for every
thousand feet of altitude, so that people can choose their climate to
suit themselves without leaving the islands.</p>
<p>I am gradually learning a little of the topography of this island
and of Honolulu, but the last is very intricate. The appearance
of Oahu from the sea is deceptive. It looks hardly larger than
Arran, but it is really forty-six miles long by twenty-five broad, and
is 530 square miles in extent. Diamond Hill, or Leahi, is the
most prominent object south of the town, beyond the palm groves of Waikiki.
It is red and arid, except when, as now, it is verdure-tinged by recent
rains. Its height is 760 feet, and its crater nearly as deep,
but its cone is rapidly diminishing. Some years ago, when the
enormous quantity of thirty-six inches of rain fell in one week, the
degradation of both exterior and interior was something incredible,
and the same process is being carried on slowly or rapidly at all times.
The Punchbowl, immediately behind Honolulu, is a crater of the same
kind, but of yet more brilliant colouring: so red is it indeed, that
one might suppose that its fires had but just died out. In 1786
an observer noted it as being composed of high peaks; but atmospheric
influences have reduced it to the appearance of a single wasting tufa
cone, similar to those which stud the northern slopes of Mauna Kea.
There are a number of shore craters on the island, and six groups of
tufa cones, but from the disintegration of the lava, and the great depth
of the soil in many places, it is supposed that volcanic action ceased
earlier than on Maui or Hawaii. The shores are mostly fringed
with coral reefs, often half a mile in width, composed of cemented coral
fragments, shells, sand, and a growing species of zoophyte. The
ancient reefs are elevated thirty, forty, and even 100 feet in some
places, forming barriers which have changed lagoons into solid ground.
Honolulu was a bay or lagoon, protected from the sea by a coral reef
a mile wide; but the elevation of this reef twenty-five feet has furnished
a site for the capital, by converting the bay into a low but beautifully
situated plain.</p>
<p>The mountainous range behind is a rocky wall with outlying ridges,
valleys of great size cutting the mountain to its core on either side,
until the culminating peaks of Waiolani and Konahuanui, 4000 feet above
the sea, seem as if rent in twain to form the Nuuanu Valley. The
windward side of this range is fertile, and is dotted over with rice
and sugar plantations, but the leeward side has not a trace of the redundancy
of the tropics, and this very barrenness gives a unique charm to the
exotic beauty of Honolulu.</p>
<p>To me it is daily a fresh pleasure to stroll along the shady streets
and revel among palms and bananas, to see clusters of the granadilla
and night-blowing cereus mixed with the double blue pea, tumbling over
walls and fences, while the vermilion flowers of the <i>Erythrina umbrosa</i>,
like spikes of red coral, and the flaring magenta Bougainvillea (which
is not a flower at all, but an audacious freak of terminal leaves) light
up the shade, and the purple-leaved Dracæna which we grow in pots
for dinner-table ornament, is as common as a weed.</p>
<p>Besides this hotel, and the handsome but exaggerated and inappropriate
Government buildings not yet finished, there are few “imposing
edifices” here. The tasteful but temporary English Cathedral,
the Kaiwaiaho Church, diminished once to suit a dwindled population,
but already too large again; the prison, a clean, roomy building, empty
in the daytime, because the convicts are sent out to labour on roads
and public works; the Queen’s Hospital for Curables, for which
Queen Emma and her husband became mendicants in Honolulu; the Court
House, a staring, unshaded building; and the Iolani Palace, almost exhaust
the category. Of this last, little can be said, except that it
is appropriate and proportioned to a kingdom of 56,000 souls, which
is more than can be said of the income of the king, the salaries of
the ministers, and some other things. It stands in pleasure-grounds
of about an acre in extent, with a fine avenue running through them,
and is approached by a flight of steps which leads to a tolerably spacious
hall, decorated in the European style. Portraits of Louis Philippe
and his queen, presented by themselves, and of the late Admiral Thomas,
adorn the walls. The Hawaiians have a profound respect for this
officer’s memory, as it was through him that the sovereignty of
the islands was promptly restored to the native rulers, after the infamous
affair of its cession to England, as represented by Lord George Paulet.
There are also some ornamental vases and miniature copies of some of
Thorwaldsen’s works. The throne-room takes up the left wing
of the palace. This unfortunately resembles a rather dreary drawing-room
in London or New York, and has no distinctive features except a decorated
chair, which is the Hawaiian throne. There is an Hawaiian crown
also, neither grand nor costly, but this I have not seen. At present
the palace is only used for state receptions and entertainments, for
the king is living at his private residence of Haemoeipio, not far off.</p>
<p>Miss W. kindly introduced me to Queen Emma, or Kaleleonalani, the
widowed queen of Kamehameha IV., whom you will remember as having visited
England a few years ago, when she received great attention. She
has one-fourth of English blood in her veins, but her complexion is
fully as dark as if she were of unmixed Hawaiian descent, and her features,
though refined by education and circumstances, are also Hawaiian; but
she is a very pretty, as well as a very graceful woman. She was
brought up by Dr. Rooke, an English physician here, and though educated
at the American school for the children of chiefs, is very English in
her leanings and sympathies, an attached member of the English Church,
and an ardent supporter of the “Honolulu Mission.”
Socially she is very popular, and her exceeding kindness and benevolence,
with her strongly national feeling as an Hawaiian, make her much beloved
by the natives.</p>
<p>The winter palace, as her town house is called, is a large shady
abode, like an old-fashioned New England house externally, but with
two deep verandahs, and the entrance is on the upper one. The
lower floor seemed given up to attendants and offices, and a native
woman was ironing clothes under a tree. Upstairs, the house is
like a tasteful English country house, with a pleasant English look,
as if its furniture and ornaments had been gradually accumulating during
a series of years, and possessed individual histories and reminiscences,
rather than as if they had been ordered together as “plenishings”
from stores. Indeed, it is the most English-looking house I have
seen since I left home, except Bishopscourt at Melbourne. If there
were a bell I did not see it; and we did not ring, for the queen received
us at the door of the drawing-room, which was open. I had seen
her before in European dress, driving a pair of showy black horses in
a stylish English phaeton; but on this occasion she was not receiving
visitors formally, and was indulging in wearing the native <i>holuku</i>,
and her black wavy hair was left to its own devices. She is rather
below the middle height, very young-looking for her age, which is thirty-seven,
and very graceful in her movements. Her manner is indeed very
fascinating from a combination of unconscious dignity with ladylike
simplicity. Her expression is sweet and gentle, with the same
look of sadness about her eyes that the king has, but she has a brightness
and archness of expression which give a great charm to her appearance.
She has sorrowed much: first, for the death, at the age of four, of
her only child, the Prince of Hawaii, who when dying was baptized into
the English Church by the name of Albert Edward, Queen Victoria and
the Prince of Wales being his sponsors; and secondly, for the premature
death of her husband, to whom she was much attached. She speaks
English beautifully, only hesitating now and then for the most correct
form of expression. She spoke a good deal and with great pleasure
of England; and described Venice and the emotions it excited in her
so admirably, that I should like to have heard her describe all Europe.</p>
<p>A few days afterwards I went to a garden party at her house.
It was a very pretty sight, and the “everybody” of Honolulu
was there to the number of 250. I must describe it for the benefit
of ----, who persists in thinking that coloured royalty must necessarily
be grotesque. People arrived shortly before sunset, and were received
by Queen Emma, who sat on the lawn, with her attendants about her, very
simply dressed in black silk. The king, at whose entrance the
band played the national anthem, stood on another lawn, where presentations
were made by the chamberlain; and those who were already acquainted
with him had an opportunity for a few minutes’ conversation.
He was dressed in a very well-made black morning suit, and wore the
ribbon and star of the Austrian order of Francis Joseph. His simplicity
was atoned for by the superlative splendour of his suite; the governor
of Oahu, and the high chief Kalakaua, who was a rival candidate for
the throne, being conspicuously resplendent. The basis of the
costume appeared to be the Windsor uniform, but it was smothered with
epaulettes, cordons, and lace; and each dignitary has a uniform peculiar
to his office, so that the display of gold lace was prodigious.
The chiefs are so raised above the common people in height, size, and
general nobility of aspect, that many have supposed them to be of a
different race; and the <i>alii</i> who represented the dwindled order
that night were certainly superb enough in appearance to justify the
supposition. Beside their splendour and stateliness, the forty
officers of the English and American war-ships, though all in full-dress
uniform, looked decidedly insignificant; and I doubt not that the natives
who were assembled outside the garden railings in crowds were not behind
me in making invidious comparisons.</p>
<p>Chairs and benches were placed under the beautiful trees, and people
grouped themselves on these, and promenaded, flirted, talked politics
and gossip, or listened to the royal band, which played at intervals,
and played well. The dress of the ladies, whether white or coloured,
was both pretty and appropriate. Most of the younger women were
in white, and wore natural flowers in their hair; and many of the elder
ladies wore black or coloured silks, with lace and trains. There
were several beautiful <i>leis</i> of the gardenia, which filled all
the garden with their delicious odour. Tea and ices were handed
round on Sèvres china by footmen and pages in appropriate liveries.
What a wonderful leap from calabashes and <i>poi</i>, <i>malos</i> and
<i>paus</i>, to this correct and tasteful civilization! As soon
as the brief amber twilight of the tropics was over, the garden was
suddenly illuminated by myriads of Chinese lanterns, and the effect
was bewitching. The upper suite of rooms was thrown open for those
who preferred dancing under cover; but I think that the greater part
of the assemblage chose the shady walks and purple night. Supper
was served at eleven, and the party broke up soon afterwards; but I
must confess that, charming as it was, I left before eight, for society
makes heavier demands on any strength than the rough open-air life of
Hawaii.</p>
<p>The dwindling of the race is a most pathetic subject. Here
is a sovereign chosen amidst an outburst of popular enthusiasm, with
a cabinet, a legislature, and a costly and elaborate governing machinery,
sufficient in Yankee phrase to “run” an empire of several
millions, and here are only 49,000 native Hawaiians; and if the decrease
be not arrested, in a quarter of a century there will not be an Hawaiian
to govern. The chiefs, or <i>alii</i>, are a nearly extinct order;
and, with a few exceptions, those who remain are childless. In
riding through Hawaii I came everywhere upon traces of a once numerous
population, where the hill slopes are now only a wilderness of guava
scrub, and upon churches and school-houses all too large, while in some
hamlets the voices of young children were altogether wanting.
This nation, with its elaborate governmental machinery, its churches
and institutions, has to me the mournful aspect of a shrivelled and
wizened old man dressed in clothing much too big, the garments of his
once athletic and vigorous youth. Nor can I divest myself of the
idea that the laughing, flower-clad hordes of riders who make the town
gay with their presence, are but like butterflies fluttering out their
short lives in the sunshine,</p>
<p> “. .
. a wreck and residue,<br /> Whose
only business is to perish.”</p>
<p>The statistics on this subject are perfectly appalling. If
we reduce Captain Cook’s estimate of the native population by
one-fourth, it was 300,000 in 1779. In 1872 it was only 49,000.
The first official census was in 1832, when the native population was
130,000. This makes the decrease 80,000 in forty years, or at
the rate of 2000 a year, and fixes the period for the final extinction
of the race in 1897, if that rate were to continue. It is a pity,
for many reasons, that it is dying out. It has shown a singular
aptitude for politics and civilization, and it would have been interesting
to watch the development of a strictly Polynesian monarchy starting
under passably fair conditions. Whites have conveyed to these
shores slow but infallible destruction on the one hand, and on the other
the knowledge of the life that is to come; and the rival influences
of blessing and cursing have now been fifty years at work, producing
results with which most reading people are familiar.</p>
<p>I have not heard the subject spoken of, but I should think that the
decrease in the population must cause the burden of taxation to press
heavily on that which remains. Kings, cabinet ministers, an army,
a police, a national debt, a supreme court, and common schools, are
costly luxuries or necessaries. The civil list is ludicrously
out of proportion to the resources of the islands, and the heads of
the four departments--Foreign Relations, Interior, Finance, and Law(Attorney-General)--receive
$5,000 a year each! Expenses and salaries have been increasing
for the last thirty years. For schools alone every man between
twenty-one and sixty pays a tax of two dollars annually, and there is
an additional general tax for the same purpose. I suppose that
there is not a better educated country in the world. Education
is compulsory; and besides the primary schools, there are a number of
academies, all under Government supervision, and there are 324 teachers,
or one for every twenty-seven children. There is a Board of Education,
and Kamakau, its president, reported to the last biennial session of
the legislature that out of 8931 children between the ages of six and
fifteen, 8287 were actually attending school! Among other direct
taxes, every quadruped that can be called a horse, above two years old,
pays a dollar a year, and every dog a dollar and a half. Does
not all this sound painfully civilized? If the influence of the
tropics has betrayed me into rhapsody and ecstacy in earlier letters,
these dry details will turn the scale in favour of prosaic sobriety!</p>
<p>I have said little about Honolulu, except of its tropical beauty.
It does not look as if it had “seen better days.”
Its wharves are well cared for, and its streets and roads are very clean.
The retail stores are generally to be found in two long streets which
run inland, and in a splay street which crosses both. The upper
storekeepers, with a few exceptions, are Americans, but one street is
nearly given up to Chinamen’s stores, and one of the wealthiest
and most honourable merchants in the town is a Chinaman. There
is an ice factory, and icecream is included in the daily bill of fare
here, and iced water is supplied without limit, but lately the machinery
has only worked in spasms, and the absence of ice is regarded as a local
calamity, though the water supplied from the waterworks is both cool
and pure. There are two good photographers and two booksellers.
I don’t think that plateglass fronts are yet to be seen.
Many of the storekeepers employ native “assistants;” but
the natives show little aptitude for mercantile affairs, or indeed for
the “splendid science” of money-making generally, and in
this respect contrast with the Chinamen, who, having come here as Coolies,
have contrived to secure a large share of the small traffic of the islands.
Most things are expensive, but they are good. I have seen little
of such decided rubbish as is to be found in the cheap stores of London
and Edinburgh, except in tawdry artificial flowers. Good black
silks are to be bought, and are as essential to the equipment of a lady
as at home. Saddles are to be had at most of the stores, from
the elaborate Mexican and Californian saddle, worth from 30 to 50 dollars,
to a worthless imitation of the English saddle, dear at five.
Boots and shoes, perhaps because in this climate they are a mere luxury,
are frightfully dear, and so are books, writing paper, and stationery
generally; a sheet of Bristol board, which we buy at home for 6d., being
half a dollar here. But it is quite a pleasure to make purchases
in the stores. There is so much cordiality and courtesy that,
as at this hotel, the bill recedes into the background, and the purchaser
feels the indebted party.</p>
<p>The money is extremely puzzling. These islands, like California,
have repudiated greenbacks, and the only paper currency is a small number
of treasury notes for large amounts. The coin in circulation is
gold and silver, but gold is scarce, which is an incovenience to people
who have to carry a large amount of money about with them. The
coinage is nominally that of the United States, but the dollars are
Mexican, or French 5 franc pieces, and people speak of “rials,”
which have no existence here, and of “bits,” a Californian
slang term for 12½ cents, a coin which to my knowledge does not
exist anywhere. A dime, or 10 cents, is the lowest coin I have
seen, and copper is not in circulation. An envelope, a penny bottle
of ink, a pencil, a spool of thread, cost 10 cents each; postage-stamps
cost 2 cents each for inter-island postage, but one must buy five of
them, and dimes slip away quickly and imperceptibly. There is
a loss on English money, as half-a-crown only passes for a half-dollar,
sixpence for a dime, and so forth; indeed, the average loss seems to
be about twopence in the shilling.</p>
<p>There are four newspapers: the <i>Honolulu Gazette</i>, the <i>Pacific
Commercial Advertiser</i>, <i>Ka Nupepa Kuokoa</i> (the “Independent
Press”), and a lately started spasmodic sheet, partly in English
and partly in Hawaiian, the <i>Nuhou</i> (News). <a name="citation270"></a><a href="#footnote270">{270}</a>
The two first are moral and respectable, but indulge in the American
sins of personalities and mutual vituperation. The <i>Nuhou</i>
is scurrilous and diverting, and appears “run” with a special
object, which I have not as yet succeeded in unravelling from its pungent
but not always intelligible pages. I think perhaps the writing
in each paper has something of the American tendency to hysteria and
convulsions, though these maladies are mild as compared with the “real
thing” in the <i>Alta California</i>, which is largely taken here.
Besides these there are monthly sheets called <i>The Friend</i>, the
oldest paper in the Pacific, edited by good “Father Damon,”
and the <i>Church Messenger</i>, edited by Bishop Willis, partly devotional
and partly devoted to the Honolulu Mission. All our popular American
and English literature is read here, and I have hardly seen a table
without “Scribner’s” or “Harper’s Monthly”
or “Good Words.”</p>
<p>I have lived far too much in America to feel myself a stranger where,
as here, American influence and customs are dominant; but the English
who are in Honolulu just now, <i>in transitu</i> from New Zealand, complain
bitterly of its “Yankeeism,” and are very far from being
at home, and I doubt not that Mr. M---, whom you will see, will not
confirm my favourable description. It is quite true that the islands
are Americanized, and with the exception of the Finance Minister, who
is a Scotchman, Americans “run” the Government and fill
the Chief Justiceship and other high offices of State. It is,
however, perfectly fair, for Americans have civilized and Christianized
Hawaii-nei, and we have done little except make an unjust and afterwards
disavowed seizure of the islands.</p>
<p>On looking over this letter I find it an <i>olla podrida</i> of tropical
glories, royal festivities, finance matters, and odds and ends in general.
I dare say you will find it dull after my letters from Hawaii, but there
are others who will prefer its prosaic details to Kilauea and Waimanu;
and I confess that, amidst the general lusciousness of tropical life,
I myself enjoy the dryness and tartness of statistics, and hard uncoloured
facts.<br /> I.L.B.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>LETTER XIX.</h3>
<p>HAWAIIAN HOTEL, HONOLULU.</p>
<p>My latest news of you is five months old, and though I have not the
slightest expectation that I shall hear from you, I go up to the roof
to look out for the “Rolling Moses” with more impatience
and anxiety than those whose business journeys are being delayed by
her non-arrival. If such an unlikely thing were to happen as that
she were to bring a letter, I should be much tempted to stay five months
longer on the islands rather than try the climate of Colorado, for I
have come to feel at home, people are so very genial, and suggest so
many plans for my future enjoyment, the islands in their physical and
social aspects are so novel and interesting, and the climate is unrivalled
and restorative.</p>
<p>Honolulu has not yet lost the charm of novelty for me. I am
never satiated with its exotic beauties, and the sight of a kaleidoscopic
whirl of native riders is always fascinating. The passion for
riding, in a people who only learned equitation in the last generation,
is most curious. It is very curious, too, to see women incessantly
enjoying and amusing themselves in riding, swimming, and making <i>leis</i>.
They have few home ties in the shape of children, and I fear make them
fewer still by neglecting them for the sake of riding and frolic, and
man seems rather the help-meet than the “oppressor” of woman;
though I believe that the women have abandoned that right of choosing
their husbands, which, it is said, that they exercised in the old days.
Used to the down-trodden look and harrassed care-worn faces of the over-worked
women of the same class at home, and in the colonies, the laughing,
careless faces of the Hawaiian women have the effect upon me of a perpetual
marvel. But the expression generally has little of the courteousness,
innocence, and childishness of the negro physiognomy. The Hawaiians
are a handsome people, scornful and sarcastic-looking even with their
mirthfulness; and those who know them say that they are always quizzing
and mimicking the <i>haoles</i>, and that they give everyone a nickname,
founded on some personal peculiarity.</p>
<p>The women are free from our tasteless perversity as to colour and
ornament, and have an instinct of the becoming. At first the <i>holuku</i>,
which is only a full, yoke nightgown, is not attractive, but I admire
it heartily now, and the sagacity of those who devised it. It
conceals awkwardness, and befits grace of movement; it is fit for the
climate, is equally adapted for walking and riding, and has that general
appropriateness which is desirable in costume. The women have
a most peculiar walk, with a swinging motion from the hip at each step,
in which the shoulder sympathises. I never saw anything at all
like it. It has neither the delicate shuffle of the Frenchwoman,
the robust, decided jerk of the Englishwoman, the stately glide of the
Spaniard, or the stealthiness of the squaw; and I should know a Hawaiian
woman by it in any part of the world. A majestic <i>wahine</i>
with small, bare feet, a grand, swinging, deliberate gait, hibiscus
blossoms in her flowing hair, and a <i>lé</i> of yellow flowers
falling over her <i>holuku</i>, marching through these streets, has
a tragic grandeur of appearance, which makes the diminutive, fair-skinned
<i>haole</i>, tottering along hesitatingly in high-heeled shoes, look
grotesque by comparison.</p>
<p>On Saturday, our kind host took Mrs. D. and myself to the market,
where we saw the natives in all their glory. The women, in squads
of a dozen at a time, their Pa-ús streaming behind them, were
cantering up and down the streets, and men and women were thronging
into the market-place; a brilliant, laughing, joking crowd, their jaunty
hats trimmed with fresh flowers, and <i>leis</i> of the crimson <i>ohia</i>
and orange <i>lauhala</i> falling over their costumes, which were white,
green, black, scarlet, blue, and every other colour that can be dyed
or imagined. The market is a straggling, open space, with a number
of shabby stalls partially surrounding it, but really we could not see
the place for the people. There must have been 2000 there.</p>
<p>Some of the stalls were piled up with wonderful fish, crimson, green,
rose, blue, opaline--fish that have spent their lives in coral groves
under the warm, bright water. Some of them had wonderful shapes
too, and there was one that riveted my attention and fascinated me.
It was, I thought at first, a heap, composed of a dog fish, some limpets,
and a multitude of water snakes, and other abominable forms; but my
eyes slowly informed me of the fact, which I took in reluctantly and
with extreme disgust, that the whole formed one living monster, a revolting
compound of a large paunch with eyes, and a multitude of nervy, snaky,
out-reaching, twining, grasping, tentacular arms, several feet in length,
I should think, if extended, but then lying in a crowded undulating
heap; the creature was dying, and the iridescence was passing over what
seemed to be its body in waves of colour, such as glorify the last hour
of the dolphin. But not the colours of the rainbow could glorify
this hideous, abominable form, which ought to be left to riot in ocean
depths, with its loathsome kindred. You have read “<i>Les
Travailleurs du Mer</i>,” and can imagine with what feelings I
looked upon a living Devil-fish! The monster is much esteemed
by the natives as an article of food, and indeed is generally relished.
I have seen it on foreign tables, salted, under the name of squid. <a name="citation276"></a><a href="#footnote276">{276}</a></p>
<p>We passed on to beautiful creatures, the <i>kihi-kihi</i>, or sea-cock,
with alternate black and yellow transverse bands on his body; the <i>hinalea</i>,
like a glorified mullet, with bright green, longitudinal bands on a
dark shining head, a purple body of different shades, and a blue spotted
tail with a yellow tip. The <i>Ohua</i> too, a pink scaled fish,
shaped like a trout; the <i>opukai</i>, beautifully striped and mottled;
the mullet and flying fish as common here as mackerel at home; the <i>hala</i>,
a fine pink-fleshed fish, the albicore, the bonita, the <i>manini</i>
striped black and white, and many others. There was an abundance
of <i>opilu</i> or limpets, also the <i>pipi</i>, a small oyster found
among the coral; the <i>ula</i>, as large as a clawless lobster, but
more beautiful and variegated; and turtles which were cheap and plentiful.
Then there were purple-spiked sea urchins, black-spiked sea eggs or
<i>wana</i>, and <i>ina</i> or eggs without spikes, and many other curiosities
of the bright Pacific. It was odd to see the pearly teeth of a
native meeting in some bright-coloured fish, while the tail hung out
of his mouth, for they eat fish raw, and some of them were obviously
at the height of epicurean enjoyment. Seaweed and fresh-water
weed are much relished by Hawaiians, and there were four or five kinds
for sale, all included in the term <i>limu</i>. Some of this was
baked, and put up in balls weighing one pound each. There were
packages of baked fish, and dried fish, and of many other things which
looked uncleanly and disgusting; but no matter what the package was,
the leaf of the <i>Ti</i> tree was invariably the wrapping, tied round
with sennet, the coarse fibre obtained from the husk of the cocoa-nut.
Fish, here, averages about ten cents per pound, and is dearer than meat;
but in many parts of the islands it is cheap and abundant.</p>
<p>There is a ferment going on in this kingdom, mainly got up by the
sugar planters and the interests dependent on them, and two political
lectures have lately been given in the large hall of the hotel in advocacy
of their views; one, on annexation, by Mr. Phillips, who has something
of the oratorical gift of his cousin, Wendell Phillips; and the other,
on a reciprocity treaty, by Mr. Carter. Both were crowded by ladies
and gentlemen, and the first was most enthusiastically received.
Mrs. D. and I usually spend our evenings in writing and working in the
verandah, or in each other’s rooms; but I have become so interested
in the affairs of this little state, that in spite of the mosquitos,
I attended both lectures, but was not warmed into sympathy with the
views of either speaker.</p>
<p>I daresay that some of my friends here would quarrel with my conclusions,
but I will briefly give the <i>data</i> on which they are based.
The census of 1872 gives the native population at 49,044 souls; of whom,
700 are lepers; and it is <i>decreasing</i> at the rate of from 1,200
to 2,000 a year, while the excess of native males over females on the
islands is 3,216. The foreign population is 5,366, and it is <i>increasing</i>
at the rate of 200 a year; and the number of half-castes of all nations
has <i>increased</i> at the rate of 140 a year. The Chinese, who
came here originally as plantation coolies, outnumber all the other
nationalities together, excluding the Americans; but the Americans constitute
the ruling and the monied class. Sugar is the reigning interest
on the islands, and it is almost entirely in American hands. It
is burdened here by the difficulty of procuring labour, and at San Francisco
by a heavy import duty. There are thirty-five plantations on the
islands, and there is room for fifty more. The profit, as it is,
is hardly worth mentioning, and few of the planters do more than keep
their heads above water. Plantations which cost $50,000 have been
sold for $15,000; and others, which cost $150,000 have been sold for
$40,000. If the islands were annexed, and the duty taken off,
many of these struggling planters would clear $50,000 a year and upwards.
So, no wonder that Mr. Phillips’s lecture was received with enthusiastic
plaudits. It focussed all the clamour I have heard on Hawaii and
elsewhere, exalted the “almighty dollar,” and was savoury
with the odour of coming prosperity. But he went far, very far;
he has aroused a cry among the natives “<i>Hawaii for the Hawaiians</i>,”
which, very likely, may breed mischief; for I am very sure that this
brief civilization has not quenched the “red fire” of race;
and his hint regarding the judicious disposal of the king in the event
of annexation, was felt by many of the more sober whites to be highly
impolitic.</p>
<p>The reciprocity treaty, very lucidly advocated by Mr. Carter, and
which means the cession of a lagoon with a portion of circumjacent territory
on this island, to the United States, for a Pacific naval station, meets
with more general favour as a safer measure; but the natives are indisposed
to bribe the great Republic to remit the sugar duties by the surrender
of a square inch of Hawaiian soil; and, from a British point of view,
I heartily sympathise with them. Foreign, <i>i.e</i>. American,
feeling is running high upon the subject. People say that things
are so bad that something must be done, and it remains to be seen whether
natives or foreigners can exercise the strongest pressure on the king.
I was unfavourably impressed in both lectures by the way in which the
natives and their interests were quietly ignored, or as quietly subordinated
to the sugar interest.</p>
<p>It is never safe to forecast destiny; yet it seems most probable
that sooner or later in this century, the closing catastrophe must come.
The more thoughtful among the natives acquiesce helplessly and patiently
in their advancing fate; but the less intelligent, as I had some opportunity
of hearing at Hilo, are becoming restive and irritable, and may drift
into something worse if the knowledge of the annexationist views of
the foreigners is diffused among them. Things are preparing for
change, and I think that the Americans will be wise in their generation
if they let them ripen for many years to come. Lunalilo has a
broken constitution, and probably will not live long. Kalakaua
will probably succeed him, and “after him the deluge,” unless
he leaves a suitable successor, for there are no more chiefs with pre-eminent
claims to the throne. The feeling among the people is changing,
the feudal instinct is disappearing, the old despotic line of the Kamehamehas
is extinct; and king-making by paper ballots, introduced a few months
ago, is an approximation to president-making, with the canvassing, stumping,
and wrangling, incidental to such a contested election. Annexation,
or peaceful absorption, is the “manifest destiny” of the
islands, with the probable result lately most wittily prophesied by
Mark Twain in the <i>New York Tribune</i>, but it is impious and impolitic
to hasten it. Much as I like America, I shrink from the day when
her universal political corruption and her unrivalled political immorality
shall be naturalised on Hawaii-nei. . . . Sunday evening.
The “Rolling Moses” is in, and Sabbatic quiet has given
place to general excitement. People thought they heard her steaming
in at 4 a.m., and got up in great agitation. Her guns fired during
morning service, and I doubt whether I or any other person heard another
word of the sermon. The first batch of letters for the hotel came,
but none for me; the second, none for me; and I had gone to my room
in cold despair, when some one tossed a large package in at my verandah
door, and to my infinite joy I found that one of my benign fellow-passengers
in the <i>Nevada</i>, had taken the responsibility of getting my letters
at San Francisco and forwarding them here. I don’t know
how to be grateful enough to the good man. With such late and
good news, everything seems bright; and I have at once decided to take
the first schooner for the leeward group, and remain four months longer
on the islands.<br /> I.L.B.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>LETTER XX.</h3>
<p>KOLOA, KAUAI, March 23rd.</p>
<p>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 <i>datura
arborea</i>(?), 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.</p>
<p>The first event to record is that the trade winds have set in, and
though they may yet yield once or twice to the <i>kona</i>, 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.</p>
<p>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 <i>Kilauea</i>,
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.</p>
<p>When I reached the wharf at Honolulu the sight of the <i>Jenny</i>,
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 <i>poi</i>.
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.</p>
<p>The <i>Jenny</i> 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 <i>stampede</i> 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.</p>
<p>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
<i>nemo me impune lacessit</i> most literally applies.</p>
<p>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 <i>mauvaise honte</i> and trepidation,
which I will not voluntarily undergo again.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Kauai is much out of the island world, owing to the infrequent visits
of the <i>Kilauea</i>, 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.</p>
<p>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 <i>ohia</i>, <i>lauhala</i>, <i>hau</i>, (hibiscus) and
<i>koa</i>, and intersected with gullies full of large eugenias, lies
outside the mountain spurs behind Koloa. It is only the tropical
trees, specially the <i>lauhala</i> 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.</p>
<p>The latest traces of volcanic action are found here. From the
Koloa Ridge to, and into the sea, a barren uneven surface of <i>pahoehoe</i>
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!</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <i>ti</i> 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.</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>I was led to this digression by seeing, for the first time, some
very fine plants of the <i>Piper methysticum</i>. This is <i>awa</i>,
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 <i>give</i> 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 <i>awa</i>;
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 <i>awa</i> 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.</p>
<p>While passing the Navigator group, one of my fellow-passengers, who
had been for some time in Tutuila, described the preparation of <i>awa</i>
poetically, the root “being masticated by the pearly teeth of
dusky flower-clad maidens;” but I was an accidental witness of
a nocturnal “<i>awa</i> 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.</p>
<p>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 <i>awa</i> 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.</p>
<p>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 <i>awa</i> 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. <i>Awa</i> is taken also as a medicine, and was
supposed to be a certain cure for corpulence.</p>
<p>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 <i>awa</i>
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. <a name="citation295"></a><a href="#footnote295">{295}</a></p>
<p>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:--</p>
<p>“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.” <a name="citation296"></a><a href="#footnote296">{296}</a>
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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 naïve
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.<br /> I.L.B.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>LETTER XXI.</h3>
<p>MAKAUELI, KAUAI.</p>
<p>After my letters from Hawaii, and their narratives of volcanoes,
freshets, and out of the world valleys, you will think my present letters
dull, so I must begin this one pleasantly, by telling you that though
I have no stirring adventures to relate, I am enjoying myself and improving
again in health, and that the people are hospitable, genial, and cultivated,
and that Kauai, though altogether different from Hawaii, has an extreme
beauty altogether its own, which wins one’s love, though it does
not startle one into admiration like that of the Hawaiian gulches.
Is it because that, though the magic of novelty is over it, there is
a perpetual undercurrent of home resemblance? The dash of its
musical waters might be in Cumberland; its swelling uplands, with their
clumps of trees, might be in Kent; and then again, steep, broken, wooded
ridges, with glades of grass, suggest the Val Moutiers; and broader
sweeps of mountain outline, the finest scenery of the Alleghanies.</p>
<p>But yet the very things which have a certain tenderness of familiarity,
are in a foreign setting. The great expanse of restful sea, so
faintly blue all day, and so faintly red in the late afternoon, is like
no other ocean in its unutterable peace; and this joyous, riotous trade-wind,
which rustles the trees all day, and falls asleep at night, and cools
the air, seems to come from some widely different laboratory than that
in which our vicious east winds, and damp west winds, and piercing north
winds, and suffocating south winds are concocted. Here one cannot
ride “into the teeth of a north-easter,” for such the trade-wind
really is, without feeling at once invigorated, and wrapped in an atmosphere
of balm. It is not here so tropical looking as in Hawaii, and
though there are not the frightful volcanic wildernesses which make
a thirsty solitude in the centre of that island, neither are there those
bursts of tropical luxuriance which make every gulch an epitome of Paradise:
I really cannot define the difference, for here, as there, palms glass
themselves in still waters, bananas flourish, and the forests are green
with ferns.</p>
<p>We took three days for our journey of twenty-three miles from Koloa,
the we, consisting of Mrs. ---, the widow of an early missionary teacher,
venerable in years and character, a native boy of ten years old, her
squire, a second Kaluna, without Kaluna’s good qualities, and
myself. Mrs. --- is not a bold horsewoman, and preferred to keep
to a foot’s pace, which fretted my ambitious animal, whose innocent
antics alarmed her in turn. We only rode seven miles the first
day, through a park-like region, very like Western Wisconsin, and just
like what I expected and failed to find in New Zealand. Grass-land
much tumbled about, the turf very fine and green, dotted over with clumps
and single trees, with picturesque, rocky hills, deeply cleft by water-courses
were on our right, and on our left the green slopes blended with the
flushed, stony soil near the sea, on which indigo and various compositæ
are the chief vegetation. It was hot, but among the hills on our
right, cool clouds were coming down in frequent showers, and the white
foam of cascades gleamed among the <i>ohias</i>, whose dark foliage
at a distance has almost the look of pine woods.</p>
<p>Our first halting place was one of the prettiest places I ever saw,
a buff frame-house, with a deep verandah festooned with passion flowers,
two or three guest houses also bright with trailers, scattered about
under the trees near it, a pretty garden, a background of grey rocky
hills cool with woods and ravines, and over all the vicinity, that air
of exquisite trimness which is artificially produced in England, but
is natural here.</p>
<p>Kaluna the Second soon showed symptoms of being troublesome.
The native servants were away, and he was dull, and for that I pitied
him. He asked leave to go back to Koloa for a “sleeping
tapa,” which was refused, and either out of spite or carelessness,
instead of fastening the horses into the pasture, he let them go, and
the following morning when we were ready for our journey they were lost.
Then he borrowed a horse, and late in the afternoon returned with the
four animals, who were all white with foam and dust, and this escapade
detained us another night. Subsequently, after disobeying orders,
he lost his horse, which was a borrowed one, deserted his mistress,
and absconded!</p>
<p>The slopes over which we travelled were red, hot, and stony, cleft
in one place however, by a green, fertile valley, full of rice and <i>kalo</i>
patches, and native houses, with a broad river, the Hanapépé,
flowing quietly down the middle, which we forded near the sea, where
it was half-way up my horse’s sides. After plodding all
day over stony soil in the changeless sunshine, as the shadows lengthened,
we turned directly up towards the mountains and began a two hours ascent.
It was delicious. They were so cool, so green, so varied, their
grey pinnacles so splintered, their precipices so abrupt, their ravines
so dark and deep, and their lower slopes covered with the greenest and
finest grass; then dark <i>ohias</i> rose singly, then in twos and threes,
and finally mixed in dense forest masses, with the pea-green of the
<i>kukui</i>.</p>
<p>It became yet lovelier as the track wound through deep wooded ravines,
or snaked along the narrow tops of spine-like ridges; the air became
cooler, damper, and more like elixir, till at a height of 1500 feet
we came upon Makaueli, ideally situated upon an unequalled natural plateau,
a house of patriarchal size for the islands, with a verandah festooned
with roses, fuchsias, the water lemon, and other passion flowers, and
with a large guest-house attached. It stands on a natural lawn,
with abrupt slopes, sprinkled with orange trees burdened with fruit,
<i>ohias</i>, and hibiscus. From the back verandah the forest-covered
mountains rise, and in front a deep ravine widens to the grassy slopes
below and the lonely Pacific,--as I write, a golden sea, on which the
island of Niihau, eighteen miles distant, floats like an amethyst.</p>
<p>The solitude is perfect. Except the “quarters”
at the back, I think there is not a house, native or foreign, within
six miles, though there are several hundred natives on the property.
Birds sing in the morning, and the trees rustle throughout the day;
but in the cool evenings the air is perfectly still, and the trickle
of a stream is the only sound.</p>
<p>The house has the striking novelty of a chimney, and there is a fire
all day long in the dining-room.</p>
<p>I must now say a little about my hosts and try to give you some idea
of them. I heard their history from Mr. Damon, and thought it
too strange to be altogether true until it was confirmed by themselves.
<a name="citation303"></a><a href="#footnote303">{303}</a> The
venerable lady at the head of the house emigrated from Scotland to New
Zealand many years ago, where her husband was unfortunately drowned,
and she being left to bring up a large family, and manage a large property,
was equally successful with both. Her great ambition was to keep
her family together, something on the old patriarchal system; and when
her children grew up, and it seemed as if even their very extensive
New Zealand property was not large enough for them, she sold it, and
embarking her family and moveable possessions on board a clipper-ship,
owned and commanded by one of her sons-in-law, they sailed through the
Pacific in search of a home where they could remain together.</p>
<p>They were strongly tempted by Tahiti, but some reasons having decided
them against it, they sailed northwards and put into Honolulu.
Mr. Damon, who was seaman’s chaplain, on going down to the wharf
one day, was surprised to find their trim barque, with this immense
family party on board, with a beautiful and brilliant old lady at its
head, books, pictures, work, and all that could add refinement to a
floating home, about them, and cattle and sheep of valuable breeds in
pens on deck. They then sailed for British Columbia, but were
much disappointed with it, and in three months they re-appeared at Honolulu,
much at a loss regarding their future prospects.</p>
<p>The island of Niihau was then for sale, and in a very short time
they purchased it of Kamehameha V. for a ridiculously low price, and
taking their wooden houses with them, established themselves for seven
years. It is truly isolated, both by a heavy surf and a disagreeable
sea-passage, and they afterwards bought this beautiful and extensive
property, made a road, and built the house. Only the second son
and his wife live now on Niihau, where they are the only white residents
among 350 natives. It has an area of 70,000 acres, and could sustain
a far larger number of sheep than the 20,000 now upon it. It is
said that the transfer of the island involved some hardships, owing
to a number of the natives having neglected to legalise their claims
to their <i>kuleanas</i>, but the present possessors have made themselves
thoroughly acquainted with the language, and take the warmest interest
in the island population. Niihau is famous for its very fine mats,
and for necklaces of shells six yards long, as well as for the extreme
beauty and variety of the shells which are found there.</p>
<p>The household here consists first and foremost of its head, Mrs.
---, a lady of the old Scotch type, very talented, bright, humorous,
charming, with a definite character which impresses its force upon everybody;
beautiful in her old age, disdaining that servile conformity to prevailing
fashion which makes many old people at once ugly and contemptible: speaking
English with a slight, old-fashioned, refined Scotch accent, which gives
naïveté to everything she says, up to the latest novelty
in theology and politics: devoted to her children and grandchildren,
the life of the family, and though upwards of seventy, the first to
rise, and the last to retire in the house. She was away when I
came, but some days afterwards rode up on horseback, in a large drawn
silk bonnet, which she rarely lays aside, as light in her figure and
step as a young girl, looking as if she had walked out of an old picture,
or one of Dean Ramsay’s books.</p>
<p>Then there are her eldest son, a bachelor, two widowed daughters
with six children between them, three of whom are grown up young men,
and a tutor, a young Prussian officer, who was on Maximilian’s
staff up to the time of the Queretaro disaster, and is still suffering
from Mexican barbarities. The remaining daughter is married to
a Norwegian gentleman, who owns and resides on the next property.
So the family is together, and the property is large enough to give
scope to the grandchildren as they require it.</p>
<p>They are thoroughly Hawaiianised. The young people all speak
Hawaiian as easily as English, and the three young men, who are superb
young fellows, about six feet high, not only emulate the natives in
feats of horsemanship, such as throwing the lasso, and picking up a
coin while going at full gallop, but are surf-board riders, an art which
it has been said to be impossible for foreigners to acquire.</p>
<p>The natives on Niihau and in this part of Kauai, call Mrs. --- “Mama.”
Their rent seems to consist in giving one or more days’ service
in a month, so it is a revival of the old feudality. In order
to patronise native labour, my hosts dispense with a Chinese, and employ
a native cook, and native women come in and profess to do some of the
housework, but it is a very troublesome arrangement, and ends in the
ladies doing all the finer cooking, and superintending the coarser,
setting the table, trimming the lamps, cutting out and “fixing”
all the needlework, besides planning the indoor and outdoor work which
the natives are supposed to do. Having related their proficiency
in domestic duties, I must add that they are splendid horsewomen, one
of them an excellent shot, and the other has enough practical knowledge
of seamanship, as well as navigation, to enable her to take a ship round
the world! It is a busy life, owing to the large number of natives
daily employed, and the necessity of looking after the native <i>lunas</i>,
or overseers. Dr. Smith at Koloa, twenty-two miles off, is the
only doctor on the island, and the natives resort to this house in great
numbers for advice and medicine in their many ailments. It is
much such a life as people lead at Raasay, Applecross, or some other
remote Highland place, only that people who come to visit here, unless
they ride twenty-two miles, must come to the coast in the <i>Jenny</i>
instead of being conveyed by one of David Hutcheson’s luxurious
steamers. If the <i>Clansman</i> were “put on,” probably
the great house would not contain the strangers who would arrive!</p>
<p>We were sitting in the library one morning when Mr. M., of Timaru,
N.Z., rode up with an introduction, and was of course cordially welcomed.
He goes on to England, where you will doubtless cross-question him concerning
my statements. During his visit a large party of us made a delightful
expedition to the Hanapépé Falls, one of the “lions”
of Kauai. It is often considered too “rough” for ladies,
and when Mrs. --- and I said we were going, I saw Mr. M. look as if
he thought we should be a dependent nuisance; I was amused afterwards
with his surprise at Mrs. ---’s courageous horsemanship, and at
his obvious confusion as to whether he should help us, which question
he wisely decided in the negative.</p>
<p>If “happiness is atmosphere,” we were surely happy.
The day was brilliant, and as cool as early June at home, but the sweet,
joyous trade-wind could not be brewed elsewhere than on the Pacific.
The scenery was glorious, and mountains, trees, frolicsome water, and
scarlet birds, all rioted as if in conscious happiness. Existence
was a luxury, and reckless riding a mere outcome of the animal spirits
of horses and riders, and the <i>thud</i> of the shoeless feet as the
horses galloped over the soft grass was sweeter than music. I
could hardly hold my horse at all, and down hills as steep as the east
side of Arthur’s Seat, over knife-like ridges too narrow for two
to ride abreast, and along side-tracks only a foot wide, we rode at
full gallop, till we pulled up at the top of a descent of 2,000 feet
with a broad, rapid river at its feet, emerging from between colossal
walls of rock to girdle a natural lawn of the bright <i>manienie</i>
grass. There had been a “drive” of horses, and numbers
of these, with their picturesque saddles, were picketed there, while
their yet more picturesque, scarlet-shirted riders lounged in the sun.</p>
<p>It was a difficult two hours’ ride from thence to the Falls,
worthy of Hawaii, and since my adventures in the Hilo gulches I cannot
cross running water without feeling an amount of nervousness which I
can conceal, but cannot reason myself out of. In going and returning,
we forded the broad, rugged river twenty-six times, always in water
up to my horse’s girths, and the bottom was so rocky and full
of holes, and the torrent so impetuous, that the animals floundered
badly and evidently disliked the whole affair. Once it had been
possible to ride along the edge, but the river had torn away what there
was of margin in a freshet, so that we had to cross perpetually, to
attain the rough, boulder-strewn strips which lay between the cliffs
and itself. Sometimes we rode over roundish boulders like those
on the top of Ben Cruachan, or like those of the landing at Iona, and
most of those under the rush of the bright foaming water were covered
with a silky green weed, on which the horses slipped alarmingly.
My companions always took the lead, and by the time that each of their
horses had struggled, slipped, and floundered in and out of holes, and
breasted and leapt up steep banks, I was ready to echo Mr. M.’s
exclamation regarding Mrs. ---, “I never saw such riding; I never
saw ladies with such nerve.” I certainly never saw people
encounter such difficulties for the sake of scenery. Generally,
a fall would be regarded as practically inaccessible which could only
be approached in such a way.</p>
<p>I will not inflict another description of similar scenery upon you,
but this, though perhaps exceeding all others in beauty, is not only
a type, perhaps the finest type, of a species of <i>cañon</i>
very common on these islands, but is also so interesting geologically
that you must tolerate a very few words upon it.</p>
<p>The valley for two or three miles from the sea is nearly level, very
fertile, and walled in by <i>palis</i> 250 feet high, much grooved vertically,
and presenting fine layers of conglomerate and grey basalt; and the
Hanapépé winds quietly through the region which it fertilises,
a stream several hundred feet wide, with a soft, smooth bottom.
But four miles inland the bed becomes rugged and declivitous, and the
mountain walls close in, forming a most magnificent <i>cañon</i>
from 1,000 to 2,500 feet deep. Other <i>cañons</i> of nearly
equal beauty descend to swell the Hanapépé with their
clear, cool, tributaries, and there are “meetings of the waters”
worthier of verse than those of Avoca. The walls are broken and
highly fantastic, narrowing here, receding there, their strangely-arched
recesses festooned with the feathery trichomanes, their clustering columns
and broken buttresses suggesting some old-world minster, and their stately
tiers of columnar basalt rising one above another in barren grey into
the far-off blue sky. The river in carving out the gorge so grandly
has most energetically removed all rubbish, and even the tributaries
of the lateral <i>cañons</i> do not accumulate any “wash”
in the main bed. The walls as a rule rise clear from the stream,
which, besides its lateral tributaries, receives other contributions
in the form of waterfalls, which hurl themselves into it from the cliffs
in one leap.</p>
<p>After ascending it for four miles all further progress was barred
by a <i>pali</i> which curves round from the right, and closes the chasm
with a perpendicular wall, over which the Hanapépé precipitates
itself from a height of 326 feet, forming the Koula Falls. At
the summit is a very fine entablature of curved columnar basalt, resembling
the clam shell cave at Staffa, and two high, sharp, and impending peaks
on the other side form a stately gateway for a stream which enters from
another and broader valley; but it is but one among many small cascades,
which round the arc of the falls flash out in foam among the dark foliage,
and contribute their tiny warble to the diapason of the waterfall.
It rewards one well for penetrating the deep gash which has been made
into the earth. It seemed so very far away from all buzzing, frivolous,
or vexing things, in the cool, dark abyss into which only the noon-day
sun penetrates. All beautiful things which love damp; all exquisite,
tender ferns and mosses; all shade-loving parasites flourish there in
perennial beauty. And high above in the sunshine, the pea-green
candle-nut struggles with the dark <i>ohia</i> for precarious roothold
on rocky ledges, and dense masses of Eugenia, aflame with crimson flowers,
and bananas, and all the leafy wealth born of heat and damp fill up
the clefts which fissure the <i>pali</i>. Every now and then some
scarlet tropic bird flashed across the shadow, but it was a very lifeless
and a very silent scene. The arches, buttresses, and columns suggest
a temple, and the deep tone of the fall is as organ music. It
is all beauty, solemnity, and worship.</p>
<p>It was sad to leave it and to think how very few eyes can ever feast
themselves on its beauty. We came back again into gladness and
sunshine, and to the vulgar necessity of eating, which the natives ministered
to by presenting us with a substantial meal of stewed fowls and sweet
potatoes at the nearest shanty. There must have been something
intoxicating in the air, for we rode wildly and recklessly, galloping
down steep hills (which on principle I object to), and putting our horses
to their utmost speed. Mine ran off with me several times, and
once nearly upset Mr. M.’s horse, as he probably will tell you.</p>
<p>The natives annoy me everywhere by their inhumanity to their horses.
To-day I became an object of derision to them for hunting for sow-thistles,
and bringing back a large bundle of them to my excellent animal.
They starve their horses from mere carelessness or laziness, spur them
mercilessly, when the jaded, famished things almost drop from exhaustion,
ride them with great sores under the saddles, and with their bodies
deeply cut with the rough girths; and though horses are not regarded
as more essential in any part of the world, they neglect and maltreat
them in every way, and laugh scornfully if one shows any consideration
for them. Except for short shopping distances in Honolulu, I have
never seen a native man or woman walking. They think walking a
degradation, and I have seen men take the trouble to mount horses to
go 100 yards.</p>
<p>I have no time to tell you of a three days’ expedition which
five of us made into the heart of the nearer mountainous district, attended
by some mounted natives. Mr. K., from whose house we started,
has the finest mango grove on the islands. It is a fine foliaged
tree, but is everywhere covered with a black blight, which gives the
groves the appearance of being in mourning, as the tough, glutinous
film covers all the older leaves. The mango is an exotic fruit,
and people think a great deal of it, and send boxes of mangoes as presents
to their friends. It is yellow, with a reddish bloom, something
like a magnum bonum plum, three times magnified. The only way
of eating it in comfort is to have a tub of water beside you.
It should be eaten in private by any one who wants to retain the admiration
of his friends. It has an immense stone, and a disproportionately
small pulp. I think it tastes strongly of turpentine at first,
but this is a heresy.</p>
<p>Beyond Waielva and its mango groves there is a very curious sand
bank about 60 feet high, formed by wind and currents, and of a steep,
uniform angle from top to bottom. It is very coarse sand, composed
of shells, coral, and lava. When two handfuls are slapped together,
a sound like the barking of a dog ensues, hence its name, the Barking
Sands. It is a common amusement with strangers to slide their
horses down the steep incline, which produces a sound like subterranean
thunder, which terrifies unaccustomed animals. Besides this phenomenon,
the mirage is often seen on the dry, hot soil, and so perfectly, too,
that strangers have been known to attempt to ride round the large lake
which they saw before them.</p>
<p>Pleasant as our mountain trip was, both in itself, and as a specimen
of the way in which foreigners recreate themselves on the islands, I
was glad to get back to the broad Waimea, on which long shadows of palms
reposed themselves in the slant sunshine, and in the short red twilight
to arrive at this breezy height, and be welcomed by a blazing fire.</p>
<p>Mrs. ---, in speaking of the mode of living here, was telling me
that on a recent visit to England she felt depressed the whole time
by what appeared to her “the scarcity” in the country.
I never knew the meaning of the Old Testament blessing of “plenty”
and “bread to the full” till I was in abundant Victoria,
and it is much the same here. At home we know nothing of this,
which was one of the chiefest of the blessings promised in the Old Testament.
Its <i>genialising</i> effect is very obvious. A man feels more
practically independent, I think, when he can say to all his friends,
“Drop in to dinner whenever you like,” than if he possessed
the franchise six times over; and people can indulge in hospitality
and exercise the franchise, too, here, for meat is only twopence a pound,
and bananas can be got for the gathering. The ever-increasing
cost of food with us makes free-hearted hospitality an impossibility,
and withers up all those kindly instincts which find expression in housing
and feeding both friends and strangers.<br /> I.L.B.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>LETTER XXII.</h3>
<p>LIHUE. KAUAI.</p>
<p>I rode from Makaueli to Dr. Smith’s, at Koloa, with two native
attendants, a <i>luna</i> to sustain my dignity, and an inferior native
to carry my carpet-bag. Horses are ridden with curb-bits here,
and I had only brought a light snaffle, and my horse ran away with me
again on the road, and when he stopped at last, these men rode alongside
of me, mimicking me, throwing themselves back with their feet forwards,
tugging at their bridles, and shrieking with laughter, exclaiming <i>Maikai</i>!
<i>Maikai</i>! (good).</p>
<p>I remained several days at Koloa, and would gladly have accepted
the hospitable invitation to stay as many weeks, but for a cowardly
objection to “beating to windward” in the <i>Jenny</i>.
The scenery in the Koloa woods is exquisitely beautiful. Such
supreme beauty produces on me some of the effects which fine music has
upon those who have an exquisite sense of it. It speaks in a language
of its own, like music, and is equally untranslatable.</p>
<p>One day, the girls asked me to go with them to the forests and return
by moonlight, but they only spoke of them as the haunts of ferns, because
they supposed that I should think nothing of them after the forests
of Australia and New Zealand! They were not like the tropical
woods of Hawaii, and owe more to the exceeding picturesqueness of the
natural scenery. Hawaii is all domes and humps, Kauai all peaks
and sierras. There were deep ravines, along which bright fern-shrouded
streams brawled among wild bananas, overarched by Eugenias, with their
gory blossoms: walls of peaks, and broken precipices, grey ridges rising
out of the blue forest gloom, high mountains with mists wreathing their
spiky summits, for a background: gleams of a distant silver sea: and
the nearer many-tinted woods were not matted together in jungle fashion,
but festooned and adorned with numberless lianas, and even the prostrate
trunks of fallen trees took on new beauty from the exquisite ferns which
covered them. Long cathedral aisles stretched away in far-off
vistas, and so perfect at times was the Gothic illusion, that I found
myself listening for anthems and the roll of organs. So cool and
moist it was, and triumphantly redundant in vagaries of form and greenery,
it was a forest of forests, and it became a necessity to return the
next day, and the next; and I think if I had remained at Koloa I should
have been returning still.</p>
<p>This place is outside the beauty, among cane-fields, and is much
swept by the trade winds. Mr. Rice, my host, is the son of an
esteemed missionary, and he and his wife take a deep interest in the
natives. When he brought her here as a bride a few months ago,
the natives were so delighted that he had married an island lady who
could speak Hawaiian, that they gave them an <i>ahaaina</i>, or native
feast, on a grand scale. The food was cooked in Polynesian style,
by being wrapped up in greens called <i>luau</i>, and baked underground.
There were two bullocks, nineteen hogs, a hundred fowls, any quantity
of <i>poi</i> and fruit, and innumerable native dishes. Five hundred
natives, profusely decorated with <i>leis</i> of flowers and <i>mailé</i>,
were there, and each brought a gift for the bride. After the feast
they chaunted mêlés in praise of Mr. Rice, and Mrs. Rice
played to them on her piano, an instrument which they had not seen before,
and sang songs to them in Hawaiian. Mr. and Mrs. R. teach in and
superintend a native Sunday-school, and have enlisted twenty native
teachers, and in order to keep up the interest and promote cordial feeling,
they and the other teachers meet once a month for a regular teachers’
meeting, taking the houses in rotation. Refreshments are served
afterwards, and they say that nothing can be more agreeable than the
good feeling at the meetings, and the tact and graceful hospitality
which prevail at the subsequent entertainments.</p>
<p>The Hawaiians are a most pleasant people to foreigners, but many
of their ways are altogether aggravating. Unlike the Chinamen,
they seldom do a thing right twice. In my experience, they have
almost never saddled and bridled my horse quite correctly. Either
a strap has been left unbuckled, or the blanket has been wrinkled under
the saddle. They are too easy to care much about anything.
If any serious loss arises to themselves or others through their carelessness,
they shrug their shoulders, and say, “What does it matter?”
Any trouble is just a <i>pilikia</i>. They can’t help it.
If they lose your horse from neglecting to tether it, they only laugh
when they find you are wanting to proceed on your journey. Time,
they think, is nothing to any one. “What’s the use
of being in a hurry?” Their neglect of their children, a
cause from which a large proportion of the few born perish, is a part
of this universal carelessness. The crime of infanticide, which
formerly prevailed to a horrible extent, has long been extinct; but
the love of pleasure and the dislike of trouble which partially actuated
it, are apparently still stronger among the women than the maternal
instinct, and they do not take the trouble necessary to rear their infants.
They give their children away, too, to a great extent, and I have heard
of instances in which children have been so passed from hand to hand,
that they are quite ignorant of their real parents. It is an odd
caprice in some cases, that women who have given away their own children
are passionately attached to those whom they have received as presents,
but I have nowhere seen such tenderness lavished upon infants as upon
the pet dogs that the women carry about with them. Though they
are so deficient in adhesiveness to family ties, that wives seek other
husbands, and even children desert their parents for adoptive homes,
the tie of race is intensely strong, and they are remarkably affectionate
to each other, sharing with each other food, clothing, and all that
they possess. There are no paupers among them but the lunatics
and the lepers, and vagrancy is unknown. Happily on these sunny
shores no man or woman can be tempted into sin by want.</p>
<p>With all their faults, and their intolerable carelessness, all the
foreigners like them, partly from the absolute security which they enjoy
among them. They are so thoroughly good-natured, mirthful, and
friendly, and so ready to enter heart and soul into all <i>haole</i>
diversions, that the islands would be dreary indeed if the dwindling
race became extinct.</p>
<p>Among the many misfortunes of the islands, it has been a fortunate
thing that the missionaries’ families have turned out so well,
and that there is no ground for the common reproach that good men’s
sons turn out reprobates.</p>
<p>The Americans show their usual practical sagacity in missionary matters.
In 1853, when these islands were nominally Christianised, and a native
ministry consisting of fifty-six pastors had been established, the American
Board of Missions, which had expended during thirty-five years nine
hundred and three thousand dollars in Christianising the group, and
had sent out 149 male and female missionaries, resolved that it should
not receive any further aid either in men or money.</p>
<p>In the early days, the King and chiefs had bestowed lands upon the
Mission, on which substantial mission premises had been erected, and
on withdrawing from the islands, the Board wisely made over these lands
to the Mission families as freehold property. The result has been
that, instead of a universal migration of the young people to America,
numbers of them have been attached to Hawaiian soil. The establishment
at an early date of Punahou College, at which for a small sum both boys
and girls receive a first-class English education, also contributed
to retain them on the islands, and numbers of the young men entered
into sugar-growing, cattle-raising, storekeeping, and other businesses
here. At Honolulu and Hilo a large proportion of the residents
of the upper class are missionaries’ children; most of the respectable
foreigners on Kauai are either belonging to, or intimately connected
with, the Mission families; and they are profusely scattered through
Maui and Hawaii in various capacities, and are bound to each other by
ties of extreme intimacy and friendliness, as well as by marriage and
affinity. This “clan” has given society what it much
wants--a sound moral core, and in spite of all disadvantageous influences,
has successfully upheld a public opinion in favour of religion and virtue.
The members of it possess the moral backbone of New England, and its
solid good qualities, a thorough knowledge of the language and habits
of the natives, a hereditary interest in them, a solid education, and
in many cases much general culture.</p>
<p>In former letters I have mentioned Mr. Coan and Mr. Lyons as missionaries.
I must correct this, as there have been no actual missionaries on the
islands for twenty years. When the Board withdrew its support,
many of the missionaries returned to America; some, especially the secular
members, went into other positions on the group, while the two first-mentioned
and two or three besides, remained as pastors of native congregations.</p>
<p>I venture to think that the Board has been premature in transferring
the islands to a native pastorate at such a very early stage of their
Christianity. Such a pastorate must be too feeble to uphold a
robust Christian standard. As an adjunct it would be essential
to the stability of native Christianity, but it is not possible that
it can be trusted as the sole depository of doctrine and discipline,
and even were it all it ought to be, it would lack the power to repress
the lax morality which is ruining the nation. Probably each year
will render the overhaste of this course more apparent, and it is likely
that some other mode of upholding pure Christianity will have to be
adopted, when the venerable men who now sustain and guide the native
pastors by their influence shall have been gathered to their rest.<br /> I.L.B.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>LETTER XXIII.</h3>
<p>LIHUE. KAUAI, April 17.</p>
<p>Before leaving Kauai I must tell you of a solitary expedition I have
just made to the lovely valley of Hanalei. It was only a three
days “frolic,” but an essentially “good time.”
Mr. Rice provided me with a horse and a very pleasing native guide.
I did not leave till two in the afternoon, as I only intended to ride
fifteen miles, and, as the custom is, ask for a night’s lodging
at a settler’s house. However, as I drew near Mr. B.’s
ranch, I felt my false courage oozing out of the tips of my fingers,
and as I rode up to the door, certain obnoxious colonial words, such
as “sundowners,” and “bummers,” occurred to
me, and I felt myself a “sundowner” when the host came out
and asked me to dismount. He said he was sorry his wife was away,
but he would do his best for me in her absence, and took me down to
a room where a very rough-looking man was tenderly nursing a baby a
year old, which was badly burned or scalded, and which began to cry
violently at my entrance, and required the united efforts of the two
bereaved men to pacify it. They had the charge of it between them.
I took it while they went to make some tea, and it kicked, roared, and
fought until they came back. By that time I had prepared a neat
little speech, saying that I was not the least tired, and would only
trouble them for a glass of water; and, having covered my cowardice
successfully, I went on, having been urged by the hospitable ranchman
to be sure to stay for the night at his father-in-law’s house,
a few miles further on. I saw that the wishes of the native went
in the same direction, but after my one experience I assured myself
that I had not the necessary nerve for this species of mendicancy, and
went on as fast as the horse could gallop wherever the ground admitted
of it, the scenery becoming more magnificent as the dark, frowning mountains
of Hanalei loomed through the gathering twilight.</p>
<p>But they were fifteen miles off, and on the way we came to a broad,
beautiful ravine, through which a broad, deep river glided into the
breakers. I had received some warnings about this, but it was
supposed that we could cross in a ferry scow, of which, however, I only
found the bones. The guide and the people at the ferryman’s
house talked long without result, but eventually, by many signs, I contrived
to get them to take me over in a crazy punt, half full of water, and
the horses swam across. Before we reached the top of the ravine,
the last redness of twilight had died from off the melancholy ocean,
the black forms of mountains looked huge in the darkness, and the wind
sighed so eerily through the creaking <i>lauhalas</i>, as to add much
to the effect. It became so very dark that I could only just see
my horse’s ears, and we found ourselves occasionally in odd predicaments,
such as getting into crevices, or dipping off from steep banks; and
it was in dense darkness that we arrived above what appeared to be a
valley with twinkling lights, lying at the foot of a precipice, and
walled in on all sides but one by lofty mountains. It was rather
queer, diving over the wooded <i>pali</i> on a narrow track, with nothing
in sight but the white jacket of the native, who had already indicated
that he was at the end of his resources regarding the way, but just
as a river gleamed alarmingly through the gloom, a horseman on a powerful
horse brushed through the wood, and on being challenged in Hawaiian
replied in educated English, and very politely turned with me, and escorted
me over a disagreeable ferry in a scow without rails, and to my destination,
two miles beyond.</p>
<p>Yesterday, when I left, the morning was brilliant, and after ascending
the <i>pali</i>, I stayed for some time on an eminence which commands
the valley, presented by Mr. Wyllie to Lady Franklin, in compliment
to her admiration of its loveliness. Hanalei has been likened
by some to Paradise, and by others to the Vale of Caschmir. Everyone
who sees it raves about it. “See Hanalei and die,”
is the feeling of the islanders, and certainly I was not disappointed,
nor should I be with Paradise itself were it even a shade less fair!
It has every element of beauty, and in the bright sunshine, with the
dark shadows on the mountains, the waterfalls streaking their wooded
sides, the river rushing under <i>kukuis</i> and <i>ohias</i>, and then
lingering lovingly amidst living greenery, it looked as if the curse
had never lighted there.</p>
<p>Its mouth, where it opens on the Pacific, is from two to three miles
wide, but the boundary mountains gradually approach each other, so that
five miles from the sea a narrow gorge of wonderful beauty alone remains.
The crystal Hanalei flows placidly to the sea for the last three or
four miles, tired by its impetuous rush from the mountains, and mirrors
on its breast hundreds of acres of cane, growing on a plantation formerly
belonging to Mr. Wyllie, an enterprising Ayrshire man, and one of the
ablest and most disinterested foreigners who ever administered Hawaiian
affairs. Westward of the valley there is a region of mountains,
slashed by deep ravines. The upper ridges are densely timbered,
and many of the <i>ohias</i> have a circumference of twenty-five feet,
three feet from the ground. It was sad to turn away for ever from
the loveliness of Hanalei, even though by taking another route, which
involved a ride of forty miles, I passed through and in view of, most
entrancing picturesqueness. Indeed, for mere loveliness, I think
that part of Kauai exceeds anything that I have seen.</p>
<p>The atmosphere and scenery were so glorious that it was possible
to think of nothing all day, but just allow oneself passively to drink
in sensations of exquisite pleasure. I wish all the hard-worked
people at home, who lead joyless lives in sunless alleys, could just
have one such day, and enjoy it as I did, that they might know how fair
God’s earth is, and how far fairer His Paradise must be, if even
from this we cannot conceive “of the things which He hath prepared
for them that love Him.” I never before felt so sad for
those whose lives are passed amidst unpropitious surroundings, or so
thankful for my own capacity of enjoying nature.</p>
<p>Just as we were coming up out of a deep river, a native riding about
six feet from me was caught in a quicksand. He jumped off, but
the horse sank half way up its body. I wanted to stay and see
it extricated, for its struggles only sank it deeper, but the natives
shrugged their shoulders, and said in Hawaiian, “only a horse,”
and something they always say when anything happens, equivalent to “What’s
the odds?” It was a joyously-exciting day, and I was galloping
down a grass hill at a pace which I should not have assumed had white
people been with me, when a native rode up to me and said twice over,
“<i>maikai! paniola</i>,” and laughed heartily. When
my native came up, he pointed to me and again said “<i>paniola</i>;”
and afterwards we were joined by two women, to whom my guide spoke of
me as <i>paniola</i>; and on coming to the top of a hill they put their
horses into a gallop, and we all rode down at a tremendous, and, as
I should once have thought, a break-neck speed, when one of the women
patted me on the shoulder, exclaiming, “<i>maikai! maikai! paniola</i>.”
I thought they said “<i>spaniola</i>,” taking me for a Spaniard,
but on reaching Lihue, and asking the meaning of the word, Mrs. Rice
said, “Oh, lassoing cattle, and all that kind of thing.”
I was disposed to accept the inference as a compliment; but when I told
Mrs. R. that the word had been applied to myself, she laughed very much,
and said she would have toned down its meaning had she known that!</p>
<p>We rode through forests lighted up by crimson flowers, through mountain
valleys greener than Alpine meadows, descended steep <i>palis</i>, and
forded deep, strong rivers, pausing at the beautiful Wailua Falls, which
leap in a broad sheet of foam and a heavy body of water into a dark
basin, walled in by cliffs so hard that even the ferns and mosses which
revel in damp, fail to find roothold in the naked rock. Both above
and below, this river passes through a majestic <i>cañon</i>,
and its neighbourhood abounds in small cones, some with crateriform
cavities at the top, some broken down, and others, apparently of great
age, wooded to their summits. A singular ridge, called Mauna Kalalea,
runs along this part of the island, picturesque beyond anything, and,
from its abruptness and peculiar formation, it deceives the eye into
judging it to be as high as the gigantic domes of Hawaii. Its
peaks are needle-like, or else blunt projections of columnar basalt,
rising ofttimes as terraces. At a beautiful village called Anahola
the ridge terminates abruptly, and its highest portion is so thin that
a large patch of sky can be seen through a hole which has been worn
in it.</p>
<p>I reached Lihue by daylight, having established my reputation as
a <i>paniola</i> by riding forty miles in 7½ hours, “very
good time” for the islands. I hope to return here in August,
as my hospitable friends will not allow me to leave on any other condition.
The kindness I have received on Kauai is quite overwhelming, and I shall
remember its refined and virtuous homes as long as its loveliness and
delicious climate.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>HAWAIIAN HOTEL. HONOLULU. April 23rd.</p>
<p>I have nothing new to add. Mr. Dexter is so far recovered that
I fear I shall not find my friends here on my return. People are
in the usual fever about the mail, and I must close this.<br /> I.L.B.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>LETTER XXIV.</h3>
<p>ULUPALAKUA. MAUI. May 12th.</p>
<p>It is three weeks since I left the Hawaiian Hotel and its green mist
of algarobas, but my pleasant visits in this island do not furnish much
that will interest you. There was great excitement on the wharf
at Honolulu the evening I left. It was crowded with natives, the
king’s band was playing, old hags were chanting <i>mêlés</i>,
and several of the royal family, and of the “upper ten thousand”
were there, taking leave of the Governess of Hawaii, the Princess Keelikolani,
the late king’s half-sister. The throng and excitement were
so great, that we were outside the reef before I got a good view of
this lady, the largest and the richest woman on the islands. Her
size and appearance are most unfortunate, but she is said to be good
and kind. She was dressed in a very common black <i>holuku</i>,
with a red bandana round her throat, round which she wore a <i>lé</i>
of immense oleanders, as well as round her hair, which was cut short.
She had a large retinue, and her female attendants all wore <i>leis</i>
of oleander. They spread very fine mats on the deck, under <i>pulu</i>
beds, covered with gorgeous quilts, on which the Princess and her suite
slept, and in the morning the beds were removed, breakfast was spread
on the mats, and she, some of her attendants, and two or three white
men who received invitations, sat on the deck round it. It was
a far less attractive meal than that which the serene steward served
below. The calabashes, which contained the pale pink <i>poi</i>,
were of highly polished <i>kou</i> wood, but there were no foreign refinements.
The other dishes were several kinds of raw fish, dried devil-fish, boiled
<i>kalo</i>, sweet potatoes, bananas, and cocoa-nut milk.</p>
<p>I had a very uncomfortable night on a mattress on the deck, which
was overcrowded with natives, and some of the native women and two foreigners
had got a whiskey bottle, and behaved disgracefully. We went round
by the Leper Island.</p>
<p>I landed at Maaleia, on the leeward side of the sandy isthmus which
unites East and West Maui, got a good horse, and, with Mr. G---, rode
across to the residence of “Father Alexander,” at Wailuku,
a flourishing district of sugar plantations. Mr. and Mrs. Alexander
were among the early missionaries, and still live on the mission premises.
Several of their sons are settled on the island in the sugar business,
and it was to the Heiku plantation, fifteen miles off, of which Mr.
S. Alexander is manager, that I went on the following day, still escorted
by Mr. G---. Here we heard that captains of schooners which had
arrived from Hawaii, report that a light is visible on the terminal
crater of Mauna Loa, 14,000 feet above the sea, that Kilauea, the flank
crater, is unusually active, and that several severe shocks of earthquake
have been felt. This is exciting news.</p>
<p>Behind Wailuku is the Iao valley, up which I rode with two island
friends, and spent a day of supreme, satisfied admiration. At
Iao people may throw away pen and pencil in equal despair. The
trail leads down a gorge dark with forest trees, and then opens out
into an amphitheatre, walled in by precipices, from three to six thousand
feet high, misty with a thousand waterfalls, plumed with <i>kukuis</i>,
and feathery with ferns. A green-clad needle of stone, one thousand
feet in height, the last refuge of an army routed when the Wailuku (waters
of destruction) ran red with blood, keeps guard over the valley.
Other needles there are; and mimic ruins of bastions and ramparts and
towers came and passed mysteriously: and the shining fronts of turrets
gleamed through trailing mists, changing into drifting visions of things
that came and went, in sunshine and shadow, mountains raising battered
peaks into a cloudless sky, green crags moist with ferns, and mists
of water that could not fall, but frittered themselves away on slopes
of maiden-hair, and depths of forest and ferns through which bright
streams warble through the summer years. Clouds boiling up from
below drifted at times across the mountain fronts, or lay like snow
masses in the unsunned chasms: and over the grey crags and piled up
pinnacles, and glorified green of the marvellous vision, lay a veil
of thin blue haze, steeping the whole in a serenity which seemed hardly
to belong to earth.</p>
<p>The track from Wailuku to Heiku is over a Sahara in miniature, a
dreary expanse of sand and shifting sandhills, with a dismal growth
in some places of thornless thistles and indigo, and a tremendous surf
thunders on the margin. Trackless, glaring, choking, a guide is
absolutely necessary to a stranger, for the footprints or wheel-marks
of one moment are obliterated the next. I crossed the isthmus
three times, and the third time was quite as incapable of shaping my
course across it as the first, and though I had recklessly declined
a guide, was only too thankful for the one who was forced upon me.
It is a hateful ride, yet anything so hideous and aggressively odious
is a salutary experience in a land of so much beauty. Sand, sand,
sand! Sand-hills, smooth and red; sand plains, rippled, whites
and glaring; sand drifts shifting; sand clouds whirling; sand in your
eyes, nose, and mouth; sand stinging your face like pin points; sand
hiding even your horse’s ears; sand rippling like waves, hissing
like spin-drift, malignant, venomous! You can only open one eye
at a time for a wink at where you are going. Looking down upon
it from Heiku, you can see nothing all day but the dense brown clouds
of a perpetual sand-storm.</p>
<p>My charming hostess and her husband made Heiku so fascinating, that
I only quitted it hoping to return. The object which usually attracts
strangers to Maui is the great dead volcano of Haleakala, “The
house of the sun,” and I was fortunate in all the circumstances
of my ascent. My host at Heiku provided me with a horse and native
attendant, and I rode over the evening before to the house of his brother,
Mr. J. Alexander, who accompanied me, and his intelligent and cultured
society was one of the pleasures of the day.</p>
<p>People usually go up in the afternoon, camp near the summit, light
a fire, are devoured by fleas, roast and freeze alternately till morning,
and get up to see the grand spectacle of the sunrise, but I think our
plan preferable, of leaving at two in the morning. The moon had
set. It was densely dark, and it was raining on one side of the
road, though quite fine on the other. By the lamplight which streamed
from our early breakfast table, I only saw wet mules and horses, laden
with gear for a mountain ascent, a trim little Japanese, who darted
about helping, my native, who was picturesquely dressed in a Mexican
poncho, Mr. Alexander, who wore something which made him unrecognisable;
and myself, a tatterdemalion figure, wearing a much-worn green topcoat
of his over my riding suit, and a tartan shawl arranged so as to fall
nearly to my feet. Then we went forth into the darkness.
The road soon degenerated into a wood road, then into a bridle track,
then into a mere trail ascending all the way; and at dawn, when the
rain was over, we found ourselves more than half-way up the mountain,
amidst rocks, scoriæ, tussocks, <i>ohelos</i>, a few common compositæ,
and a few coarse ferns and woody plants, which became coarser and scantier
the higher we went up, but never wholly ceased; for, at the very summit,
10,200 feet high, there are some tufts of grass, and stunted specimens
of a common asplenium in clefts. Many people suffer from mountain
sickness on this ascent, but I suffered from nothing but the excruciating
cold, which benumbed my limbs and penetrated to my bones; and though
I dismounted several times and tried to walk, uphill exercise was impossible
in the rarefied air. The atmosphere was but one degree below the
freezing-point, but at that height, a brisk breeze on soaked clothes
was scarcely bearable.</p>
<p>The sunrise turned the densely packed clouds below into great rosy
masses, which broke now and then, showing a vivid blue sea, and patches
of velvety green. At seven, after toiling over a last steep bit,
among scoriæ, and some very scanty and unlovely vegetation, we
reached what was said to be the summit, where a ragged wall of rock
shut out the forward view. Dismounting on some cinders, we stepped
into a gap, and from thence looked down into the most gigantic crater
on the earth. I confess that with the living fires of Kilauea
in my memory, I was at first disappointed with the deadness of a volcano
of whose activity there are no traditions extant. Though during
the hours which followed, its majesty and wonderment grew upon me, yet
a careful study of the admirable map of the crater, a comparison of
the heights of the very considerable cones which are buried within it,
and the attempt to realize the figures which represent its circumference,
area, and depth, not only give a far better idea of it than any verbal
description, but impress its singular sublimity and magnitude upon one
far more forcibly than a single visit to the actual crater.</p>
<p>I mentioned in one of my first letters that East Maui, that part
of the island which lies east of the isthmus of perpetual dust-storms,
consists of a mountain dome 10,000 feet in height, with a monstrous
base. Its slopes are very regular, varying from eight to ten degrees.
Its lava-beds differ from those of Kauai and Oahu in being lighter in
colour, less cellular, and more impervious to water. The windward
side of the mountain is gashed and slashed by streams, which in their
violence have excavated large pot-holes, which serve as reservoirs,
and it is covered to a height of over 2000 feet by a luxuriant growth
of timber. On the leeward side, several black and very fresh-looking
streams of lava run into the sea, and the whole coast for some height
above the shore shows most vigorous volcanic action. Elsewhere
the rock is red and broken, and lateral cones abound near the base.</p>
<p>The ascent from Makawao, though it is over rather a desolate tract
of land, has in its lower stages such a dismal growth of pining <i>koa</i>
and spurious sandal-wood, and in its upper ones so much <i>ohelo</i>
scrub, with grass and common aspleniums quite up to the top, that as
one sits lazily on one’s sure-footed horse, the fact that one
is ascending a huge volcano is not forced upon one by any overmastering
sterility and nakedness. Somehow, one expects to pass through
some ulterior stage of blackness up to the summit. It is no such
thing; and the great surprise of Haleakala to me was, that when according
to calculation there should have been a summit, an abyss of vast dimensions
opened below. The mountain top has been in fact blown off, and
one is totally powerless to imagine what the forces must have been which
rent it asunder.</p>
<p>The crater was clear of fog and clouds, and lighted in every part
by the risen sun. The whole, with its contents, can be seen at
a single glance, though its girdling precipices are nineteen miles in
extent. Its huge, irregular floor is 2000 feet below; New York
might be hidden away within it, with abundant room to spare; and more
than one of the numerous subsidiary cones which uplift themselves solitary
or in clusters through the area, attain the height of Arthur’s
Seat at Edinburgh. On the north and east are the Koolau and Kaupo
Gaps, as deep as the crater, through which oceans of lava found their
way to the sea. It looks as if the volcanic forces, content with
rending the mountain top in twain, had then passed into an endless repose.</p>
<p>The crater appears to be composed of a hard grey clinkstone, much
fissured; but lower down the mountain, the rock is softer, and has a
bluish tinge. The internal cones are of very regular shape, and
most of them look as if their fires had only just gone out, with their
sides fiercely red, and their central cavities lined with layers of
black ash. They are all composed of cinders of light specific
gravity, and much of the ash is tinged with the hydrated oxide of iron.
Very few of the usual volcanic products are present. <a name="citation335"></a><a href="#footnote335">{335}</a>
Small quantities of sulphur, in a very impure form, exist here and there,
but there are no sulphur or steam-cracks, or hot springs on any part
of the mountain. With its cold ashes and dead force, it is a most
tremendous spectacle of the power of fire.</p>
<p>Some previous travellers had generously left some faggots on the
summit, and we made a large fire for warmth, and I rolled my blanket
round me, and sat with my feet among the hot embers, but all to no purpose.
The wind was strong and keen, and the fierce splendour of the tropic
sun conveyed no heat. Mr. A. went away investigating, the native
rolled himself in his poncho and fell asleep by the fire, and I divided
the time between glimpses into the awful desolation of the crater, snatched
between the icy gusts of wind, and the enjoyment of the wonderful cloud
scenery which to everybody is a great charm of the view from Haleakala.
The day was perfect; for first we had an inimitable view of the crater
and all that could be seen from the mountain-top, and then an equally
inimitable view of Cloudland. There was the gaunt, hideous, desolate
abyss, with its fiery cones, its rivers and surges of black lava and
grey ash, crossing and mingling all over the area, mixed with splotches
of colour and coils of satin rock, its walls dark and frowning, everywhere
riven and splintered, and clouds perpetually drifting in through the
great gaps, and filling up the whole crater with white swirling masses,
which in a few minutes melted away in the sunshine, leaving it all as
sharply definite as before. Before noon clouds surrounded the
whole mountain, not in the vague flocculent, meaningless masses one
usually sees, but in Arctic oceans, where lofty icebergs, floes and
pack, lay piled on each other, glistening with the frost of a Polar
winter; then alps on alps, and peaks of well remembered ranges gleaming
above glaciers, and the semblance of forests in deep ravines loaded
with new fallen snow. Snow-drifts, avalanches, oceans held in
bondage of eternal ice, and all this massed together, shifting, breaking,
glistering, filling up the broad channel which divides Maui from Hawaii,
and far away above the lonely masses, rose, in turquoise blue, like
distant islands, the lofty Hawaiian domes of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa,
with snow on Mauna Kea yet more dazzling than the clouds. There
never was a stranger contrast than between the hideous desolation of
the crater below, and those blue and jewelled summits rising above the
shifting clouds.</p>
<p>After some time the scene shifted, and through glacial rifts appeared
as in a dream the Eeka mountains which enfold the Iao valley, broad
fields of cane 8000 feet below, the flushed palm-fringed coast, and
the deep blue sea sleeping in perpetual calm. But according to
the well-known fraud which isolated altitudes perpetrate upon the eye,
it appeared as if we were looking up at our landscape, not down; and
no effort of the eye or imagination would put things at their proper
levels.</p>
<p>But gradually the clouds massed themselves, the familiar earth disappeared,
and we were “pinnacled in mid-heaven” in unutterable isolation,
blank forgotten units, in a white, wonderful, illuminated world, without
permanence or solidity. Our voices sounded thin in the upper air.
The keen, incisive wind that swept the summit, had no kinship with the
soft breezes which were rustling the tasselled cane in the green fields
of earth which had lately gleamed through the drift. It was a
new world and without sympathy, a solitude which could be felt.
Was it nearer God, I wonder, because so far from man and his little
works and ways? At least they seemed little there, in presence
of the tokens of a catastrophe which had not only blown off a mountain
top, and scattered it over the island, but had disembowelled the mountain
itself to a depth of 2000 feet.</p>
<p>Soon after noon we began to descend; and in a hollow of the mountain,
not far from the ragged edge of the crater, then filled up with billows
of cloud, we came upon what we were searching for; not, however, one
or two, but thousands of silverswords, their cold, frosted silver gleam
making the hill-side look like winter or moonlight. They can be
preserved in their beauty by putting them under a glass shade, but it
must be of monstrous dimensions, as the finer plants measure 2 ft. by
18 in. without the flower stalk. They exactly resemble the finest
work in frosted silver, the curve of their globular mass of leaves is
perfect; and one thinks of them rather as the base of an <i>épergne</i>
for an imperial table, or as a prize at Ascot or Goodwood, than as anything
organic. A particular altitude and temperature appear essential
to them, and they are not found straggling above or below a given line.</p>
<p>We reached Makawao very tired, soon after dark, to be heartily congratulated
on our successful ascent, and bearing no worse traces of it than lobster-coloured
faces, badly blistered.</p>
<p>After accepting sundry hospitalities I rode over here, skirting the
mountain at a height of 2000 feet, a most tedious ride, only enlivened
by the blaze of nasturtiums in some of the shallow gulches. It
is very pretty here, and I wish all invalids could revel in the sweet
changeless air. The name signifies “ripe bread-fruit of
the gods.” The plantation is 2000 feet above the sea, and
is one of the finest on the islands; and owing to the slow maturity
of the cane at so great a height, the yield is from five to six tons
an acre. Water is very scarce; all that is used in the boiling-house
and elsewhere has been carefully led into concrete tanks for storage,
and even the walks in the proprietor’s beautiful garden are laid
with cement for the same purpose. He has planted many thousand
Australian eucalyptus trees on the hillside in the hope of procuring
a larger rainfall, so that the neighbourhood has quite an exotic appearance.</p>
<p>The coast is black and volcanic-looking below, jutting into the sea
in naked lava promontories, which nature has done nothing to drape.
Concerning a river of specially black lava, which runs into the sea
to the south of this house, the following legend is told:--</p>
<p>“A withered old woman stopped to ask food and hospitality at
the house of a dweller on this promontory, noted for his penuriousness.
His <i>kalo</i> patches flourished, cocoa-nuts and bananas shaded his
hut, nature was lavish of her wealth all round him. But the withered
hag was sent away unfed, and as she turned her back on the man she said,
‘I will return to-morrow.’</p>
<p>“This was Pélé, the goddess of the volcano, and
she kept her word, and came back the next day in earthquakes and thunderings,
rent the mountain, and blotted out every trace of the man and his dwelling
with a flood of fire.”</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>Maui is very “foreign” and civilised, and although it
has a native population of over 12,000, the natives are much crowded
on plantations, and one encounters little of native life. There
is a large society composed of planters’ and merchants’
families, and the residents are profuse in their hospitality.
It is not infrequently taken undue advantage of, and I have heard of
planters compelled to feign excuses for leaving their houses, in order
to get rid of unintroduced and obnoxious visitors, who have quartered
themselves on them for weeks at a time. It is wonderful that their
patient hospitality is not worn out, even though, as they say, they
sometimes “entertain angels unawares.”<br /> I.L.B.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>LETTER XXV.</h3>
<p>KALAIEHA. HAWAII.</p>
<p>My departure from Ulupalakua illustrates some of the uncertainties
of island travelling. On Monday night my things were packed, and
my trunk sent off to the landing; but at five on Tuesday, Mr. Whipple
came to my door to say that the <i>Kilauea</i> was not in Lahaina roads,
and was probably laid up for repairs. I was much disappointed,
for the mild climate had disagreed with me, and I was longing for the
roystering winds and unconventional life of windward Hawaii, and there
was not another steamer for three weeks.</p>
<p>However, some time afterwards, I was unpacking, and in the midst
of a floor littered with ferns, photographs, books, and clothes, when
Mrs. W. rushed in to say that the steamer was just reaching the landing
below, and that there was scarcely the barest hope of catching her.
Hopeless as the case seemed, we crushed most of my things promiscuously
into a carpet bag, Mr. W. rode off with it, a horse was imperfectly
saddled for me, and I mounted him, with my bag, straps, spurs, and a
package of ferns in one hand, and my plaid over the saddle, while Mrs.
W. stuffed the rest of my possessions into a clothes bag, and the Chinaman
ran away frantically to catch a horse on which to ride down with them.</p>
<p>I galloped off after Mr. W., though people called to me that I could
not catch the boat, and that my horse would fall on the steep broken
descent. My saddle slipped over his neck, but he still sped down
the hill with the rapid “racking” movement of a Narraganset
pacer. First a new veil blew away, next my plaid was missing,
then I passed my trunk on the ox-cart which should have been at the
landing; but still though the heat was fierce, and the glare from the
black lava blinding, I dashed heedlessly down, and in twenty minutes
had ridden three miles down a descent of 2,000 feet, to find the <i>Kilauea</i>
puffing and smoking with her anchor up; but I was in time, for her friendly
clerk, knowing that I was coming, detained the scow. You will
not wonder at my desperation when I tell you that half-way down, a person
called to me, “Mauna Loa is in action!”</p>
<p>While I was slipping off the saddle and bridle, Mr. W. arrived with
the carpet-bag, yet more over-heated and shaking with exertion than
I was, then the Chinaman with a bag of oddments, next a native who had
picked up my plaid and ferns on the road, and another with my trunk,
which he had rescued from the ox-cart; so I only lost my veil and two
brushes, which are irreplaceable here.</p>
<p>The quiet of the nine hours’ trip in the <i>Kilauea</i> restored
my equanimity, and prepared me to enjoy the delicious evening which
followed. The silver waters of Kawaihae Bay reflected the full
moon, the three great mountains of Hawaii were cloudless as I had not
before seen them, all the asperity of the leeward shore was softened
into beauty, and the long shadows of bending palms were as still and
perfect as the palms themselves. But there was a new sight above
the silver water, for the huge dome of Mauna Loa, forty miles away,
was burning red and fitfully. A horse and servant awaited me,
and we were soon clattering over the hard sand by the shining sea, and
up the ascent which leads to the windy table-lands of Waimea.
The air was like new life. At a height of 500 feet we met the
first whiff of the trades, the atmosphere grew cooler and cooler, the
night-wind fresher, the moonlight whiter; wider the sweeping uplands,
redder the light of the burning mountain, till I wrapped my plaid about
me, but still was chilled to the bone, and when the four hours’
ride was over, soon after midnight, my limbs were stiff with tropical
cold. And this, within 20° of the equator, and only 2,500
feet above the fiery sea-shore, with its temperature of 80°, where
Sydney Smith would certainly have desired to “take off his flesh,
and sit in his bones!”</p>
<p>I delight in Hawaii more than ever, with its unconventional life,
great upland sweeps, unexplored forests, riotous breezes, and general
atmosphere of freedom, airiness, and expansion. As I find that
a lady can travel alone with perfect safety, I have many projects in
view, but whatever I do or plan to do, I find my eyes always turning
to the light on the top of Mauna Loa. I know that the ascent is
not feasible for me, and that so far as I am concerned the mystery must
remain unsolved; but that glory, nearly 14,000 feet aloft, rising, falling,
“a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night,”
uplifted in its awful loneliness above all human interests, has an intolerable
fascination. As the twilight deepens, the light intensifies, and
often as I watch it in the night, it seems to flare up and take the
form of a fiery palm-tree. No one has ascended the mountain since
the activity began a month ago; but the fire is believed to be in “the
old traditional crater of Mokuaweoweo, in a region rarely visited by
man.”</p>
<p>A few days ago I was so fortunate as to make the acquaintance of
Mr. W. L. Green (now Minister of The Interior), an English resident
in Honolulu, a gentleman of wide scientific and literary culture, one
of whose objects in visiting Hawaii is the investigation of certain
volcanic phenomena. He asked me to make the ascent of Mauna Kea
with him, and we have satisfactorily accomplished it to-day.</p>
<p>The interior of the island, in which we have spent the last two days,
is totally different, not only from the luxuriant windward slopes, but
from the fiery leeward margin. The altitude of the central plateau
is from 5,000 to 6,000 feet, there is not a single native dwelling on
it, or even a trail across it, it is totally destitute of water, and
sustains only a miserable scrub of <i>mamané</i>, stunted <i>ohias,
pukeawe, ohelos</i>, a few compositæ, and some of the hardiest
ferns. The transient residents of this sheep station, and those
of another on Hualalai, thirty miles off, are the only human inhabitants
of a region as large as Kent. Wild goats, wild geese (Bernicla
sandvicensis), and the Melithreptes Pacifica, constitute its chief population.
These geese are web-footed, though water does not exist. They
build their nests in the grass, and lay two or three white eggs.</p>
<p>Our track from Waimea lay for the first few miles over light soil,
destitute of any vegetation, across dry glaring rocky beds of streams,
and round the bases of numerous tufa cones, from 200 to 1500 feet in
height, with steep smooth sides, composed of a very red ash. We
crossed a flank of Mauna Kea at a height of 6000 feet, and a short descent
brought us out upon this vast tableland, which lies between the bulbous
domes of Mauna Kea, Mauna Loa, and Hualalai, the loneliest, saddest,
dreariest expanse I ever saw.</p>
<p>The air was clear and the sun bright, yet nothing softened into beauty
this formless desert of volcanic sand, stones, and lava, on which tufts
of grass and a harsh scrub war with wind and drought for a loveless
existence. Yet, such is the effect of atmosphere, that Mauna Loa,
utterly destitute of vegetation, and with his sides scored and stained
by the black lava-flows of ages, looked like a sapphire streaked with
lapis lazuli. Nearly blinded by scuds of sand, we rode for hours
through the volcanic wilderness; always the same rigid <i>mamané</i>,
(Sophora Chrysophylla?) the same withered grass, and the same thornless
thistles, through which the strong wind swept with a desolate screech.</p>
<p>The trail, which dips 1000 feet, again ascends, the country becomes
very wild, there are ancient craters of great height densely wooded,
wooded ravines, the great bulk of Mauna Kea with his ragged crest towers
above tumbled rocky regions, which look as if nature, disgusted with
her work, had broken it to pieces in a passion; there are living and
dead trees, a steep elevation, and below, a broad river of most jagged
and uneven <i>a-a</i>. The afternoon fog, which serves instead
of rain, rolled up in dense masses, through which we heard the plaintive
bleating of sheep, and among blasted trees and distorted rocks we came
upon Kalaieha.</p>
<p>I have described the “foreign residences” elsewhere.
Here is one of another type, in which a wealthy sheep-owner’s
son, married to a very pretty native woman, leads for some months in
the year from choice, a life so rough, that most people would think
it a hardship to lead it from necessity. There are two apartments,
a loft and a “lean-to.” The hospitable owners gave
me their sleeping-room, which was divided from the “living-room”
by a canvass partition. This last has a rude stone chimney split
by an earthquake, holding fire enough to roast an ox. Round it
the floor is paved with great rough stones. A fire of logs, fully
three feet high, was burning, but there was a faulty draught, and it
emitted a stinging smoke. I looked for something to sit upon,
but there was nothing but a high bench, or chopping-block, and a fixed
seat in the corner of the wall. The rest of the furniture consisted
of a small table, some pots, a frying-pan, a tin dish and plates, a
dipper, and some tin pannikins. Four or five rifles and “shot-guns,”
and a piece of raw meat, were hanging against the wall. A tin
bowl was brought to me for washing, which served the same purpose for
every one. The oil was exhausted, so recourse was had to the native
expedient of a jar of beef fat with a wick in it.</p>
<p>We were most hospitably received, but the native wife, as is usually
the case, was too shy to eat with us or even to appear at all.
Our host is a superb young man, very frank and prepossessing looking,
a thorough mountaineer, most expert with the lasso and in hunting wild
cattle. The “station” consists of a wool shed, a low
grass hut, a hut with one side gone, a bell-tent, and the more substantial
cabin in which we are lodged. Several saddled horses were tethered
outside, and some natives were shearing sheep, but the fog shut out
whatever else there might be of an outer world. Every now and
then a native came in and sat on the floor to warm himself, but there
were no mats as in native houses. It was intolerably cold.
I singed my clothes by sitting in the chimney, but could not warm myself.
A fowl was stewed native fashion, and some rice was boiled, and we had
sheep’s milk and some ice cold water, the drip, I think, from
a neighbouring cave, as running and standing water are unknown.</p>
<p>There are 9000 sheep here, but they require hardly any attendance
except at shearing time, and dogs are not used in herding them.
Indeed, labour is much dispensed with, as the sheep are shorn unwashed,
a great contrast to the elaborate washings of the flocks of the Australian
Riverina. They come down at night of their own sagacity, in close
converging columns, sleep on the gravel about the station, and in the
early morning betake themselves to their feeding grounds on the mountain.</p>
<p>Mauna Kea, and the forests which skirt his base, are the resort of
thousands of wild cattle, and there are many men nearly as wild, who
live half savage lives in the woods, gaining their living by lassoing
and shooting these animals for their skins. Wild black swine also
abound.</p>
<p>The mist as usual disappeared at night, leaving a sky wonderful with
stars, which burned blue and pale against the furnace glare on the top
of Mauna Loa, to which we are comparatively near. I woke at three
from the hopeless cold, and before five went out with Mr. Green to explore
the adjacent lava. The atmosphere was perfectly pure, and suffused
with rose-colour, not a cloud-fleece hung round the mountain tops, hoar-frost
whitened the ground, the pure white smoke of the volcano rose into the
reddening sky, and the air was elixir. It has been said and written
that there are no steam-cracks or similar traces of volcanic action
on Mauna Kea, but in several fissures I noticed ferns growing belonging
to an altitude 4000 feet lower, and on putting my arm down, found a
heat which compelled me to withdraw it, and as the sun rose these cracks
steamed in all directions. There are caves full of ferns, lava
bubbles in reality, crust over crust, each from twelve to eighteen inches
thick, rolls of lava cooled in coils, and hideous <i>a-a</i> streams
on which it is impossible to walk two yards without the risk of breaking
one’s limbs or cutting one’s boots to pieces.</p>
<p>While we breakfasted a young man in rags, without shoes or stockings,
but with the accent and address of a gentleman, came in, a man of good
family and education in England, but who had “gone to the bad
out here,” and had joined a gang of bullock-catchers. Why
do people persist in sending “ne’er-do-weels” to such
regions without a definite occupation? It is certain ruin.</p>
<p>I will not weary you with the details of our mountain ascent.
Our host provided ourselves and the native servant with three strong
bullock-horses, and accompanied us himself. The first climb is
through deep volcanic sand slashed by deep clefts, showing bands of
red and black ash. We saw no birds, but twice started a rout of
wild black hogs, and once came upon a wild bull of large size with some
cows and a calf, all so tired with tramping over the lava that they
only managed to keep just out of our way. They usually keep near
the mountain top in the daytime for fear of the hunters, and come down
at night to feed. About 11,000 were shot and lassoed last year.
Mr. S--- says that they don’t need any water but that of the dew-drenched
grass, and that horses reared on the mountains refuse to drink, and
are scared by the sight of pools or running streams. Unlike horses
I saw at Waikiki, which shut their eyes and plunged their heads into
water up to their ears, in search of a saltish weed which grows in the
lagoons.</p>
<p>The actual forest, which is principally <i>koa</i>, ceases at a height
of about 6000 feet, but a deplorable vegetation beginning with <i>mamané</i>
scrub, and ending with withered wormwood and tufts of coarse grass,
straggles up 3000 feet higher, and a scaly orange lichen is found in
rare pitches at a height of 11,000 feet.</p>
<p>The side of Mauna Kea towards Waimea is precipitous and inaccessible,
but to our powerful mountain horses the ascent from Kalaieha presented
no difficulty.</p>
<p>We rode on hour after hour in intense cold, till we reached a height
where the last stain of lichen disappeared, and the desolation was complete
and oppressive. This area of tufa cones, dark and grey basalt,
clinkers, scoriæ, fine ash, and ferruginous basalt, is something
gigantic. We were three hours in ascending through it, and the
eye could at no time take in its limit, for the mountain which from
any point of view below appears as a well defined dome with a ragged
top, has at the summit the aspect of a ridge, or rather a number of
ridges, with between 20 and 30 definite peaks, varying in height from
900 to 1400 feet. Among these cones are large plains of clinkers
and fine gravel, but no lava-streams, and at a height of 12,000 feet
the sides of some of the valleys are filled up with snow, of a purity
so immaculate and a brilliancy so intense as the fierce light of the
tropical sun beat upon it, that I feared snow-blindness. We ascended
one of the smaller cones which was about 900 feet high, and found it
contained a crater of nearly the same depth, with a very even slope,
and lined entirely with red ash, which at the bottom became so bright
and fiery-looking that it looked as if the fires, which have not burned
for ages, had only died out that morning.</p>
<p>After riding steadily for six hours, our horses, snorting and panting,
and plunging up to their knees in fine volcanic ash, and halting, trembling
and exhausted, every few feet, carried us up the great tufa cone which
crowns the summit of this vast fire-flushed, fire-created mountain,
and we dismounted in deep snow on the crest of the highest peak in the
Pacific, 13,953 feet above the sea. This summit is a group of
six red tufa cones, with very little apparent difference in their altitude,
and with deep valleys filled with red ash between them. The terminal
cone on which we were has no cavity, but most of those forming the group,
as well as the thirty which I counted around and below us, are truncated
cones with craters within, and with outer slopes, whose estimated angle
is about 30°. On these slopes the snow lay heavily.
In coming up we had had a superb view of Mauna Loa, but before we reached
the top, the clouds had congregated, and lay in glistening masses all
round the mountain about half-way up, shutting out the smiling earth,
and leaving us alone with the view of the sublime desolation of the
volcano.</p>
<p>We only remained an hour on the top, and came down by a very circuitous
route, which took us round numerous cones, and over miles of clinkers
varying in size from a ton to a few ounces, and past a lake the edges
of which were frozen, and which in itself is a curiosity, as no other
part of the mountain “holds water.” Not far off is
a cave, a lava-bubble, in which the natives used to live when they came
up here to quarry a very hard adjacent phonolite for their axes and
other tools. While the others poked about, I was glad to make
it a refuge from the piercing wind. Hundreds of unfinished axes
lie round the cave entrance, and there is quite a large mound of unfinished
chips.</p>
<p>This is a very interesting spot to Hawaiian antiquaries. They
argue, from the amount of the chippings, that this mass of phonolite
was quarried for ages by countless generations of men, and that the
mountain top must have been upheaved, and the island inhabited, in a
very remote past. The stones have not been worked since Captain
Cook’s day; yet there is not a weather-stain upon them, and the
air is so dry and rarified that meat will keep fresh for three months.
I found a mass of crystals of the greenish volcanic glass, called olivine,
imbedded in a piece of phonolite which looked as blue and fresh as if
only quarried yesterday.</p>
<p>We travelled for miles through ashes and scoriæ, and then descended
into a dense afternoon fog; but Mr. S. is a practised mountaineer, and
never faltered for a moment, and our horses made such good speed that
late in the afternoon we were able to warm ourselves by a gallop, which
brought us in here ravenous for supper before dark, having ridden for
thirteen hours. I hope I have made it clear that the top of this
dead volcano, whether cones or ravines, is deep soft ashes and sand.</p>
<p>To-morrow morning I intend to ride the thirty miles to Waimea with
two native women, and the next day to go off on my adventurous expedition
to Hilo, for which I have bought for $45 a big, strong, heavy horse,
which I have named Kahélé. He has the poking head
and unmistakable gait of a bullock horse, but is said to be “a
good traveller.”<br /> I.L.B.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>LETTER XXVI.</h3>
<p>“MY CAMP,” HAWAIIAN SLOPES. <i>May</i> 21.</p>
<p>This is the height of enjoyment in travelling. I have just
encamped under a <i>lauhala</i> tree, with my saddle inverted for a
pillow, my horse tied by a long lariat to a guava bush, my gear, saddle-bags,
and rations for two days lying about, and my saddle blanket drying in
the sun. Overhead the sun blazes, and casts no shadow; a few fleecy
clouds hover near him, and far below, the great expanse of the Pacific
gleams in a deeper blue than the sky. Far above, towers the rugged
and snow-patched, but no longer mysterious dome of Mauna Loa; while
everywhere, ravines, woods, waterfalls, and stretches of lawn-like grass
delight the eye. All green that I have ever seen, of English lawns
in June, or Alpine valleys, seems poor and colourless as compared with
the dazzling green of this sixty-five miles. It is a joyous green,
a glory. Whenever I look up from my writing, I ask, Was there
ever such green? Was there ever such sunshine? Was there
ever such an atmosphere? Was there ever such an adventure?
And Nature--for I have no other companion, and wish for none--answers,
“No.” The novelty is that I am alone, my conveyance
my own horse; no luggage to look after, for it is all in my saddle-bags;
no guide to bother, hurry, or hinder me; and with knowledge enough of
the country to stop when and where I please. A native guide, besides
being a considerable expense, is a great nuisance; and as the trail
is easy to find, and the rivers are low, I resolved for once to taste
the delights of perfect independence! This is a blessed country,
for a lady can travel everywhere in absolute security.</p>
<p>My goal is the volcano of Kilauea, with various diverging expeditions,
involving a ride of about 350 miles; but my health has so wonderfully
improved, that it is easier to me now to ride forty miles in a day than
ten some months ago.</p>
<p>You have no idea of the preparations required for such a ride, and
the importance which “littles” assume. Food for two
days had to be taken, and all superfluous weight to be discarded, as
every pound tells on a horse on a hard journey. My saddle-bags
contain, besides “Sunday clothes,” dress for any “gaieties”
which Hilo may offer; but I circumscribed my stock of clothes as much
as possible, having fallen into the rough-and-ready practice of washing
them at night, and putting them on unironed in the morning. I
carry besides, a canvas bag on the horn of my saddle, containing two
days’ provender, and a knife, horse-shoe nails, glycerine, thread,
twine, leather thongs, with other little et ceteras, the lack of which
might prove troublesome, a thermometer and aneroid in a leather case,
and a plaid. I have discarded, owing to their weight, all the
well-meant luxuries which were bestowed upon me, such as drinking cups,
flasks, etnas, sandwich cases, knife cases, spoons, pocket mirrors,
etc. The inside of a watchcase makes a sufficient mirror, and
I make a cup from a <i>kalo</i> leaf. All cases are a mistake,--at
least I think so, as I contemplate my light equipment with complacency.</p>
<p>Yesterday’s dawn was the reddest I have seen on the mountains,
and the day was all the dawn promised. A three-mile gallop down
the dewy grass, and slackened speed through the bush, brought me once
again to the breezy slopes of Hamakua, and the trail I travelled in
February, with Deborah and Kaluna. Though as green then as now,
it was the rainy season, a carnival of rain and mud. Somehow the
summer does make a difference, even in a land without a winter.
The temperature was perfect. It was dreamily lovely. No
song of birds, or busy hum of insects, accompanied the rustle of the
<i>lauhala</i> leaves and the low murmur of the surf. But there
is no hot sleep of noon here--the delicious trades keep the air always
wakeful.</p>
<p>When the gentleman who guided me through the bush left me on the
side of a <i>pali</i>, I discovered that Kahélé, though
strong, gentle, and sure-footed, possesses the odious fault known as
balking, and expressed his aversion to ascend the other side in a most
unmistakable manner. He swung round, put his head down, and no
amount of spurring could get him to do anything but turn round and round,
till the gentleman, who had left me, returned, beat him with a stick,
and threw stones at him, till he got him started again.</p>
<p>I have tried coaxing him, but without result, and have had prolonged
fights with him in nearly every gulch, and on the worst <i>pali</i>
of all he refused for some time to breast a step, scrambled round and
round in a most dangerous place, and slipped his hind legs quite over
the edge before I could get him on.</p>
<p>His sociability too is ridiculously annoying. Whenever he sees
natives in the distance, he neighs, points his ears, holds up his heavy
head, quickens his pace, and as soon as we meet them, swings round and
joins them, and can only be extricated after a pitched battle.
On a narrow bridge I met Kaluna on a good horse, improved in manners,
appearance, and English, and at first he must have thought that I was
singularly pleased to see him, by my turning round and joining him at
once; but presently, seeing the true state of the case, he belaboured
Kahélé with a heavy stick. The animal is very gentle,
and companionable, and I dislike to spur him; besides, he seems insensible
to it; so the last time I tried Rarey’s plan, and bringing his
head quite round, twisted the bridle round the horn of the saddle, so
that he had to turn round and round for my pleasure, rather than to
indulge his own temper, a process which will, I hope, conquer him mercifully.</p>
<p>But in consequence of these battles, and a halt which I made, as
now, for no other purpose than to enjoy my felicitous circumstances,
the sun was sinking in a mist of gold behind Mauna Loa long before I
reached the end of my day’s journey. It was extremely lovely.
A heavy dew was falling, odours of Eden rose from the earth, colours
glowed in the sky, and the dewiest and richest green was all round.
It was eerie, but delightful. There were several gulches to cross
after the sun had set, and a silence, which was almost audible, reigned
in their leafy solitudes. It was quite dark when I reached the
trail which dips over the great <i>pali</i> of Laupahoehoe, 700 feet
in height; but I found myself riding carelessly down what I hardly dared
to go up, carefully and in company, four months before. But whatever
improvement time has made in my health and nerves, it has made none
in this wretched zoophyte village.</p>
<p>Leading Kahélé, I groped about till I found the house
of the widow Honolulu, with whom I had lodged before, and presently
all the natives assembled to stare at me. After rubbing my horse
and feeding him on a large bundle of <i>ti</i> leaves that I had secured
on the road, I took my own meal as a spectacle. Two old crones
seized on my ankles, murmuring <i>lomi, lomi</i>, and subjected them
to the native process of shampooing. They had unrestrained curiosity
as to the beginning and end of my journey. I said “<i>Waimea,
Hamakua</i>,” when they all chorused, “<i>Maikai</i>;”
for a ride of forty miles was not bad for a <i>wahine haole</i>.
I said, “<i>Wai, lio</i>,” (water for the horse), when they
signified that there was only some brackish stuff unfit for drinking.</p>
<p>In spite of the garrulous assemblage, I was asleep before eight,
and never woke till I found myself in a blaze of sunshine this morning,
and in perfect solitude. I got myself some breakfast, and then
looked about the village for some inhabitants, but found none, except
an unhappy Portuguese with one leg, and an old man who looked like a
leper, to whom I said, “<i>Ko</i>” (cane) “<i>lio</i>”
(horse), exhibiting a rial at the same time, on which he cut me a large
bundle, and I sat on a stone and watched Kahélé as he
munched it for an hour and a half.</p>
<p>It was very hot and serene down there between those <i>palis</i>
700 and 800 feet high. The huts of the village were all shut,
and not a creature stirred. The palms above my head looked is
if they had always been old, and there was no movement among their golden
plumes. The sea itself rolled shorewards more silently and lazily
than usual. An old dog slept in the sunshine, and whenever I moved,
by a great effort, opened one eye. The man who cut the cane fell
asleep on the grass. Kahélé ate as slowly as if
he had resolved to try my patience, and be revenged on me for my conquest
of him yesterday, and his heavy munching was the only vital sound.
I got up and walked about to assure myself that I was awake, saddled
and bridled the horse, and mounted the great southward <i>pali</i>,
thankful to reach the breeze and the upper air in full possession of
my faculties, after the torpor and paralysis of the valley below.</p>
<p>Never were waters so bright or stretches of upland lawns so joyous
as to-day, or the forest entanglements so entrancing. The beautiful
<i>Eugenia malaccensis</i> is now in full blossom, and its stems and
branches are blazing in all the gulches, with bunches of rose-crimson
stamens borne on short spikelets.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>HILO. HAWAII, <i>May</i> 24th.</p>
<p>Once more I am in dear beautiful Hilo. Death entered my Hawaiian
“home” lately, and took “Baby Bell” away, and
I miss her sweet angel-presence at every turn; but otherwise there are
no changes, and I am very happy to be under the roof of these dear friends
again, and indeed each tree, flower, and fern in Hilo is a friend.
I would not even wish the straggling Pride of India, and over-abundant
lantana, away from this fairest of the island Edens. I wish I
could transport you here this moment from our sour easterly skies to
this endless summer and endless sunshine, and shimmer of a peaceful
sea, and an atmosphere whose influences are all cheering. Though
from 13 to 16 feet of rain fall here in the year the air is not damp.
Wet clothes hung up in the verandah even during rain, dry rapidly, and
a substance so sensitive to damp as botanical paper does not mildew.</p>
<p>I met Deborah on horseback near Onomea, and she told me that the
Austins were expecting me, and so I spent three days very pleasantly
with them on my way here.<br /> I.L.B.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>That old <i>Kilauea</i> has just come in, and has brought the English
mail, and a United States mail, an event which sets Hilo agog.
Then for a few hours its still, drowsy life becomes galvanized, and
people really persuade themselves that they have something to do, and
all the foreigners write letters hastily, or add postscripts to those
already written, and lose the mail, and rush down frantically to the
beach to send their late letters by favour of the obliging purser.
The mail to-day was an event to me, as it has brought your long-looked-for
letters.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>LETTER XXVII.</h3>
<p>HILO. <i>June</i> 1.</p>
<p>Mr. and Mrs. Severance and I have just returned from a three-days’
expedition to Puna in the south of Hawaii, and I preferred their agreeable
company even to solitude! My sociable Kahélé was
also pleased, and consequently behaved very well. We were compelled
to ride for twenty-three miles in single file, owing to the extreme
narrowness of the lava track, which has been literally hammered down
in some places to make it passable even for shod horses. We were
a party of four, and a very fat policeman on a very fat horse brought
up the rear.</p>
<p>At some distance from Hilo there is a glorious burst of tropical
forest, and then the track passes into green grass dotted over with
clumps of the pandanus and the beautiful eugenia. In that hot
dry district the fruit was already ripe, and we quenched our thirst
with it. The “native apple,” as it is called, is of
such a brilliant crimson colour as to be hardly less beautiful than
the flowers. The rind is very thin, and the inside is white, juicy,
and very slightly acidulated. We were always near the sea, and
the surf kept bursting up behind the trees in great snowy drifts, and
every opening gave us a glimpse of deep blue water. The coast
the whole way is composed of great blocks of very hard black lava, more
or less elevated, upon which the surges break in perpetual thunder.</p>
<p>Suddenly the verdure ceased, and we emerged upon a hideous scene,
one of the many lava flows from Kilauea, an irregular branching stream,
about a mile broad. It is suggestive of fearful work on the part
of nature, for here the volcano has not created but destroyed.
The black tumbled sea mocked the bright sunshine, all tossed, jagged,
spiked, twirled, thrown heap on heap, broken, rifted, upheaved in great
masses, burrowing in ravines of its own making, full of broken bubble
caves, and torn by <i>a-a</i> streams. Close to the track crystals
of olivine lie in great profusion, and in a few of the crevices there
are young plants of a fern which everywhere has the audacity to act
as the herald of vegetation.</p>
<p>Beyond this desert the country is different in its features from
the rest of the island, a green smiling land of Beulah, varied by lines
of craters covered within and without with vegetation. For thirty
miles the track passes under the deep shade of coco palms, of which
Puna is the true home; and from under their feathery shadow, and from
amidst the dark leafage of the breadfruit, gleamed the rose-crimson
apples of the eugenia, and the golden balls of the guava. I have
not before seen this exquisite palm to advantage, for those which fringe
the coast have, as compared with these, a look of tattered, sombre,
harassed antiquity. Here they stood in thousands, young as well
as old, their fronds gigantic, their stems curving every way, and the
golden light, which is peculiar to them, toned into a golden green.
They were loaded with fruit in all stages, indeed it is produced in
such abundance that thousands of nuts lie unheeded on the ground.
Animals, including dogs and cats, revel in the meat, and in the scarcity
of good water the milk is a useful substitute.</p>
<p>Late in the afternoon we reached our destination, a comfortable frame
house, on one of those fine natural lawns in which Hawaii abounds.
A shower at seven each morning keeps Puna always green. Our kind
host, a German, married to a native woman, served our meals in a house
made of grass and bamboo; but the wife and children, as is usual in
these cases, never appeared at table, and contented themselves with
contemplating us at a great distance.</p>
<p>The next afternoon we rode to one of the natural curiosities of Puna,
which gave me intense pleasure. It lies at the base of a cone
crowned with a <i>heiau</i> and a clump of coco palms. Passing
among bread-fruit and guavas into a palm grove of exquisite beauty,
we came suddenly upon a lofty wooded cliff of hard basaltic rock, with
ferns growing out of every crevice in its ragged but perpendicular sides.
At its feet is a cleft about 60 feet long, 16 wide, and 18 deep, full
of water at a temperature of 90°. This has an absolute transparency
of a singular kind, and perpetrates wonderful optical illusions.
Every thing put into it is transformed. The rocks, broken timber,
and old cocoa nuts which lie below it, are a frosted blue; the dusky
skins of natives are changed to alabaster; and as my companion, in a
light print <i>holuku</i>, swam to and fro, her feet and hands became
like polished marble tinged with blue, and her dress floated through
the water as if woven of blue light. Everything about this spring
is far more striking and beautiful than the colour in the blue grotto
of Capri. It is heaven in the water, a jewelled floor of marvels,
“a sea of glass,” “like unto sapphire,” a type,
perhaps, of that on which the blessed stand before the throne of God.
Above, the feathery palms rose into the crystalline blue, and made an
amber light below, and all fair and lovely things were mirrored in the
wonderful waters. The specific gravity must be much greater than
that of ordinary water, for it did not seem possible to sink, or even
be thoroughly immersed in it. The mercury in the air was 79°,
but on coming out of the water we felt quite chilly.</p>
<p>I like Puna. It is like nothing else, but something about it
made us feel as if we were dwelling in a castle of indolence.
I developed a capacity for doing nothing, which horrified me, and except
when we energised ourselves to go to the hot spring, my companions and
I were content to dream in the verandah, and watch the lengthening shadows,
and drink cocoa-nut milk, till the abrupt exit of the sun startled us,
and we saw the young moon carrying the old one tenderly, and a fitful
glare 60 miles away, where the solemn fires of Mauna Loa are burning
at a height of nearly 14,000 feet.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>HILO.</p>
<p>There are many “littles,” but few “mickles”
here. It is among the last that two foreign gentlemen have successfully
accomplished the ascent of Mauna Loa, and the mystery of its fires is
solved. I write “successfully,” as they went up and
down in safety, but they were involved in a series of <i>pilikias</i>:
girths, stirrup-leathers, and cruppers slipping and breaking, and their
sufferings on the summit from cold and mountain sickness appear to have
been nearly incapacitating. Although much excited, they are collected
enough to pronounce it “the most sublime sight ever seen.”
They, as well as several natives who have passed by Kilauea, report
it as in full activity, which bears against the assertion that the flank
crater becomes quiet when the summit crater is active.</p>
<p>Another and sadder “mickle” has been the departure of
ten lepers for Molokai. The <i>Kilauea</i>, with the Marshal,
and Mr. Wilder who embodies the Board of Health, has just left the bay,
taking away forty lepers on this cruise; and the relations of those
who have been taken from Hilo are still howling on the beach.
When one hears the wailing, and sees the temporary agony of the separated
relatives, one longs for “the days of the Son of Man,” and
that his healing touch, as of old in Galilee, might cleanse these unfortunates.
Nine of the lepers were sent on board from the temporary pest-house,
but their case, though deeply commiserated, has been overshadowed by
that of the talented half-white, “Bill Ragsdale,” whom I
mentioned in one of my earlier letters, and who is certainly the most
“notorious” man in Hilo. He has a remarkable gift
of eloquence, both in English and Hawaiian: a combination of pathos,
invective, and sarcasm; and his manner, though theatrical, is considered
perfect by his native admirers. His moral character, however,
has been very low, which makes the outburst of feeling at his fate the
more remarkable.</p>
<p>Yesterday, he wrote a letter to Sheriff Severance, giving himself
up as a leper to be dealt with by the law, expressing himself as ready
to be expatriated to-day, but requesting that he might not be put into
the leper-house, and that he might go on board the steamer alone.
The fact of his giving himself up excited much sympathy, as, in his
case, the signs of the malady are hardly apparent, and he might have
escaped suspicion for some time.</p>
<p>He was riding about all this morning, taking leave of people, and
of the pleasant Hilo lanes, which he will never see again, and just
as the steamer was weighing anchor, walked down to the shore as carefully
dressed as usual, decorated with <i>leis</i> of <i>ohia</i> and gardenia,
and escorted by nearly the whole native population. On my first
landing here, the glee club, singing and flower-clad, went out to meet
him; now tears and sobs accompanied him, and his countrymen and women
clung to him, kissing him, to the last moment, whilst all the foreigners
shook hands as they offered him their good wishes. He made a short
speech in native, urging quiet submission to the stringent measures
which government is taking in order to stamp out leprosy, and then said
a few words in English. His last words, as he stepped into the
boat, were to all: “<i>Aloha</i>, may God bless you, my brothers,”
and then the whale boat took him the first stage towards his living
grave. He took a horse, a Bible, and some legal books with him;
and, doubtless, in consideration of the prominent positions he has filled,
specially that of interpreter to the Legislature, unusual indulgence
will be granted to him.</p>
<p>At the weekly prayer meeting held this evening in the foreign church,
the medical officer gave a very pathetic account of his interview with
him this morning, in which he had feelingly requested the prayers of
the church. It was with unusual fervour afterwards that prayer
was offered, not for him only, but for “all those who, living,
have this day been consigned to the oblivion of the grave, and for the
five hundred of our fellow-subjects now suffering on Molokai.”
A noble instance of devotion has just been given by Father Damiens,
a Belgian priest, who has gone to spend his life amidst the hideous
scenes, and the sickness and death of the ghastly valley of Kalawao.<br /> I.L.B.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>A CHAPTER ON THE LEPER SETTLEMENT ON MOLOKAI.</h3>
<p>In 1865, the Hawaiian Legislature, recognizing the disastrous fact
that leprosy is at once contagious and incurable, passed an act to prevent
its spread, and eventually the Board of Health established a leper settlement
on the island of Molokai for the isolation of lepers. In carrying
out the painful task of weeding out and exiling the sufferers, the officials
employed met with unusual difficulties; and the general foreign community
was not itself aware of the importance of making an attempt to “stamp
out” the disease, until the beginning of Lunalilo’s reign,
when the apparently rapid spread of leprosy, and sundry rumours that
others than natives were affected by it, excited general alarm, and
not unreasonably, for medical science, after protracted investigation,
knows less of leprosy than of cholera. Nor are medical men wholly
agreed as to the manner in which infection is communicated; and, as
the white residents on the islands associate very freely and intimately
with the natives, eating <i>poi</i> out of their calabashes, and sleeping
in their houses and on their mats, there was just cause for uneasiness.</p>
<p>The natives themselves have been, and still are, perfectly reckless
about the risk of contagion, and although the family instinct among
them is singularly weak, the gregarious or social instinct is singularly
strong, and it has been found impossible to induce them to give up smoking
the pipes, wearing the clothes, and sleeping on the mats of lepers,
which three things are universally regarded by medical men as undoubted
sources of infection. At the beginning of 1873, it was estimated
that nearly 400 lepers were scattered up and down the islands, living
among their families and friends, and the healthy associated with them
in complete apathy or fatalism. However bloated the face and glazed
the eyes, or however swollen or decayed the limbs were, the persons
so afflicted appeared neither to scare nor disgust their friends, and,
therefore, Hawaii has absolutely needed the coercive segregation of
these living <i>foci</i> of disease. When the search for lepers
was made, the natives hid their friends away under mats, and in forests
and caves, till the peril of separation was over, and if they sought
medical advice, they rejected foreign educated aid in favour of the
highly paid services of Chinese and native quacks, who professed to
work a cure by means of loathsome ointments and decoctions, and abominable
broths worthy of the witches’ cauldron.</p>
<p>However, as the year passed on, lepers were “informed against,”
and it became the painful duty of the sheriffs of the islands, on the
statement of a doctor that any individual was truly a leper, to commit
him for life to Molokai. Some, whose swollen faces and glassy
goggle eyes left no room for hope of escape, gave themselves up; and
few, who, like Mr. Ragsdale, might have remained among their fellows
almost without suspicion, surrendered themselves in a way which reflects
much credit upon them. Mr. Park, the Marshal, and Mr. Wilder,
of the Board of Health, went round the islands repeatedly in the <i>Kilauea</i>,
and performed the painful duty of collecting the victims, with true
sympathy and kindness. The woe of those who were taken, the dismal
wailings of those who were left, and the agonised partings, when friends
and relatives clung to the swollen limbs and kissed the glistering bloated
faces of those who were exiled from them for ever, I shall never forget.</p>
<p>There were no individual distinctions made among the sufferers.
Queen Emma’s cousin, a man of property, and Mr. Ragsdale, the
most influential lawyer among the half-whites, shared the same doom
as poor Upa, the volcano guide, and stricken Chinamen and labourers
from the plantations. Before the search slackened, between three
and four hundred men, women, and children were gathered out from among
their families, and placed on Molokai.</p>
<p>Between 1866 and April 1874, eleven hundred and forty-five lepers,
five hundred and sixty of whom were sent from Kahili in the spring of
1872, have arrived on Molokai, of which number four hundred and forty-two
have died, the majority of the deaths having occurred since the beginning
of Lunalilo’s reign, when the work of segregation was undertaken
in earnest. At the present time the number on the island is 703,
including 22 children. These unfortunates are necessarily pauperised,
and the small Hawaiian kingdom finds itself much burdened by their support.
The strain on the national resources is very great, and it is not surprising
that officials called upon to meet such a sad emergency should be assailed
in all quarters of the globe by sentimental criticism and misstatements
regarding the provision made for the lepers on Molokai. Most of
these are unfounded, and the members of the Board of Health deserve
great credit both for their humanity and for their prompt and careful
attention to the complaints made by the sufferers.</p>
<p>At present the two obvious blots on the system are, the insufficient
house accommodation, involving a herding together which is repulsive
to foreign, though not to native, ideas; and the absence of a resident
physician to prescribe for the ailments from which leprosy is no exemption.
Molokai, the island of exile, is <i>Molokai aina pali</i>, “the
land of precipices,” in the old native mélés, and
its walls of rock rise perpendicularly from the sea to a height varying
from 1000 to 2500 feet, in extreme grandeur and picturesqueness, and
are slashed, as on Hawaii, by gulches opening out on natural lawns on
the sea level. The place chosen for the centralization and segregation
of leprosy is a most singular plain of about 20,000 acres, hemmed in
between the sea and a precipice 2000 feet high, passable only where
a zigzag bridle track swings over its face, so narrow and difficult
that it has been found impossible to get cattle down over it, so that
the leper settlement below has depended for its supplies of fresh meat
upon vessels. The settlement is accessible also by a very difficult
landing at Kalaupapa on the windward side of Molokai.</p>
<p>Three miles inland from Kalaupapa is the leper village of Kalawao,
which may safely be pronounced one of the most horrible spots on all
the earth; a home of hideous disease and slow coming death, with which
science in despair has ceased to grapple; a community of doomed beings,
socially dead, “whose only business is to perish;” wifeless
husbands, husbandless wives, children without parents, and parents without
children; men and women who have “no more a portion for ever in
anything that is done under the sun,” condemned to watch the repulsive
steps by which each of their doomed fellows passes down to a loathsome
death, knowing that by the same they too must pass.</p>
<p>A small stone church near the landing, and another at Kalawao, tell
of the extraordinary devotion of a Catholic priest, who, with every
prospect of advancement in his Church, and with youth, culture, and
refinement to hold him back from the sacrifice, is in this hideous valley,
a self exiled man, for Christ’s sake. It was singular to
hear the burst of spontaneous admiration which his act elicited.
No unworthy motives were suggested, all envious speech was hushed; it
was almost forgotten by the most rigid Protestants that Father Damiens,
who has literally followed the example of Christ by “laying down
his life for the brethren,” is a Romish priest, and an intuition,
higher than all reasoning, hastened to number him with “the noble
army of martyrs.”</p>
<p>In Kalawao are placed not only the greater number of the lepers,
but the hospital buildings. Most of the victims are of the poorer
classes and live in brown huts; but two of rank, Mrs. Napela and the
Hon. P. Y. Kaeo, Queen Emma’s cousin, have neat wooden cottages
on the way from the landing, with every comfort which their means can
provide for them. The hospital buildings are about twelve in number,
well and airily situated on a height; they are built of wood thoroughly
whitewashed, and are enclosed by a fence. Although it is hoped
that a leper hospital is not to be a permanent institution of the kingdom,
the soft green grass of the enclosure has been liberally planted with
algaroba trees, which in a year or two will form a goodly shade, and
water has been brought in from a distance at considerable expense, so
that an abundant supply is always at hand. The lepers are dying
fast, and the number of advanced cases in the hospital averages forty.
In the centre of the hospital square there are the office buildings,
including the dispensary, which is well supplied with medicines, so
that in the absence of a doctor, common ailments may be treated by an
intelligent English leper. The superintendent’s office,
where the accounts and statistics of the settlement are kept, and where
the leper governor holds his leper court, and the post-office, are also
within the enclosure; but the true governor and law-giver is Death.</p>
<p>When Mr. Ragsdale left Hilo as a leper, the course he was likely
to take on Molokai could not be accurately forecasted; and it was felt
that the presence in the leper community of a man of his gift of eloquence
and influence might either be an invaluable assistance to the government,
or else a serious embarrassment. In every position he had hitherto
occupied, he had acquired and retained a remarkable notoriety; and no
stranger could visit the islands without hearing of poor “Bill
Ragsdale’s” gifts, and the grievous failings by which they
were accompanied.</p>
<p>Hitherto the hopes of his well wishers have been fulfilled, and the
government has found in him a most energetic as well as prudent agent.
“It is better to be first in Britain than second in Rome;”
and probably this unfortunate man, superintendent of the leper settlement,
and popularly known as “Governor Ragsdale,” has found a
nobler scope for his ambition among his doomed brethren than in any
previous position. His remarkable power of influencing his countrymen
is at present used for their well being; and though his authority is
practically almost absolute, owing to the isolation of the community,
and its position almost outside the operation of law, he has hitherto
used it with good faith and moderation. He is nominally assisted
in his duties by a committee of twenty chosen from among the lepers
themselves; but from his superior education and native mental ascendancy,
all immediate matters in the settlement are decided by his judgment
alone.</p>
<p>The rations of food are ample and of good quality, and notwithstanding
the increase in the number of lepers, and the difficulty of communication,
there has not been any authenticated case of want. Each leper
receives weekly 21 lbs. of <i>paiai</i>, and from 5 to 6 of beef, and
when these fail to be landed, 9 lbs. of rice, 1 lb. of sugar, and 4
lbs. of salmon. Soap and clothing are also supplied; but, for
all beyond these necessaries, the lepers are dependent on their own
industry, if they are able to exercise it, and the kindness of their
friends. Coffee, tobacco, pipes, extra clothing, knives, toys,
books, pictures, working implements and materials, have all been possessed
by them in happier days; and though packages of such things have been
sent by the charitable for distribution by Father Damiens, it is not
possible for island benevolence fully to meet an emergency and needs
so disproportionate to the population and resources of the kingdom.
Besides the two Catholic churches, there are a Protestant chapel, with
a pastor, himself a leper, who is a regularly ordained minister of the
Hawaiian Board, and two school-houses, where the twenty-two children
of the settlement receive instruction in Hawaiian from a leper teacher.
There is a store, too, where those who are assisted by their friends
can purchase small luxuries, which are sold at just such an advance
on cost as is sufficient to clear the expense of freight. The
taste for ornament has not died out in either sex, and women are to
be seen in Kalawao, hideous and bloated beyond description, decorated
with <i>leis</i> of flowers, and looking for admiration out of their
glazed and goggle eyes.</p>
<p>King Kalakaua and Queen Kapiolani have paid a visit to the settlement,
and were received with hearty <i>alohas</i>, and the music of a leper
band. The king made a short address to the lepers, the substance
of which was “that his heart was grieved with the necessity which
had separated these, his subjects, from their homes and families, a
necessity which they themselves recognised and acquiesced in, and it
should be the earnest desire of himself and his government to render
their condition in exile as comfortable as possible.” While
he spoke, though it is supposed that a merciful apathy attends upon
leprosy, his hideous audience showed signs of deep feeling, and many
shed tears at his thoughtfulness in coming to visit those, who, to use
their own touching expression, were “already in the grave.”</p>
<p>The account which follows is from the pen of a gentleman who accompanied
the king, and visited the hospital on the same occasion, in company
with two members of the Board of Health.</p>
<p>“As our party stepped on shore, we found the lepers assembled
to the number of two or three hundred--there are 697 all told in the
settlement--for they had heard in advance of our coming, and our ears
were greeted with the sound of lively music. This proceeded from
the ‘band,’ consisting of a drum, a fife, and two flutes,
rather skilfully played upon by four young lads, whose visages were
horribly marked and disfigured with leprosy. The sprightly airs
with which these poor creatures welcomed the arrival of the party, sounded
strangely incongruous and out of place, and grated harshly upon our
feelings. And then as we proceeded up the beach, and the crowd
gathered about us, eager and anxious for a recognition or a kind word
of greeting--oh, the repulsive and sickening libels and distorted caricatures
of the human face divine upon which we looked! And as they evidently
read the ill-concealed aversion in our countenances, they withdrew the
half-proffered hand, and slunk back with hanging heads. They felt
again that they were lepers, the outcasts of society, and must not contaminate
us with their touch. A few cheerful words of inquiry from the
physician, Dr. Trousseau, addressed to individuals as to their particular
cases, broke the embarrassment of this first meeting, and soon the crowd
were chatting and laughing just like any other crowd of thoughtless
Hawaiians, and with but few exceptions, these unfortunate exiles showed
no signs of the settled melancholy that would naturally be looked for
from people so hopelessly situated. Very happy were they when
spoken to, and quite ready to answer any questions. We saw numbers
whom we had known in years past, and who, having disappeared, we had
thought dead. One we had known as a Representative, and a very
intelligent one, too, in the Legislature of 1868. On greeting
him as an old-time acquaintance, he observed, ‘Yes, we meet again--in
this living grave!’ He is a man of no little consideration
among the people, being entrusted by the Board of Health with the care
of the store which is kept here for the sale of such goods as the people
require. All do not appear to be lepers who are leprous.
We saw numbers who might pass along our streets any day without being
suspected of the taint. They had it, however, in one way or another.
Sometimes on the extremities only, eating away the flesh and rotting
the bones of the hands or feet; and sometimes only appearing in black
and indurated spots on the skin, noticed only on a somewhat close examination.
This last sort is said to be the worst, as being most surely fatal and
easiest transmitted. We saw women who had the disease in this
stage, walking about, whom it was difficult to believe were lepers.</p>
<p>“If our sensibilities were shocked at the sight of the crowd
of lepers we had met at the beach, walking about in physical strength
and activity, how shall we describe our sensations in looking upon these
loathsome creatures in the hospital, in whom it was indeed hard to recognise
anything human? The rooms were cleanly kept and well ventilated,
but the atmosphere within was pervaded with the sickening odour of the
grave. At each end, squatted or lying prone on their respective
mats or mattresses, were the yet breathing corpses of lepers in the
last stages of various forms of the disease, who glanced inquisitively
at us for a moment out of their ghoul-like eyes--those who were not
already beyond seeing--and then withdrew within their dreadful selves.
Was there ever a more pitiful sight?</p>
<p>“In one room we saw a sight that will ever remain fixed indelibly
on the tablets of memory. A little blue-eyed, flaxen haired child,
apparently three or four years old, a half-caste, that looked up at
us with an expression of timorous longing to be caressed and loved;
but alas, in its glassy eyes and transparent cheeks were the unmistakable
signs of the curse--the sin of the parents visited upon the child!</p>
<p>“In another room was one--a mass of rotting flesh, with but
little semblance of humanity remaining--who was dying, and whose breath
came hurried and obstructed. A few hours at most, and his troubles
would be over, and his happy release arrive. There had been fourteen
deaths in the settlement during the previous fortnight. On the
day of our visit there were fifty-eight inmates of the hospital.”</p>
<p>Though the lifting of the veil of mystery which hangs over the death
valley of Molokai discloses some of the most woeful features of the
curse, it is a relief to know the worst, and that the poor leprous outcasts
in their “living grave” are not outside the pale of humanity
and a judicious philanthropy. All that can be done for them is
to encourage their remaining capacities for industry, and to smooth,
as far as is possible, the journey of death. The Hawaiian Government
is doing its best to “stamp out” the disease, and to provide
for the comfort of those who are isolated; and, with the limited means
at its disposal, has acted with an efficiency and humanity worthy of
the foremost of civilised countries.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>LETTER XXVIII.</h3>
<p>HILO. <i>June</i> 2<i>nd</i>.</p>
<p>Often since I finished my last letter has Hazael’s reply to
Elisha occurred to me, “Is thy servant a dog, that he should do
this thing?” For in answer to people who have said, “I
hope nothing will induce you to attempt the ascent of Mauna Loa,”
I always said, “Oh, dear, no! I should never dream of it;”
or, “Nothing would persuade me to think of it!”</p>
<p>This morning early, Mr. Green came in, on his way to Kilauea, to
which I was to accompany him, and on my casually remarking that I envied
him his further journey, he at once asked me to join him, and I joyfully
accepted the invitation! For, indeed, my heart has been secretly
set on going, and I have had to repeat to myself fifty times a day,
“no, I must not think of it, for it is impossible.”</p>
<p>Mr. Green is going up well equipped with a tent, horses, a baggage
mule, and a servant, and is confident of being able to get a guide and
additional mules fifty miles from Hilo. I had to go to the Union
School examination where the Hilo world was gathered, but I could think
of nothing but the future; and I can hardly write sense, the prospect
of the next week is so exciting, and the time for making preparations
is so short. It is an adventurous trip anyhow, and the sufferings
which our predecessors have undergone, from Commodore Wilkes downwards,
make me anxious not to omit any precaution. The distance which
has to be travelled through an uninhabited region, the height and total
isolation of the summit, the uncertainty as to the state of the crater,
and the duration of its activity, with the possibility of total failure
owing to fog or strong wind, combine to make our ascent an experimental
trip.</p>
<p>The news of the project soon spread through the village, and as the
ascent has only once been performed by a woman, the kindly people are
profuse in offers of assistance, and in interest in the journey, and
every one is congratulating me on my good fortune in having Mr. Green
for my travelling companion. I have hunted all the beach stores
through for such essentials as will pack into small compass, and every
one said “So you are going to ‘the mountain;’ I hope
you’ll have a good time;” or, “I hope you’ll
have the luck to get up.”</p>
<p>Among the friends of my hosts all sorts of useful articles were produced,
a camp kettle, a camping blanket, a huge Mexican poncho, a cardigan,
capacious saddlebags, etc. Nor was Kahélé forgotten,
for the last contribution was a bag of oats! The greatest difficulty
was about warm clothing, for in this perfect climate, woollen underclothing
is not necessary as in many tropical countries, but it is absolutely
essential on yonder mountain, and till late in the afternoon the best
intentions and the most energetic rummaging in old trunks failed to
produce it. At last Mrs. ---, wife of an old Scotch settler, bestowed
upon me the invaluable loan of a stout flannel shirt, and a pair of
venerable worsted stockings, much darned, knitted in Fifeshire a quarter
of a century ago. When she brought them, the excellent lady exclaimed,
“Oh, what some people will do!” with an obvious personal
reference.</p>
<p>She tells us that her husband, who owns the ranch on the mountain
at which we are to stay the last night, has been obliged to forbid any
of his natives going up as guides, and that she fears we shall not get
a guide, as the native who went up with Mr. Whyte suffered so dreadfully
from mountain sickness, that they were obliged to help him down, and
he declares that he will not go up again. Mr. Whyte tells us that
he suffered himself from vomiting and vertigo for fourteen hours, and
severely from thirst also, as the water froze in their canteens; but
I am almost well now, and as my capacity for “roughing it”
has been severely tested, I hope to “get on” much better.
A party made the ascent nine months ago, and the members of it also
suffered severely, but I see no reason why cautious people, who look
well to their gear and clothing, and are prudent with regard to taking
exercise at the top, should suffer anything worse than the inconveniences
which are inseparable from nocturnal cold at a high elevation.</p>
<p>My preparations are completed to-night, the last good wishes have
been spoken, and we intend to leave early tomorrow morning.<br /> I.L.B.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>LETTER XXIX. <a name="citation381"></a><a href="#footnote381">{381}</a></h3>
<p>CRATER HOUSE, KILAUEA. <i>June</i> 4<i>th</i>.</p>
<p>Once more I write with the splendours of the quenchless fires in
sight, and the usual world seems twilight and commonplace by the fierce
glare of Halemaumau, and the fitful glare of the other and loftier flame,
which is burning ten thousand feet higher in lonely Mokua-weo-weo.</p>
<p>Mr. Green and I left Hilo soon after daylight this morning, and made
about “the worst time” ever made on the route. We
jogged on slowly and silently for thirty miles in Indian file, through
bursts of tropical beauty, over an ocean of fern-clad <i>pahoehoe</i>,
the air hot and stagnant, the horses lazy and indifferent, till I was
awoke from the kind of cautious doze into which one falls on a sure-footed
horse, by a decided coolness in the atmosphere, and Kahélé
breaking into a lumbering gallop, which he kept up till we reached this
house, where, in spite of the exercise, we are glad to get close to
a large wood fire. Although we are shivering, the mercury is 57°,
but in this warm and equable climate, one’s sensations are not
significant of the height of the thermometer.</p>
<p>It is very fascinating to be here on the crater’s edge, and
to look across its deep three miles of blackness to the clouds of red
light which Halemaumau is sending up, but altogether exciting to watch
the lofty curve of Mauna Loa upheave itself against the moon, while
far and faint, we see, or think we see, that solemn light, which ever
since my landing at Kawaihae has been so mysteriously attractive.
It is three days off yet. Perhaps its spasmodic fires will die
out, and we shall find only blackness. Perhaps anything, except
our seeing it as it ought to be seen! The practical difficulty
about a guide increases, and Mr. Gilman cannot help us to solve it.
And if it be so cold at 4000 feet, what will it be at 14,000?</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>KILAUEA. <i>June</i> 5<i>th</i>.</p>
<p>I have no room in my thoughts for anything but volcanoes, and it
will be so for some days to come. We have been all day in the
crater, in fact, I left Mr. Green and his native there, and came up
with the guide, sore, stiff, bruised, cut, singed, grimy, with my thick
gloves shrivelled off by the touch of sulphurous acid, and my boots
nearly burned off. But what are cuts, bruises, fatigue, and singed
eyelashes, in comparison with the awful sublimities I have witnessed
to-day? The activity of Kilauea on Jan. 31 was as child’s
play to its activity to-day: as a display of fireworks compared to the
conflagration of a metropolis. <i>Then</i>, the sense of awe gave
way speedily to that of admiration of the dancing fire fountains of
a fiery lake; <i>now</i>, it was all terror, horror, and sublimity,
blackness, suffocating gases, scorching heat, crashings, surgings, detonations;
half seen fires, hideous, tortured, wallowing waves. I feel as
if the terrors of Kilauea would haunt me all my life, and be the Nemesis
of weak and tired hours.</p>
<p>We left early, and descended the terminal wall, still as before,
green with ferns, <i>ohias</i>, and sandalwood, and bright with clusters
of turquoise berries, and the red fruit and waxy blossoms of the <i>ohelo</i>.
The lowest depression of the crater, which I described before as a level
fissured sea of iridescent lava, has been apparently partially flooded
by a recent overflow from Halemaumau, and the same agency has filled
up the larger rifts with great shining rolls of black lava, obnoxiously
like boa-constrictors in a state of repletion. In crossing this
central area for the second time, with a mind less distracted by the
novelty of the surroundings, I observed considerable deposits of remarkably
impure sulphur, as well as sulphates of lime and alum in the larger
fissures. The presence of moisture was always apparent in connexion
with these formations. The solidified surges and convolutions
in which the lava lies, the latter sometimes so beautifully formed as
to look like coils of wire rope, are truly wonderful. Within the
cracks there are extraordinary coloured growths, orange, grey, buff,
like mineral lichens, but very hard and brittle.</p>
<p>The recent lava flow by which Halemaumau has considerably heightened
its walls, has raised the hill by which you ascend to the brink of the
pit to a height of fully five hundred feet from the basin, and this
elevation is at present much more fiery and precarious than the former
one. It is dead, but not cold, lets one through into cracks hot
with corrosive acid, rings hollow everywhere, and its steep acclivities
lie in waves, streams, coils, twists, and tortuosities of all kinds,
the surface glazed and smoothish, and with a metallic lustre.</p>
<p>Somehow, I expected to find Kilauea as I had left it in January,
though the volumes of dense white smoke which are now rolling up from
it might have indicated a change; but after the toilsome, breathless
climbing of the awful lava hill, with the crust becoming more brittle,
and the footing hotter at each step, instead of laughing fire fountains
tossing themselves in gory splendour above the rim, there was a hot,
sulphurous, mephitic chaos, covering, who knows what, of horror?</p>
<p>So far as we could judge, the level of the lake had sunk to about
80 feet below the margin, and the lately formed precipice was overhanging
it considerably. About seven feet back from the edge of the ledge,
there was a fissure about eighteen inches wide, emitting heavy fumes
of sulphurous acid gas. Our visit seemed in vain, for on the risky
verge of this crack we could only get momentary glimpses of wallowing
fire, glaring lurid through dense masses of furious smoke which were
rolling themselves round in the abyss as if driven by a hurricane.</p>
<p>After failing to get a better standpoint, we suffered so much from
the gases, that we coasted the north, till we reached the south lake,
one with the other on my former visit, but now separated by a solid
lava barrier about three hundred feet broad, and eighty high.
Here there was comparatively little smoke, and the whole mass of contained
lava was ebullient and incandescent, its level marked the whole way
round by a shelf or rim of molten lava, which adhered to the side, as
ice often adheres to the margin of rapids, when the rest of the water
is liberated and in motion. There was very little centripetal
action apparent. Though the mass was violently agitated it always
took a southerly direction, and dashed itself with fearful violence
against some lofty, undermined cliffs which formed its southern limit.
The whole region vibrated with the shock of the fiery surges.
To stand there was “to snatch a fearful joy,” out of a pain
and terror which were unendurable. For two or three minutes we
kept going to the edge, seeing the spectacle as with a flash, through
half closed eyes, and going back again; but a few trials, in which throats,
nostrils, and eyes were irritated to torture by the acid gases, convinced
us that it was unsafe to attempt to remain by the lake, as the pain
and gasping for breath which followed each inhalation, threatened serious
consequences.</p>
<p>With regard to the north lake we were more fortunate, and more persevering,
and I regard the three hours we spent by it as containing some of the
most solemn, as well as most fascinating, experiences of my life.
The aspect of the volcano had altogether changed within four months.
At present there are two lakes surrounded by precipices about eighty
feet high. Owing to the smoke and confusion, it is most difficult
to estimate their size even approximately, but I think that the diameter
of the two cannot be less than a fifth of a mile.</p>
<p>Within the pit or lake by which we spent the morning, there were
no fiery fountains, or regular plashings of fiery waves playing in indescribable
beauty in a faint blue atmosphere, but lurid, gory, molten, raging,
sulphurous, tormented masses of matter, half seen through masses as
restless, of lurid smoke. Here, the violent action appeared centripetal,
but with a southward tendency. Apparently, huge bulging masses
of a lurid-coloured lava were wallowing the whole time one over another
in a central whirlpool, which occasionally flung up a wave of fire thirty
or forty feet. The greatest intensity of action was always preceded
by a dull throbbing roar, as if the imprisoned gases were seeking the
vent which was afforded them by the upward bulging of the wave and its
bursting into spray. The colour of the lava which appeared to
be thrown upwards from great depths, was more fiery and less gory than
that nearer the surface. Now and then, through rifts in the smoke
we saw a convergence of the whole molten mass into the centre, which
rose wallowing and convulsed to a considerable height. The awful
sublimity of what we did see, was enhanced by the knowledge that it
was only a thousandth part of what we did not see, mere momentary glimpses
of a terror and fearfulness which otherwise could not have been borne.</p>
<p>A ledge, only three or four feet wide, hung over the lake, and between
that and the comparative <i>terra firma</i> of the older lava, there
was a fissure of unknown depth, emitting hot blasts of pernicious gases.
The guide would not venture on the outside ledge, but Mr. Green, in
his scientific zeal, crossed the crack, telling me not to follow him,
but presently, in his absorption with what he saw, called to me to come,
and I jumped across, and this remained our perilous standpoint. <a name="citation388"></a><a href="#footnote388">{388}</a></p>
<p>Burned, singed, stifled, blinded, only able to stand on one foot
at a time, jumping back across the fissure every two or three minutes
to escape an unendurable whiff of heat and sulphurous stench, or when
splitting sounds below threatened the disruption of the ledge: lured
as often back by the fascination of the horrors below; so we spent three
hours.</p>
<p>There was every circumstance of awfulness to make the impression
of the sight indelible. Sometimes dense volumes of smoke hid everything,
and yet, upwards, from out “their sulphurous canopy” fearful
sounds rose, crashings, thunderings, detonations, and we never knew
then whether the spray of some hugely uplifted wave might not dash up
to where we stood. At other times the smoke partially lifting,
but still swirling in strong eddies, revealed a central whirlpool of
fire, wallowing at unknown depths, to which the lava, from all parts
of the lake, slid centrewards and downwards as into a vortex, where
it mingled its waves with indescribable noise and fury, and then, breaking
upwards, dashed itself to a great height in fierce, gory, gouts and
clots, while hell itself seemed opening at our feet. At times,
again, bits of the lake skinned over with a skin of a wonderful silvery,
satiny sheen, to be immediately devoured; and as the lurid billows broke,
they were mingled with misplaced patches as if of bright moonlight.
Always changing, always suggesting force which nothing could repel,
agony indescribable, mystery inscrutable, terror unutterable, a thing
of eternal dread, revealed only in glimpses!</p>
<p>It is natural to think that St. John the Evangelist, in some Patmos
vision, was transported to the brink of this “bottomless pit,”
and found in its blackness and turbulence of agony the fittest emblems
of those tortures of remorse and memory, which we may well believe are
the quenchless flames of the region of self-chosen exile from goodness
and from God. As natural, too, that all Scripture phrases which
typify the place of woe should recur to one with the force of a new
interpretation, “Who can dwell with the everlasting burnings?”
“The smoke of their torment goeth up for ever and ever,”
“The place of hell,” “The bottomless pit,” “The
vengeance of eternal fire,” “A lake of fire burning with
brimstone.” No sight can be so fearful as this glimpse into
the interior of the earth, where fires are for ever wallowing with purposeless
force and aimless agony.</p>
<p>Beyond the lake there is a horrible region in which dense volumes
of smoke proceed from the upper ground, with loud bellowings and detonations,
and we took our perilous way in that direction, over very hot lava which
gave way constantly. It is near this that the steady fires are
situated which are visible from this house at night. We came first
upon a solitary “blowing cone,” beyond which there was a
group of three or four, but it is not from these that the smoke proceeds,
but from the extensive area beyond them, covered with smoke and steam
cracks, and smoking banks, which are probably formed of sulphur deposits.
I only visited the solitary cone, for the footing was so precarious,
the sight so fearful, and the ebullitions of gases so dangerous, that
I did not dare to go near the others, and never wish to look upon their
like again.</p>
<p>The one I saw was of beehive shape, about twelve feet high, hollow
inside, and its walls were about two feet thick. A part of its
imperfect top was blown off, and a piece of its side blown out, and
the side rent gave one a frightful view of its interior, with the risk
of having lava spat at one at intervals. The name “Blowing
Cone” is an apt one, if the theory of their construction be correct.
It is supposed that when the surface of the lava cools rapidly owing
to enfeebled action below, the gases force their way upwards through
small vents, which then serve as “blow holes” for the imprisoned
fluid beneath. This, rapidly cooling as it is ejected, forms a
ring on the surface of the crust, which, growing upwards by accretion,
forms a chimney, eventually nearly or quite closed at the top, so as
to form a cone. In this case the cone is about eighty feet above
the present level of the lake, and fully one hundred yards distant from
its present verge.</p>
<p>The whole of the inside was red and molten, full of knobs, and great
fiery stalactites. Jets of lava at a white heat were thrown up
constantly, and frequently the rent in the side spat out lava in clots,
which cooled rapidly, and looked like drops of bottle green glass.
The glimpses I got of the interior were necessarily brief and intermittent.
The blast or roar which came up from below was more than deafening;
it was stunning: and accompanied with heavy subterranean rumblings and
detonations. The chimney, so far as I could see, opened out gradually
downwards to a great width, and appeared to be about forty feet deep;
and at its base there was an abyss of lashing, tumbling, restless fire,
emitting an ominous surging sound, and breaking upwards with a fury
which threatened to blow the cone and the crust on which it stands,
into the air.</p>
<p>The heat was intense, and the stinging sulphurous gases which were
given forth in large quantities, most poisonous. The group of
cones west of this one, was visited by Mr. Green; but he found it impossible
to make any further explorations. He has seen nearly all the recent
volcanic phenomena, but says that these cones present the most “infernal”
appearance he has ever witnessed. We returned for a last look
at Halemaumau, but the smoke was so dense, and the sulphur fumes so
stifling, that, as in a fearful dream, we only heard the thunder of
its hidden surges. I write thunder, and one speaks of the lashing
of its waves; but these are words pertaining to the familiar earth,
and have no place in connection with Kilauea. The breaking lava
has a voice all its own, full of compressed fury. Its sound, motion,
and aspect are all infernal. Hellish, is the only fitting term.</p>
<p>We are dwelling on a cooled crust all over Southern Hawaii, the whole
region is recent lava, and between this and the sea there are several
distinct lines of craters thirty miles long, all of which at some time
or other have vomited forth the innumerable lava streams which streak
the whole country in the districts of Kau, Puna, and Hilo. In
fact, Hawaii is a great slag. There is something very solemn in
the position of this crater-house: with smoke and steam coming out of
every pore of the ground, and in front the huge crater, which to-night
lights all the sky. My second visit has produced a far deeper
impression even than the first, and one of awe and terror solely.</p>
<p>Kilauea is altogether different from the European volcanoes which
send lava and stones into the air in fierce sudden spasms, and then
subside into harmlessness. Ever changing, never resting, the force
which stirs it never weakening, raging for ever with tossing and strength
like the ocean: its labours unfinished and possibly never to be finished,
its very unexpectedness adds to its sublimity and terror, for until
you reach the terminal wall of the crater, it looks by daylight but
a smoking pit in the midst of a dreary stretch of waste land.</p>
<p>Last night I thought the Southern Cross out of place; to-night it
seems essential, as Calvary over against Sinai. For Halemaumau
involuntarily typifies the wrath which shall consume all evil: and the
constellation, pale against its lurid light, the great love and yearning
of the Father, “who spared not His own Son but delivered Him up
for us all,” that, “as in Adam all die, even so in Christ
shall all be made alive.”</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>AINEPO, HAWAII, <i>June</i> 5<i>th</i>.</p>
<p>We had a great fright last evening. We had been engaging mules,
and talking over our plans with our half-Indian host, when he opened
the door and exclaimed, “There’s no light on Mauna Loa;
the fire’s gone out.” We rushed out, and though the
night was clear and frosty, the mountain curve rose against the sky
without the accustomed wavering glow upon it. “I’m
afraid you’ll have your trouble for nothing,” Mr. Gilman
unsympathisingly remarked; “anyhow, its awfully cold up there,”
and rubbing his hands, reseated himself at the fire. Mr. G. and
I stayed out till we were half-frozen, and I persuaded myself and him
that there was a redder tinge than the moonlight above the summit, but
the mountain has given no sign all day, so that I fear that I “evolved”
the light out of my “inner consciousness.”</p>
<p>Mr. Gilman was eloquent on the misfortunes of our predecessors, lent
me a pair of woollen socks to put on over my gloves, told me privately
that if anyone could succeed in getting a guide it would be Mr. Green,
and dispatched us at eight this morning with a lurking smile at our
“fool’s errand,” thinly veiled by warm wishes for
our success. Mr. Reid has two ranches on the mountain, seven miles
distant from each other, and was expected every hour at the crater-house
on his way to Hilo, but it was not known from which he was coming, and
as it appeared that our last hope of getting a guide lay in securing
his good will, Mr. G., his servant, and packmule took the lower trail,
and I, with a native, a string of mules, and a pack-horse, the upper.
Our plans for intercepting the good man were well laid and successful,
but turned out resultless.</p>
<p>This has been an irresistibly comical day, and it is just as well
to have something amusing interjected between the sublimities of Kilauea,
and whatever to-morrow may bring forth. When our cavalcades separated,
I followed the guide on a blind trail into the little-known regions
on the skirts of Mauna Loa. We only travelled two miles an hour,
and the mules kept getting up rows, kicking, and entangling their legs
in the lariats, and one peculiarly malign animal dealt poor Kahélé
a gratuitous kick on his nose, making it bleed.</p>
<p>It is strange, unique country, without any beauty. The seaward
view is over a great stretch of apparent table-land, spotted with craters,
and split by cracks emitting smoke or steam. The whole region
is black with streams of spiked and jagged lava, meandering over it,
with charred stumps of trees rising out of them.</p>
<p>The trail, if such it could be called, wound among <i>koa</i> and
sandalwood trees occasionally, but habitually we picked our way over
waves, coils, and hummocks of pahoehoe surrounded by volcanic sand,
and with only a few tufts of grass, abortive <i>ohelos</i>, and vigorous
sow thistles (much relished by Kahélé) growing in their
crevices. Horrid cracks, 50 or 60 feet wide, probably made by
earthquakes, abounded, and a black chasm of most infernal aspect dogged
us on the left. It was all scrambling up and down. Sometimes
there was long, ugly grass, a brownish green, coarse and tufty, for
a mile or more. Sometimes clumps of wintry-looking, dead trees,
sometimes clumps of attenuated living ones; but nothing to please the
eye. We saw neither man nor beast the whole way, except a wild
bull, which, tearing down the mountain side, crossed the trail just
in front of us, causing a stampede among the mules, and it was fully
an hour before they were all caught again.</p>
<p>The only other incident was an earthquake, the most severe, the men
here tell me, that has been experienced for two years. One is
prepared for any caprices on the part of the earth here, yet when there
was a fearful internal throbbing and rumbling, and the trees and grass
swayed rapidly, and great rocks and masses of soil were dislodged, and
bounded down the hillside, and the earth reeled, and my poor horse staggered
and stopped short; far from rising to the magnitude of the occasion,
I thought I was attacked with vertigo, and grasped the horn of my saddle
to save myself from falling. After a moment of profound stillness,
there was again a subterranean sound like a train in a tunnel, and the
earth reeled again with such violence that I felt as if the horse and
myself had gone over. Poor K. was nervous for some time afterwards.
The motion was as violent as that of a large ship in a mid-Atlantic
storm. There were four minor shocks within half an hour afterwards.</p>
<p>After crawling along for seven hours, and for the last two in a dripping
fog, so dense that I had to keep within kicking range of the mules for
fear of being lost, we heard the lowing of domestic cattle, and came
to a place where felled trees, very difficult for the horses to cross,
were lying. Then a rude boundary wall appeared, inside of which
was a small, poor-looking grass house, consisting of one partially-divided
room, with a small, ruinous-looking cook-house, a shed, and an unfinished
frame house. It looked, and is, a disconsolate conclusion of a
wet day’s ride. I rode into the corral, and found two or
three very rough-looking whites and half-whites standing, and addressing
one of them, I found he was Mr. Reid’s manager there. I
asked if they could give me a night’s lodging, which seemed a
diverting notion to them; and they said they could give me the rough
accommodation they had, but it was hard even for them, till the new
house was put up. They brought me into this very rough shelter,
a draughty grass room, with a bench, table, and one chair in it.
Two men came in, but not the native wife and family, and sat down to
a calabash of <i>poi</i> and some strips of dried beef, food so coarse,
that they apologised for not offering it to me. They said they
had sent to the lower ranch for some flour, and in the meantime they
gave me some milk in a broken bowl, their “nearest approach to
a tumbler,” they said. I was almost starving, for all our
food was on the pack-mule. This is the place where we had been
told that we could obtain tea, flour, beef, and fowls!</p>
<p>By some fatality my pen, ink, and knitting were on the pack-mule;
it was very cold, the afternoon fog closed us in, and darkness came
on prematurely, so that I felt a most absurd sense of <i>ennui</i>,
and went over to the cook-house, where I found Gandle cooking, and his
native wife with a heap of children and dogs lying round the stove.
I joined them till my clothes were dry, on which the man, who in spite
of his rough exterior, was really friendly and hospitable, remarked
that he saw I was “one of the sort who knew how to take people
as I found them.”</p>
<p>This regular afternoon mist which sets in at a certain altitude,
blotting out the sun and sky, and bringing the horizon within a few
yards, makes me certain after all that the mists of rainless Eden were
a phenomenon, the loss of which is not to be regretted.</p>
<p>Still the afternoon hung on, and I went back to the house feeling
that the most desirable event which the future could produce would be--a
meal. Now and then the men came in and talked for a while, and
as the darkness and cold intensified, they brought in an arrangement
extemporised out of what looked like a battered tin bath, half full
of earth, with some lighted faggots at the top, which gave out a little
warmth and much stinging smoke. Actual, undoubted, night came
on without Mr. Green, of whose failure I felt certain, and without food,
and being blinded by the smoke, I rolled myself in a blanket and fell
asleep on the bench, only to wake in a great fright, believing that
the volcano house was burning over my head, and that a venerable missionary
was taking advantage of the confusion to rob my saddle-bags, which in
truth one of the men was moving out of harm’s way, having piled
up the fire two feet high.</p>
<p>Presently a number of voices outside shouted <i>Haole</i>! and Mr.
Green came in shaking the water from his waterproof, with the welcome
words, “Everything’s settled for to-morrow.”
Mr. Reid threw cold water on the ascent, and could give no help; and
Mr. G. being thus left to himself, after a great deal of trouble, has
engaged as guide an active young goat-hunter, who, though he has never
been to the top of the mountain, knows other parts of it so well that
he is sure he can take us up. Mr. G. also brings an additional
mule and pack-horse, so that our equipment is complete, except in the
matter of cruppers, which we have been obliged to make for ourselves
out of goats’ hair rope, and old stockings. If Mr. G. has
an eye for the picturesque, he must have been gratified as he came in
from the fog and darkness into the grass room, with the flaring fire
in the middle, the rifles gleaming on the wall, the two men in very
rough clothing, and myself huddled up in a blanket sitting on the floor,
where my friend was very glad to join us.</p>
<p>Mr. Green has brought nothing but tea from Kapapala, but Gandle has
made some excellent rolls, besides feasting us on stewed fowl, dough-nuts,
and milk! Little comfort is promised for to-night, as Gandle says
with a twinkle of kindly malice in his eye, that we shall not “get
a wink of sleep, for the place swarms with fleas.” They
are a great pest of the colder regions of the islands, and like all
other nuisances, are said to have been imported! Gandle and the
other man have entertained us with the misfortunes of our predecessors,
on which they seem to gloat with ill-omened satisfaction.<br /> I.L.B.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>LETTER XXIX.--Continued.</h3>
<p>KAPAPALA, <i>June</i> 8<i>th</i>.</p>
<p>The fleas at Ainepo quite fulfilled Mr. Gandle’s prognostications,
and I was glad when the cold stars went out one by one, and a red, cloudless
dawn broke over the mountain, accompanied by a heavy dew and a morning
mist, which soon rolled itself up into rosy folds and disappeared, and
there was a legitimate excuse for getting up. Our host provided
us with flour, sugar, and dough-nuts, and a hot breakfast, and our expedition,
comprising two natives who knew not a word of English, Mr. G. who does
not know very much more Hawaiian than I do, and myself, started at seven.
We had four superb mules, and two good pack-horses, a large tent, and
a plentiful supply of camping blankets. I put on all my own warm
clothes, as well as most of those which had been lent to me, which gave
me the squat, padded, look of a puffin or Esquimaux, but all, and more
were needed long before we reached the top. The mules were beyond
all praise. They went up the most severe ascent I have ever seen,
climbing steadily for nine hours, without a touch of the spur, and after
twenty-four hours of cold, thirst, and hunger, came down again as actively
as cats. The pack-horses too were very good, but from the comparative
clumsiness with which they move their feet they were very severely cut.</p>
<p>We went off, as usual, in single file, the guide first, and Mr. G.
last. The track was passably legible for some time, and wound
through long grass, and small <i>koa</i> trees, mixed with stunted <i>ohias</i>
and a few common ferns. Half these <i>koa</i> trees are dead,
and all, both living and dead, have their branches covered with a long
hairy lichen, nearly white, making the dead forest in the slight mist
look like a wood in England when covered with rime on a fine winter
morning. The <i>koa</i> tree has a peculiarity of bearing two
distinct species of leaves on the same twig, one like a curved willow
leaf, the other that of an acacia.</p>
<p>After two hours ascent we camped on the verge of the timber line,
and fed our animals, while the two natives hewed firewood, and loaded
the spare pack-horse with it. The sky was by that time cloudless,
and the atmosphere brilliant, and both remained so until we reached
the same place twenty-eight hours later, so that the weather favoured
us in every respect, for there is “weather” on the mountain,
rains, fogs, and wind storms. The grass only grows sparsely in
tufts above this place, and though vegetation exists up to a height
of 10,000 feet on this side, it consists, for the most part, of grey
lichens, a little withered grass, and a hardy asplenium.</p>
<p>At this spot the real business of the ascent begins, and we tightened
our girths, distributed the baggage as fairly as possible, and made
all secure before remounting.</p>
<p>We soon entered on vast uplands of <i>pahoehoe</i> which ground away
the animals’ feet, a horrid waste, extending upwards for 7000
feet. For miles and miles, above and around, great billowy masses,
tossed and twisted into an infinity of fantastic shapes, arrest and
weary the eye, lava in all its forms, from a compact phonolite, to the
lightest pumice stone, the mere froth of the volcano, exceeding in wildness
and confusion the most extravagant nightmare ever inflicted on man.
Recollect the vastness of this mountain. The whole south of this
large island, down to, and below the water’s edge, is composed
of its slopes. Its height is nearly three miles, its base is 180
miles in circumference, so that Wales might be packed away within it,
leaving room to spare. Yet its whole huge bulk, above a height
of about 8000 feet, is one frightful desert, at once the creation and
the prey of the mightiest force on earth.</p>
<p>Struggling, slipping, tumbling, jumping, ledge after ledge was surmounted,
but still, upheaved against the glittering sky, rose new difficulties
to be overcome. Immense bubbles have risen from the confused masses,
and bursting, have yawned apart. Swift-running streams of more
recent lava have cleft straight furrows through the older congealed
surface. Massive flows have fallen in, exposing caverned depths
of jagged outlines. Earthquakes have riven the mountain, splitting
its sides and opening deep <i>crevasses</i>, which must be leapt or
circumvented. Horrid streams of <i>a-a</i> have to be cautiously
skirted, which after rushing remorselessly over the kindlier lava have
heaped rugged pinnacles of brown scoriæ into impassable walls.
Winding round the bases of tossed up, fissured hummocks of <i>pahoehoe</i>,
leaping from one broken hummock to another, clambering up acclivities
so steep that the pack-horse rolled backwards once, and my cat-like
mule fell twice, moving cautiously over crusts which rang hollow to
the tread; stepping over deep cracks, which, perhaps, led down to the
burning fathomless sea, traversing hilly lakes ruptured by earthquakes,
and split in cooling into a thousand fissures, painfully toiling up
the sides of mounds of scoriæ frothed with pumice-stone, and again
for miles surmounting rolling surfaces of billowy ropy lava--so passed
the long day, under the tropic sun, and the deep blue sky.</p>
<p>Towards afternoon, clouds heaped themselves in brilliant snowy masses,
all radiance and beauty to us, all fog and gloom below, girdling the
whole mountain, and interposing their glittering screen between us and
the dark timber belt, the black smoking shores of Kau, and the blue
shimmer of the Pacific. From that time, for twenty-four hours,
the lower world, and “works and ways of busy men” were entirely
shut out, and we were alone with this trackless and inanimate region
of horror.</p>
<p>For the first time our guide hesitated as to the right track, for
the faint suspicion of white smoke, which had kept alive our hope that
the fire was still burning, had ceased to be visible. We called
a halt while he reconnoitred, tried to eat some food, found that our
pulses were beating 100 a minute, bathed our heads, specially our temples,
with snow, as we had been advised to do by the oldest mountaineer on
Hawaii, and heaped on yet more clothing. In fact, I tied a double
woollen scarf over all my face but my eyes, and put on a French soldier’s
overcoat, with cape and hood, which Mr. Green had brought in case of
emergency. The cold had become intense. We had not wasted
words at any time, and on remounting, preserved as profound a silence
as if we were on a forlorn hope, even the natives intermitting their
ceaseless gabble.</p>
<p>Upwards still, in the cold bright air, coating the edges of deep
cracks, climbing endless terraces, the mules panting heavily, our breath
coming as if from excoriated lungs,--so we surmounted the highest ledge.
But on reaching the apparent summit we were to all appearance as far
from the faint smoke as ever, for this magnificent dome, whose base
is sixty miles in diameter, is crowned by a ghastly volcanic table-land,
creviced, riven, and ashy, twenty-four miles in circumference.
A table-land, indeed, of dark grey lava, blotched by outbursts, and
torn by streams of brown <i>a-a</i>, full of hideous <i>crevasses</i>
and fearful shapes, as if a hundred waves of lava had rolled themselves
one on another, and had congealed in confused heaps, and been tortured
in all directions by the mighty power which had upheaved the whole.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>Our guide took us a little wrong once, but soon recovered himself
with much sagacity. “Wrong” on Mauna Loa means being
arrested by an impassable <i>a-a</i> stream, and our last predecessors
had nearly been stopped by getting into one in which they suffered severely.</p>
<p>These <i>a-a</i> streams are very deep, and when in a state of fusion
move along in a mass 20 feet high sometimes, with very solid walls.
Professor Alexander, of Honolulu, supposes them to be from the beginning
less fluid than <i>pahoehoe</i>, and that they advance very slowly,
being full of solid points, or centres of cooling: that <i>a-a</i>,
in fact, <i>grains</i> like sugar. Its hardness is indescribable.
It is an aggregate of upright, rugged, adamantine points, and at a distance,
a river of it looks like a dark brown <i>Mer de Glace</i>.</p>
<p>At half-past four we reached the edge of an <i>a-a</i> stream, about
as wide as the Ouse at Huntingdon Bridge, and it was obvious that somehow
or other we must cross it: indeed, I know not if it be possible to reach
the crater without passing through one or another of these obstacles.
I should have liked to have left the animals there, but it was represented
as impossible to proceed on foot, and though this was a decided misrepresentation,
Mr. Green plunged in. I had resolved that he should never have
any bother in consequence of his kindness in taking me with him, and,
indeed, everyone had enough to do in taking care of himself and his
own beast, but I never found it harder to repress a cry for help.
Not that I was in the least danger, but there was every risk of the
beautiful mule being much hurt, or breaking her legs. The fear
shown by the animals was pathetic; they shrank back, cowered, trembled,
breathed hard and heavily, and stumbled and plunged painfully.
It was sickening to see their terror and suffering, the struggling and
slipping into cracks, the blood and torture. The mules with their
small legs and wonderful agility were more frightened than hurt, but
the horses were splashed with blood up to their knees, and their poor
eyes looked piteous.</p>
<p>We were then, as we knew, close to the edge of the crater, but the
faint smoke wreath had disappeared, and there was nothing but the westering
sun hanging like a ball over the black horizon of the desolate summit.
We rode as far as a deep fissure filled with frozen snow, with a ledge
beyond, threw ourselves from our mules, jumped the fissure, and more
than 800 feet below yawned the inaccessible blackness and horror of
the crater of Mokuaweoweo, six miles in circumference, and 11,000 feet
long by 8,000 wide. The mystery was solved, for at one end of
the crater, in a deep gorge of its own, above the level of the rest
of the area, there was the lonely fire, the reflection of which, for
six weeks, has been seen for 100 miles.</p>
<p>Nearly opposite us, a thing of beauty, a perfect fountain of pure
yellow fire, unlike the gory gleam of Kilauea, was regularly playing
in several united but independent jets, throwing up its glorious incandescence,
to a height, as we afterwards ascertained, of from 150 to 300 feet,
and attaining at one time 600! You cannot imagine such a beautiful
sight. The sunset gold was not purer than the living fire.
The distance which we were from it, divested it of the inevitable horrors
which surround it. It was all beauty. For the last two miles
of the ascent, we had heard a distant vibrating roar: there, at the
crater’s edge, it was a glorious sound, the roar of an ocean at
dispeace, mingled with the hollow murmur of surf echoing in sea caves,
booming on, rising and falling, like the thunder music of windward Hawaii.</p>
<p>We sat on the ledge outside the fissure for some time, and Mr. Green
actually proposed to pitch the tent there, but I dissuaded him, on the
ground that an earthquake might send the whole thing tumbling into the
crater; nor was this a whimsical objection, for during the night there
were two such falls, and after breakfast, another quite near us.</p>
<p>We had travelled for two days under a strong impression that the
fires had died out, so you can imagine the sort of stupor of satisfaction
with which we feasted on the glorious certainty. Yes, it was glorious,
that far-off fire-fountain, and the lurid cracks in the slow-moving,
black-crusted flood, which passed calmly down from the higher level
to the grand area of the crater.</p>
<p>This area, over two miles long, and a mile and a half wide, with
precipitous sides 800 feet deep, and a broad second shelf about 300
feet below the one we occupied, at that time appeared a dark grey, tolerably
level lake, with great black blotches, and yellow and white stains,
the whole much fissured. No steam or smoke proceeded from any
part of the level surface, and it had the unnaturally dead look which
follows the action of fire. A ledge, or false beach, which must
mark a once higher level of the lava, skirts the lake, at an elevation
of thirty feet probably, and this fringed the area with various signs
of present volcanic action, steaming sulphur banks, and heavy jets of
smoke. The other side, above the crater, has a ridgy broken look,
giving the false impression of a mountainous region beyond. At
this time the luminous fountain, and the red cracks in the river of
lava which proceeded from it, were the only fires visible in the great
area of blackness. In former days people have descended to the
floor of the crater, but owing to the breaking away of the accessible
part of the precipice, a descent now is not feasible, though I doubt
not that a man might even now get down, if he went up with suitable
tackle, and sufficient assistance.</p>
<p>The one disappointment was that this extraordinary fire-fountain
was not only 800 feet below us, but nearly three-quarters of a mile
from us, and that it was impossible to get any nearer to it. Those
who have made the ascent before have found themselves obliged either
to camp on the very spot we occupied, or a little below it.</p>
<p>The natives pitched the tent as near to the crater as was safe, with
one pole in a crack, and the other in the great fissure, which was filled
to within three feet of the top with snow and ice. As the opening
of the tent was on the crater side, we could not get in or out without
going down into this <i>crevasse</i>. The tent walls were held
down with stones to make it as snug as possible, but snug is a word
of the lower earth, and has no meaning on that frozen mountain top.
The natural floor was of rough slabs of lava, laid partly edgewise,
so that a newly macadamised road would have been as soft a bed.
The natives spread the horse blankets over it, and I arranged the camping
blankets, made my own part of the tent as comfortable as possible by
putting my inverted saddle down for a pillow, put on my last reserve
of warm clothing, took the food out of the saddle bags, and then felt
how impossible it was to exert myself in the rarified air, or even to
upbraid Mr. Green for having forgotten the tea, of which I had reminded
him as often as was consistent with politeness!</p>
<p>This discovery was not made till after we had boiled the kettle,
and my dismay was softened by remembering that as water boils up there
at 187°, our tea would have been worthless. In spite of my
objection to stimulants, and in defiance of the law against giving liquor
to natives, I made a great tin of brandy toddy, of which all partook,
along with tinned salmon and dough-nuts. Then the men piled faggots
on the fire and began their everlasting chatter, and Mr. Green and I,
huddled up in blankets, sat on the outer ledge in solemn silence, to
devote ourselves to the volcano.</p>
<p>The sun was just setting: the tooth-like peaks of Mauna Kea, cold
and snow slashed, which were blushing red, the next minute turned ghastly
against a chilly sky, and with the disappearance of the sun it became
severely cold; yet we were able to remain there till 9.30, the first
people to whom such a thing has been possible, so supremely favoured
were we by the absence of wind.</p>
<p>When the sun had set, and the brief red glow of the tropics had vanished,
a new world came into being, and wonder after wonder flashed forth from
the previously lifeless crater. Everywhere through its vast expanse
appeared glints of fire--fires bright and steady, burning in rows like
blast furnaces; fires lone and isolated, unwinking like planets, or
twinkling like stars; rows of little fires marking the margin of the
lowest level of the crater; fire molten in deep <i>crevasses</i>; fire
in wavy lines; fire, calm, stationary, and restful: an incandescent
lake two miles in length beneath a deceptive crust of darkness, and
whose depth one dare not fathom even in thought. Broad in the
glare, giving light enough to read by at a distance of three-quarters
of a mile, making the moon look as blue as an ordinary English sky,
its golden gleam changed to a vivid rose colour, lighting up the whole
of the vast precipices of that part of the crater with a rosy red, bringing
out every detail here, throwing cliffs and heights into huge black masses
there, rising, falling, never intermitting, leaping in lofty jets with
glorious shapes like wheatsheaves, coruscating, reddening, the most
glorious thing beneath the moon was the fire-fountain of Mokuaweoweo.</p>
<p>By day the cooled crust of the lake had looked black and even sooty,
with a fountain of molten gold playing upwards from it; by night it
was all incandescent, with black blotches of cooled scum upon it, which
were perpetually being devoured. The centre of the lake was at
a white heat, and waves of white hot lava appeared to be wallowing there
as in a whirlpool, and from this centre the fountain rose, solid at
its base, which is estimated at 150 feet in diameter, but thinning and
frittering as it rose high into the air, and falling from the great
altitude to which it attained, in fiery spray, which made a very distinct
clatter on the fiery surface below. When one jet was about half
high, another rose so as to keep up the action without intermission;
and in the lower part of the fountain two subsidiary curved jets of
great volume continually crossed each other. So, “alone
in its glory,” perennial, self-born, springing up in sparkling
light, the fire-fountain played on as the hours went by.</p>
<p>From the nearer margin of this incandescent lake there was a mighty
but deliberate overflow, a “silent tide” of fire, passing
to the lower level, glowing under and amidst its crust, with the brightness
of metal passing from a furnace. In the bank of partially cooled
and crusted lava which appears to support the lake, there were rifts
showing the molten lava within. In one place heavy white vapour
blew off in powerful jets from the edge of the lake, and elsewhere there
were frequent jets and ebullitions of the same, but there was not a
trace of vapour over the burning lake itself. The crusted large
area, with its blowing cones, blotches and rifts of fire, was nearly
all visible, and from the thickness and quietness of the crust it was
obvious that the ocean of lava below was comparatively at rest, but
a dark precipice concealed a part of the glowing and highly agitated
lake, adding another mystery to its sublimity.</p>
<p>It is probable that the whole interior of this huge dome is fluid,
for the eruptions from this summit crater do not proceed from its filling
up and running over, but from the mountain sides being unable to bear
the enormous pressure; when they give way, high or low, and bursting,
allow the fiery contents to escape. So, in 1855, the mountain
side split open, and the lava gushed forth for thirteen months in a
stream which ran for 60 miles, and flooded Hawaii for 300 square miles.
<a name="citation411"></a><a href="#footnote411">{411}</a></p>
<p>From the camping ground, immense cracks parallel with the crater,
extend for some distance, and the whole of the compact grey stone of
the summit is much fissured. These cracks, like the one by which
our tent was pitched, contain water resting on ice. It shows the
extreme difference of climate on the two sides of Hawaii, that while
vegetation straggles up to a height of 10,000 feet on the windward side
in a few miserable blasted forms, it absolutely ceases at a height of
7,000 feet on the leeward.</p>
<p>It was too cold to sit up all night; so by the “fire light”
I wrote the enclosed note to you with fingers nearly freezing on the
pen, and climbed into the tent.</p>
<p>It is possible that tent life in the East, or in the Rocky Mountains,
with beds, tables, travelling knick-knacks of all descriptions, and
servants who study their master’s whims, may be very charming;
but my experience of it having been of the make-shift and non-luxurious
kind, is not delectable. A wooden saddle, without stuffing, made
a very fair pillow; but the ridges of the lava were severe. I
could not spare enough blankets to soften them, and one particularly
intractable point persisted in making itself felt. I crowded on
everything attainable, two pairs of gloves, with Mr. Gilman’s
socks over them, and a thick plaid muffled up my face. Mr. Green
and the natives, buried in blankets, occupied the other part of the
tent. The phrase, “sleeping on the brink of a volcano,”
was literally true, for I fell asleep, and fear I might have been prosaic
enough to sleep all night, had it not been for fleas which had come
up in the camping blankets. When I woke, it was light enough to
see that the three muffled figures were all asleep, instead of spending
the night in shiverings and vertigo, as it appears that others have
done. Doubtless the bathing of our heads several times with snow
and ice-water had been beneficial.</p>
<p>Circumstances were singular. It was a strange thing to sleep
on a lava-bed at a height of nearly 14,000 feet, far away from the nearest
dwelling, “in a region,” as Mr. Jarves says, “rarely
visited by man,” hearing all the time the roar, clash, and thunder
of the mightiest volcano in the world. It seemed all a wild dream,
as that majestic sound moved on. There were two loud reports,
followed by a prolonged crash, occasioned by parts of the crater walls
giving way; vibrating rumblings, as if of earthquakes; and then a louder
surging of the fiery ocean, and a series of most imposing detonations.
Creeping over the sleeping forms, which never stirred even though I
had to kneel upon one of the natives while I untied the flap of the
tent, I crept cautiously into the <i>crevasse</i> in which the snow-water
was then hard frozen, and out upon the projecting ledge. The four
hours in which we had previously watched the volcano had passed like
one; but the lonely hours which followed might have been two minutes
or a year, for time was obliterated.</p>
<p>Coldly the Pole-star shivered above the frozen summit, and a blue
moon, nearly full, withdrew her faded light into infinite space.
The Southern Cross had set. Two peaks below the Pole-star, sharply
defined against the sky, were the only signs of any other world than
the world of fire and mystery around. It was light, broadly, vividly
light; the sun himself, one would have thought, might look pale beside
it. But such a light! The silver index of my thermometer,
which had fallen to 23° Fahrenheit, was ruby red; that of the aneroid,
which gave the height at 13,803 feet (an error of 43 feet in excess),
was the same. The white duck of the tent was rosy, and all the
crater walls and the dull-grey ridges which lie around were a vivid
rose red.</p>
<p>All Hawaii was sleeping. Our Hilo friends looked out the last
thing; saw the glare, and probably wondered how we were “getting
on,” high up among the stars. Mine were the only mortal
eyes which saw what is perhaps the grandest spectacle on earth.
Once or twice I felt so overwhelmed by the very sublimity of the loneliness,
that I turned to the six animals, which stood shivering in the north
wind, without any consciousness than that of cold, hunger, and thirst.
It was some relief even to pity them, for pity was at least a human
feeling, and a momentary rest from the thrill of the new sensations
inspired by the circumstances. The moon herself looked a wan unfamiliar
thing--not the same moon which floods the palm and mango groves of Hilo
with light and tenderness. And those palm and mango groves, and
lighted homes, and seas, and ships, and cities, and faces of friends,
and all familiar things, and the day before, and the years before, were
as things in dreams, coming up out of a vanished past. And would
there ever be another day, and would the earth ever be young and green
again, and would men buy and sell and strive for gold, and should I
ever with a human voice tell living human beings of the things of this
midnight? How far it was from all the world, uplifted above love,
hate, and storms of passion, and war, and wreck of thrones, and dissonant
clash of human thought, serene in the eternal solitudes!</p>
<p>Things had changed, as they change hourly in craters. The previous
loud detonations were probably connected with the evolutions of some
“blowing cones,” which were now very fierce, and throwing
up lava at the comparatively dead end of the crater. Lone stars
of fire broke out frequently through the blackened crust. The
molten river, flowing from the incandescent lake, had advanced and broadened
considerably. That lake itself, whose diameter has been estimated
at 800 feet, was rose-red and self-illuminated, and the increased noise
was owing to the increased force of the fire-fountain, which was playing
regularly at a height of 300 feet, with the cross fountains, like wheat-sheaves,
at its lower part. These cross-fountains were the colour of a
mixture of blood and fire, and the lower part of the perpendicular jets
was the same; but as they rose and thinned, this colour passed into
a vivid rose-red, and the spray and splashes were as rubies and flame
mingled. For ever falling in fiery masses and fiery foam: accompanied
by a thunder-music of its own: companioned only by the solemn stars:
exhibiting no other token of its glories to man than the reflection
of its fires on mist and smoke; it burns for the Creator’s eye
alone. No foot of mortal can approach it.</p>
<p>Hours passed as I watched the indescribable glories of the fire-fountain,
its beauty of form, and its radiant reflection on the precipices, eight
hundred feet high, which wall it in, and listened to its surges beating,
and the ebb and flow of its thunder-music. Then a change occurred.
The jets, which for long had been playing at a height of 300 feet, suddenly
became quite low, and for a few seconds appeared as cones of fire wallowing
in a sea of light; then with a roar like the sound of gathering waters,
nearly the whole surface of the lake was lifted up by the action of
some powerful internal force, and rose three times with its whole radiant
mass, in one glorious, upward burst, to a height, as estimated by the
surrounding cliffs, of six hundred feet, while the earth trembled, and
the moon and stars withdrew abashed into far-off space. After
this the fire-fountain played as before. The cold had become intense,
11° of frost; and I crept back into the tent; those words occurring
to me with a new meaning, “dwelling in the light which no man
can approach unto.”</p>
<p>We remained in the tent till the sun had slightly warmed the air,
and then attempted to prepare breakfast by the fire; but no one could
eat anything, and the native from Waimea complained of severe headache,
which shortly became agonizing, and he lay on the ground moaning, and
completely prostrated by mountain sickness. I felt extreme lassitude,
and exhaustion followed the slightest effort; but the use of snow to
the head produced great relief. The water in our canteens was
hard frozen, and the keenness of the cold aggravated the uncomfortable
symptoms which accompany pulses at 110°. The native guide
was the only person capable of work, so we were late in getting off,
and rode four and a half hours to the camping ground, only stopping
once to tighten our girths. Not a rope, strap, or buckle, or any
of our gear gave way, and though I rode without a crupper, the breeching
of a pack mule’s saddle kept mine steady.</p>
<p>The descent, to the riders, is far more trying than the ascent, owing
to the continued stretch of very steep declivity for eight thousand
feet; but our mules never tripped, and came into Ainepo as if they had
not travelled at all. The horses were terribly cut, both again
in the <i>a-a</i> stream, and on the descent. It was sickening
to follow them, for at first they left fragments of hide and hair on
the rocks, then flesh, and when there was no more hide or flesh to come
off their poor heels and fetlocks, blood dripped on every rock, and
if they stood still for a few moments, every hoof left a little puddle
of gore. We had all the enjoyment and they all the misery.
I was much exhausted when we reached the camping-ground, but soon revived
under the influence of food; but the poor native, who was really very
ill, abandoned himself to wretchedness, and has only recovered to-day.</p>
<p>The belt of cloud which was all radiance above, was all drizzling
fog below, and we reached Ainepo in a regular Scotch mist. The
ranchman seemed rather grumpy at our successful ascent, which involved
the failure of all their prophecies, and, indeed, we were thoroughly
unsatisfactory travellers, arriving fresh and complacent, with neither
adventures nor disasters to gladden people’s hearts. We
started for this ranch seven miles further, soon after dark, and arrived
before nine, after the most successful ascent of Mauna Loa ever made.</p>
<p>Without being a Sybarite, I certainly do prefer a comfortable <i>pulu</i>
bed to one of ridgy lava, and the fire which blazes on this broad hearth
to the camp-fire on the frozen top of the volcano. The worthy
ranchman expected us, and has treated us very sumptuously, and even
Kahélé is being regaled on Chinese sorghum. The
Sunday’s rest, too, is a luxury, which I wonder that travellers
can ever forego. If one is always on the move, even very vivid
impressions are hunted out of the memory by the last new thing.
Though I am not unduly tired, even had it not been Sunday, I should
have liked a day in which to recall and arrange my memories of Mauna
Loa before the forty-eight miles’ ride to Hilo.</p>
<p>This afternoon, we were sitting under the verandah talking volcanic
talk, when there was a loud rumbling, and a severe shock of earthquake,
and I have been twice interrupted in writing this letter by other shocks,
in which all the frame-work of the house has yawned and closed again.
They say that four years ago, at the time of the great “mud flow”
which is close by, this house was moved several feet by an earthquake,
and that all the cattle walls which surround it were thrown down.
The ranchman tells us that on January 7th and 8th, 1873, there was a
sudden and tremendous outburst of Mauna Loa. The ground, he says,
throbbed and quivered for twenty miles; a tremendous roaring, like that
of a blast furnace, was heard for the same distance, and clouds of black
smoke trailed out over the sea for thirty miles.</p>
<p>We have dismissed our guide with encomiums. His charge was
$10; but Mr. Green would not allow me to share that, or any part of
the expense, or pay anything, but $6 for my own mule. The guide
is a goat-hunter, and the chase is very curiously pursued. The
hunter catches sight of a flock of goats, and hunts them up the mountain,
till, agile and fleet of foot as they are, he actually tires them out,
and gets close enough to them to cut their throats for the sake of their
skins. If I understand rightly, this young man has captured as
many as seventy in a day.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>CRATER HOUSE, KILAUEA. <i>June</i> 9<i>th</i>.</p>
<p>This morning Mr. Green left for Kona, and I for Kilauea; the ranchman’s
native wife and her sister riding with me for several miles to put me
on the right track. Kahélé’s sociable instincts
are so strong, that, before they left me, I dismounted, blindfolded
him, and led him round and round several times, a process which so successfully
confused his intellects, that he started off in this direction with
more alacrity than usual. They certainly put me on a track which
could not be mistaken, for it was a narrow, straight path, cut and hammered
through a broad horrible <i>a-a</i> stream, whose jagged spikes were
the height of the horse. But beyond this lie ten miles of <i>pahoehoe</i>,
the lava-flows of ages, with only now and then the vestige of a trail.</p>
<p>Except the perilous crossing of the Hilo gulches in February, this
is the most difficult ride I have had--eerie and impressive in every
way. The loneliness was absolute. For several hours I saw
no trace of human beings, except the very rare print of a shod horse’s
hoof. It is a region for ever “desolate and without inhabitant,”
trackless, waterless, silent, as if it had passed into the passionless
calm of lunar solitudes. It is composed of rough hummocks of <i>pahoehoe</i>,
rising out of a sandy desert. Only stunted <i>ohias</i>, loaded
with crimson tufts, raise themselves out of cracks: twisted, tortured
growths, bearing their bright blossoms under protest, driven unwillingly
to be gay by a fiery soil and a fiery sun. To the left, there
was the high, dark wall of an <i>a-a</i> stream; further yet, a tremendous
volcanic fissure, at times the bed of a fiery river, and above this
the towering dome of Mauna Loa, a brilliant cobalt blue, lined and shaded
with indigo where innumerable lava streams had seamed his portentous
sides: his whole beauty the effect of atmosphere, on an object in itself
hideous. Ahead and to the right were rolling miles of a <i>pahoehoe</i>
sea, bounded by the unseen Pacific 3,000 feet below, with countless
craters, fissures emitting vapour, and all other concomitants of volcanic
action; bounded to the north by the vast crater of Kilauea. On
all this deadly region the sun poured his tropic light and heat from
one of the bluest skies I ever saw.</p>
<p>The direction given me on leaving Kapapala was, that after the natives
left me I was to keep a certain crater on the south-east till I saw
the smoke of Kilauea; but there were many craters. Horses cross
the sand and hummocks as nearly as possible on a bee line; but the lava
rarely indicates that anything has passed over it, and this morning
a strong breeze had rippled the sand, completely obliterating the hoof-marks
of the last traveller, and at times I feared that losing myself, as
many others have done, I should go mad with thirst. I examined
the sand narrowly for hoof-marks, and every now and then found one,
but always had the disappointment of finding that it was made by an
unshod horse, therefore not a ridden one. Finding eyesight useless,
I dismounted often, and felt with my finger along the rolling lava for
the slightest marks of abrasion, which might show that shod animals
had passed that way, got up into an <i>ohia</i> to look out for the
smoke of Kilauea, and after three hours came out upon what I here learn
is the old track, disused because of the insecurity of the ground.</p>
<p>It runs quite close to the edge of the crater, there 1,000 feet in
depth, and gives a magnificent view of the whole area, with the pit
and the blowing cones. But the region through which the trail
led was rather an alarming one, being hollow and porous, all cracks
and fissures, nefariously concealed by scrub and ferns. I found
a place, as I thought, free from risk, and gave Kahélé
a feed of oats on my plaid, but before he had finished them there was
a rumbling and vibration, and he went into the ground above his knees,
so snatching up the plaid and jumping on him I galloped away, convinced
that that crack was following me! However, either the crack thought
better of it, or Kahélé travelled faster, for in another
half-hour I arrived where the whole region steams, smokes, and fumes
with sulphur, and was kindly welcomed here by Mr. Gilman, where he and
the old Chinaman appear to be alone.</p>
<p>After a seven hours’ ride the quiet and the log fire are very
pleasant, and the host is a most intelligent and sympathising listener.
It is a solemn night, for the earth quakes, and the sound of Halemaumau
is like the surging of the sea.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>HILO. <i>June</i> 11<i>th</i>.</p>
<p>Once more I am among palm and mango grove, and friendly faces, and
sounds of softer surges than those of Kilauea. I had a dreary
ride yesterday, as the rain was incessant, and I saw neither man, bird,
or beast the whole way. Kahélé was so heavily loaded
that I rode the thirty miles at a foot’s pace, and he became so
tired that I had to walk.</p>
<p>It has been a splendid week, with every circumstance favourable,
nothing sordid or worrying to disturb the impressions received, kindness
and goodwill everywhere, a travelling companion whose consideration,
endurance, and calmness were beyond all praise, and at the end the cordial
welcomes of my Hawaiian “home.”<br /> I.L.B.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>LETTER XXX. <a name="citation422"></a><a href="#footnote422">{422}</a></h3>
<p>RIDGE HOUSE, KONA, HAWAII. <i>June</i> 12.</p>
<p>I landed in Kealakakua Bay on a black lava block, on which tradition
says that Captain Cook fell, struck with his death-wound, a century
ago. The morning sun was flaming above the walls of lava 1,000
feet in height which curve round the dark bay, the green deep water
rolled shorewards in lazy undulations, canoes piled full of pineapples
poised themselves on the swell, ancient cocopalms glassed themselves
in still waters--it was hot, silent, tropical.</p>
<p>The disturbance which made the bay famous is known to every schoolboy;
how the great explorer, long supposed by the natives to be their vanished
god <i>Lono</i>, betrayed his earthly lineage by groaning when he was
wounded, and was then dispatched outright. A cocoanut stump, faced
by a sheet of copper recording the circumstance, is the great circumnavigator’s
monument. A few miles beyond, is the enclosure of Haunaunau, the
City of Refuge for western Hawaii. In this district there is a
lava road ascribed to Umi, a legendary king, who is said to have lived
500 years ago. It is very perfect, well defined on both sides
with kerb-stones, and greatly resembles the chariot ways in Pompeii.
Near it are several structures formed of four stones, three being set
upright, and the fourth forming the roof. In a northerly direction
is the place where Liholiho, the king who died in England, excited by
drink and the persuasions of Kaahumanu, broke <i>tabu</i>, and made
an end of the superstitions of heathenism. Not far off is the
battle field on which the adherents of the idols rallied their forces
against the iconoclasts, and were miserably and finally defeated.
Recent lava streams have descended on each side of the bay, and from
the bare black rock of the landing a flow may be traced up the steep
ascent as far as a precipice, over which it falls in waves and twists,
a cataract of stone. A late lava river passed through the magnificent
forest on the southerly slope, and the impressions of the stems of coco
and fan palms are stamped clearly on the smooth rock. The rainfall
in Kona is heavy, but there is no standing water, and only one stream
in a distance of 100 miles.</p>
<p>This district is famous for oranges, coffee, pineapples, and silence.
A flaming palm-fringed shore with a prolific strip of table land 1,500
feet above it, a dense timber belt eight miles in breadth, and a volcano
smoking somewhere between that and the heavens, and glaring through
the trees at night, are the salient points of Kona if anything about
it be salient. It is a region where falls not</p>
<p> “. . . Hail
or any snow,<br /> Or ever wind blows
loudly.”</p>
<p>Wind indeed, is a thing unknown. The scarcely audible whisper
of soft airs through the trees morning and evening, rain drops falling
gently, and the murmur of drowsy surges far below, alone break the stillness.
No ripple ever disturbs the great expanse of ocean which gleams through
the still, thick trees. Rose in the sweet cool morning, gold in
the sweet cool evening, but always dreaming; and white sails come and
go, no larger than a butterfly’s wing on the horizon, of ships
drifting on ocean currents, dreaming too! Nothing surely can ever
happen here: it is so dumb and quiet, and people speak in hushed thin
voices, and move as in a lethargy, dreaming too! No heat, cold,
or wind, nothing emphasised or italicised, it is truly a region of endless
afternoons, “a land where all things always seem the same.”
Life is dead, and existence is a languid swoon.</p>
<p>This is the only regular boarding house on Hawaii. The company
is accidental and promiscuous. The conversation consists of speculations,
varied and repeated with the hours, as to the arrivals and departures
of the Honolulu schooners <i>Uilama</i> and <i>Prince</i>, who they
will bring, who they will take, and how long their respective passages
will be. A certain amount of local gossip is also hashed up at
each meal, and every stranger who has travelled through Hawaii for the
last ten years is picked to pieces and worn threadbare, and his purse,
weight, entertainers, and habits are thoroughly canvassed. On
whatever subject the conversation begins it always ends in dollars;
but even that most stimulating of all topics only arouses a languid
interest among my fellow dreamers. I spend most of my time in
riding in the forests, or along the bridle path which trails along the
height, among grass and frame-houses, almost smothered by trees and
trailers.</p>
<p>Many of these are inhabited by white men, who, having drifted to
these shores, have married native women, and are rearing a dusky race,
of children who speak the maternal tongue only, and grow up with native
habits. Some of these men came for health, others landed from
whalers, but of all it is true that infatuated by the ease and lusciousness
of this languid region,</p>
<p> “They sat them down upon the
yellow sand,<br /> Between
the sun and moon upon the shore;<br /> And
sweet it was to dream of Fatherland,<br /> .
. . . ; but evermore<br /> Most weary
seem’d the sea, weary the oar,<br /> Weary
the wandering fields of barren foam.<br /> Then
some one said, “We will return no more.”</p>
<p>They have enough and more, and a life free from toil, but the obvious
tendency of these marriages is to sink the white man to the level of
native feelings and habits.</p>
<p>There are two or three educated residents, and there is a small English
church with daily service, conducted by a resident clergyman.</p>
<p>The beauty of this part of Kona is wonderful. The interminable
forest is richer and greener than anything I have yet seen, but penetrable
only by narrow tracks which have been made for hauling timber.
The trees are so dense, and so matted together with trailers, that no
ray of noon-day sun brightens the moist tangle of exquisite mosses and
ferns which covers the ground. Yams with their burnished leaves,
and the Polypodium spectrum, wind round every tree stem, and the heavy
<i>ié</i>, which here attains gigantic proportions, links the
tops of the tallest trees together by its stout knotted coils.
Hothouse flowers grow in rank profusion round every house, and tea-roses,
fuchsias, geraniums fifteen feet high, Nile lilies, Chinese lantern
plants, begonias, lantanas, hibiscus, passion-flowers, Cape jasmine,
the hoya, the tuberose, the beautiful but overpoweringly sweet ginger
plant, and a hundred others: while the whole district is overrun with
the Datura brugmansia (?) here an arborescent shrub fourteen feet high,
bearing seventy great trumpet-shaped white blossoms at a time, which
at night vie with those of the night-blowing Cereus in filling the air
with odours.</p>
<p>Pineapples and melons grow like weeds among the grass, and everything
that is good for food flourishes. Nothing can keep under the redundancy
of nature in Kona; everything is profuse, fervid, passionate, vivified
and pervaded by sunshine. The earth is restless in her productiveness,
and forces up her hothouse growth perpetually, so that the miracle of
Jonah’s gourd is almost repeated nightly. All decay is hurried
out of sight, and through the glowing year flowers blossom and fruits
ripen; ferns are always uncurling their young fronds and bananas unfolding
their great shining leaves, and spring blends her everlasting youth
and promise with the fulfilment and maturity of summer.</p>
<p> “Never comes the trader, never floats a European
flag,<br /> Slides the bird o’er lustrous woodland,
swings the trailer from the crag:<br /> Droops the
heavy-blossom’d bower, hangs the heavy-fruited tree--<br /> Summer
isles of Eden lying in dark purple spheres of sea.”</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>HUALALAI. <i>July</i> 28<i>th</i>.</p>
<p>I very soon left the languid life of Kona for this sheep station,
6000 feet high on the desolate slope of the dead volcano of Hualalai,
(“offspring of the shining sun,”) on the invitation of its
hospitable owner, who said if I “could eat his rough fare, and
live his rough life, his house and horses were at my disposal.”
He is married to a very attractive native woman who eats at his table,
but does not know a word of English, but they are both away at a wool-shed
eight miles off, shearing sheep.</p>
<p>This house is in the great volcanic wilderness of which I wrote from
Kalaieha, a desert of drouth and barrenness. There is no permanent
track, and on the occasions when I have ridden up here alone, the directions
given me have been to steer for an ox bone, and from that to a dwarf
<i>ohia</i>. There is no coming or going; it is seventeen miles
from the nearest settlement, and looks across a desert valley to Mauna
Loa. Woody trailers, harsh hard grass in tufts, the Asplenium
trichomanes in rifts, the Pellea ternifolia in sand, and some <i>ohia</i>
and <i>mamané</i> scrub in hollow places sheltered from the wind,
all hard, crisp, unlovely growths, contrast with the lavish greenery
below. A brisk cool wind blows all day; every afternoon a dense
fog brings the horizon within 200 feet, but it clears off with frost
at dark, and the flames of the volcano light the whole southern sky.</p>
<p>My companions are an amiable rheumatic native woman, and a crone
who must have lived a century, much shrivelled and tattooed, and nearly
childish. She talks to herself in weird tones, stretches her lean
limbs by the fire most of the day, and in common with most of the old
people has a prejudice against clothes, and prefers huddling herself
up in a blanket to wearing the ordinary dress of her sex. There
is also a dog, but he does not understand English, and for some time
I have not spoken any but Hawaiian words. I have plenty to do,
and find this a very satisfactory life.</p>
<p>I came up to within eight miles of this house with a laughing, holiday-making
rout of twelve natives, who rode madly along the narrow forest trail
at full gallop, up and down the hills, through mire and over stones,
leaping over the trunks of prostrate trees, and stooping under branches
with loud laughter, challenging me to reckless races over difficult
ground, and when they found that the <i>wahine haole</i> was not to
be thrown from her horse they patted me approvingly, and crowned me
with <i>leis</i> of <i>mailé</i>. I became acquainted with
some of these at Kilauea in the winter, and since I came to Kona they
have been very kind to me.</p>
<p>I thoroughly like living among them, taking meals with them on their
mats, and eating “two fingered” <i>poi</i> as if I had been
used to it all my life. Their mirthfulness and kindliness are
most winning; their horses, food, clothes, and time are all bestowed
on one so freely, and one lives amongst them with a most restful sense
of absolute security. They have many faults, but living alone
among them in their houses as I have done so often on Hawaii, I have
never seen or encountered a disagreeable thing. But the more I
see of them the more impressed I am with their carelessness and love
of pleasure, their lack of ambition and a sense of responsibility, and
the time which they spend in doing nothing but talking and singing as
they bask in the sun, though spasmodically and under excitement they
are capable of tremendous exertions in canoeing, surf-riding, and lassoing
cattle.</p>
<p>While down below I joined three natives for the purpose of seeing
this last sport. They all rode shod horses, and had lassoes of
ox hide attached to the horns of their saddles. I sat for an hour
on horseback on a rocky hill while they hunted the woods; then I heard
the deep voices of bulls, and a great burst of cattle appeared, with
hunters in pursuit, but the herd vanished over a dip of the hill side,
and the natives joined me. By this time I wished myself safely
at home, partly because my unshod horse was not fit for galloping over
lava and rough ground, and I asked the men where I should stay to be
out of danger. The leader replied, “Oh, just keep close
behind me!” I had thought of some safe view-point, not of
galloping on an unshod horse with a ruck of half maddened cattle, but
it was the safest plan, and there was no time to be lost, for as we
rode slowly down, we sighted the herd dodging across the open to regain
the shelter of the wood, and much on the alert.</p>
<p>Putting our horses into a gallop we dashed down the hill till we
were close up with the chase; then another tremendous gallop, and a
brief wild rush, the grass shaking with the surge of cattle and horses.
There was much whirling of tails and tearing up of the earth--a lasso
spun three or four times round the head of the native who rode in front
of me, and almost simultaneously a fine red bullock lay prostrate on
the earth, nearly strangled, with his foreleg noosed to his throat.
The other natives dismounted, and put two lassoes round his horns, slipping
the first into the same position, and vaulted into their saddles before
he was on his legs.</p>
<p>He got up, shook himself, put his head down, and made a mad blind
rush, but his captors were too dexterous for him, and in that and each
succeeding rush he was foiled. As he tore wildly from side to
side, the natives dodged under the lasso, slipping it over their heads,
and swung themselves over their saddles, hanging in one stirrup, to
aid their trained horses to steady themselves as the bullock tugged
violently against them. He was escorted thus for a mile, his strength
failing with each useless effort, his tongue hanging out, blood and
foam dropping from his mouth and nostrils, his flanks covered with foam
and sweat, till blind and staggering, he was led to a tree, where he
was at once stabbed, and two hours afterwards a part of him was served
at table. The natives were surprised that I avoided seeing his
death, as the native women greatly enjoy such a spectacle. This
mode of killing an animal while heated and terrified, doubtless accounts
for the dark colour and hardness of Hawaiian beef.</p>
<p>Numbers of the natives are expert with the lasso, and besides capturing
with it wild and half wild cattle, they catch horses with it, and since
I came here my host caught a sheep with it, singling out the one he
wished to kill, from the rest of the galloping flock with an unerring
aim. It takes a whole ox hide cut into strips to make a good lasso.</p>
<p>One of my native friends tells me that a native man who attended
on me in one of my earlier expeditions has since been “prayed
to death.” One often hears this phrase, and it appears that
the superstition which it represents has by no means died out.
There are persons who are believed to have the lives of others in their
hands, and their services are procured by offerings of white fowls,
brown hogs, and <i>awa</i>, as well as money, by any one who has a grudge
against another. Several other instances have been told me of
persons who have actually died under the influence of the terror and
despair produced by being told that the <i>kahuna</i> was “praying
them to death.” I cannot learn whether these over-efficacious
prayers are supposed to be addressed to the true God, or to the ancient
Hawaiian divinities. The natives are very superstitious, and the
late king, who was both educated and intelligent, was much under the
dominion of a sorceress.</p>
<p>I have made the ascent of Hualalai twice from here, the first time
guided by my host and hostess, and the second time rather adventurously
alone. Forests of <i>koa</i>, sandal-wood, and <i>ohia</i>, with
an undergrowth of raspberries and ferns clothe its base, the fragrant
<i>mailé</i>, and the graceful sarsaparilla vine, with its clustered
coral-coloured buds, nearly smother many of the trees, and in several
places the heavy <i>ié</i> forms the semblance of triumphal arches
over the track. This forest terminates abruptly on the great volcanic
wilderness, with its starved growth of unsightly scrub. But Hualalai,
though 10,000 feet in height, is covered with Pteris aquilina, <i>mamané</i>,
coarse bunch grass, and <i>pukeavé</i> to its very summit, which
is crowned by a small, solitary, blossoming <i>ohia</i>.</p>
<p>For two hours before reaching the top, the way lies over countless
flows and beds of lava, much disintegrated, and almost entirely of the
kind called <i>pahoehoe</i>. Countless pit craters extend over
the whole mountain, all of them covered outside, and a few inside, with
scraggy vegetation. The edges are often very ragged and picturesque.
The depth varies from 300 to 700 feet, and the diameter from 700 to
1,200. The walls of some are of a smooth grey stone, the bottoms
flat, and very deep in sand, but others resemble the tufa cones of Mauna
Kea. They are so crowded together in some places as to be divided
only by a ridge so narrow that two mules can scarcely walk abreast upon
it. The mountain was split by an earthquake in 1868, and a great
fissure, with much treacherous ground about it, extends for some distance
across it. It is very striking from every point of view on this
side, being a complete wilderness of craters, and over 150 lateral cones
have been counted.</p>
<p>The object of my second ascent was to visit one of the grandest of
the summit craters, which we had not reached previously owing to fog.
This crater is bordered by a narrow and very fantastic ridge of rock,
in or on which there is a mound about 60 feet high, formed of fragments
of black, orange, blue, red, and golden lava, with a cavity or blow-hole
in the centre, estimated by Brigham as having a diameter of 25 feet,
and a depth of 1800. The interior is dark brown, much grooved
horizontally, and as smooth and regular as if turned. There are
no steam cracks or signs of heat anywhere. Superb caves or lava-bubbles
abound at a height of 6000 feet. These are moist with ferns, and
the drip from their roofs is the water supply of this porous region.</p>
<p>Hualalai, owing to the vegetation sparsely sprinkled over it, looks
as if it had been quiet for ages, but it has only slept since 1801,
when there was a tremendous eruption from it, which flooded several
villages, destroyed many plantations and fishponds, filled up a deep
bay 20 miles in extent, and formed the present coast. The terrified
inhabitants threw living hogs into the stream, and tried to propitiate
the anger of the gods by more costly offerings, but without effect,
till King Kamehameha, attended by a large retinue of priests and chiefs,
cut off some of his hair, which was considered sacred, and threw it
into the torrent, which in two days ceased to run. This circumstance
gave him a greatly increased ascendancy, from his supposed influence
with the deities of the volcanoes.</p>
<p>I have explored the country pretty thoroughly for many miles round,
but have not seen anything striking, except the remains of an immense
<i>heiau</i> in the centre of the desert tableland, said to have been
built in a day by the compulsory labour of 25,000 people: a lonely white
man who lives among the lava, and believes he has discovered the secret
of perpetual motion: and the lava-flow from Mauna Loa, which reached
the sea 40 miles from its exit from the mountain.</p>
<p>I was riding through the brushwood with a native, and not able to
see two yards in any direction, when emerging from the thick scrub,
we came upon the torrent of 1859 within six feet of us, a huge, straggling,
coal-black river, broken up into streams in our vicinity, but on the
whole, presenting an iridescent uphill expanse a mile wide. We
had reached one of the divergent streams to which it had been said after
its downward course of 9000 feet, “Hitherto shalt thou come and
no further,” while the main body had pursued its course to the
ocean. Whatever force impelled it had ceased to act, and the last
towering wave of fire had halted just there, and lies a black arrested
surge 10 feet high, with tender ferns at its feet, and a scarcely singed
<i>ohia</i> bending over it. The flow, so far as we scrambled
up it, is heaped in great surges of a fierce black, fiercely reflecting
the torrid sun, cracked, and stained yellow and white, and its broad
glistening surface forms an awful pathway to the dome-like crest of
Mauna Loa, now throbbing with internal fires, and crowned with a white
smoke wreath, that betokens the action of the same forces which produced
this gigantic inundation. Close to us the main river had parted
above and united below a small <i>mamané</i> tree with bracken
under its shadow, and there are several oases of the same kind.</p>
<p>I have twice been down to the larger world of the wool-shed, when
tired of strips of dried mutton and my own society. The hospitality
there is as great as the accommodation is small. The first time,
I slept on the floor of the shed with some native women who were up
there, and was kept awake all night by the magnificence of the light
on the volcano. The second time, several of us slept in a small,
dark grass-wigwam, only intended as a temporary shelter, the lowliest
dwelling in every sense of the word that I ever occupied. That
evening was the finest I have seen on the islands; there was a less
abrupt transition from day to night, and the three great mountains and
the desert were etherealised and glorified by a lingering rose and violet
light. When darkness came on, our great camp fire was hardly redder
than the glare from the volcano, and its leaping flames illuminated
as motley a group as you would wish to see; the native shearers, who,
after shearing eighty sheep each in a day, washed, and changed their
clothes before eating; a negro goatherd with a native wife and swarthy
children, two native women, my host and myself, all engaged in the rough
cooking befitting the region, toasting strips of jerked mutton on sticks,
broiling wild bullock on the coals, baking <i>kalo</i> under ground,
and rolls in a rough stone oven, and all speaking that base mixture
of English and Hawaiian which is current coin here. The meal was
not less rude than the cookery. We ate it on the floor of the
wigwam, with an old tin, with some fat in it, for a lamp, and a bit
of rope for a wick, which kept tumbling into the fat and leaving us
in darkness.</p>
<p>The next day I came up here alone, driving a pack-horse, and with
a hind-quarter of sheep tied to my saddle. It is really difficult
to find the way over this desert, though I have been several times across.
When a breeze ripples the sand between the lava hummocks, the footprints
are obliterated, and there are few landmarks except the “ox bone”
and the “small <i>ohia</i>.” It is a strange life
up here on the mountain side, but I like it, and never yearn after civilization.
The one drawback is my ignorance of the language, which not only places
me sometimes in grotesque difficulties, but deprives me of much interest.
I don’t know what day it is, or how long I have been here, and
quite understand how possible it would be to fall into an indolent and
aimless life, in which time is of no account.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>THE RECTORY, KONA. <i>August</i> 1<i>st</i>.</p>
<p>I left Hualalai yesterday morning, and dined with my kind host and
hostess in the wigwam. It was the last taste of the wild Hawaiian
life I have learned to love so well, the last meal on a mat, the last
exercise of skill in eating “two-fingered” <i>poi</i>.
I took leave gratefully of those who had been so truly kind to me, and
with the friendly <i>aloha</i> from kindly lips in my ears, regretfully
left the purple desert in which I have lived so serenely, and plunged
into the forest gloom. Half way down, I met a string of my native
acquaintances, who, as the courteous custom is, threw over me <i>leis</i>
of <i>mailé</i> and roses, and since I arrived here, others have
called to wish me goodbye, bringing presents of figs, cocoa-nuts and
bananas.</p>
<p>This is one of the stations of the “Honolulu Mission,”
and Mr. Davies, the clergyman, has, besides Sunday and daily services,
a day-school for boys and girls. The Sunday attendance at church,
so far as I have seen, consists of three adults, though the white population
within four miles is considerable, and at another station on Maui, the
congregation was composed solely of the family of a planter. Clerical
reinforcements are expected from England shortly; but from what I have
seen and heard everywhere, I do not think that the coming clergy, even
if inspired by the same devotion and disinterestedness as Bishop Willis,
will make any sensible progress among the people.</p>
<p>In truth, I believe that the “Honolulu <i>Mission</i>,”
from the first, has been a mistake. As such, strictly speaking,
there is no room for it, for all the natives are nominal Christians,
and are connected more or less with the Congregational denomination.
To attempt to proselytize them to the English Church, or to unsettle
their religious relations in any way, would, on the whole, be a hopeless,
as well as an invidious task, and would not improbably result in driving
some among them into the greater apparent unity of the Church of Rome.
Those who believe in the oneness of the invisible church, and that all
who hold “one Lord, one faith, one baptism,” are within
the pale of salvation, may well hesitate before expending energy, men,
money, and time on proselytizing efforts.</p>
<p>Among the whites who have sunk into the mire of an indolent and godless,
if not an openly immoral life, there is an undoubted field for Evangelistic
effort; but it is very doubtful, I think, whether this class can be
reached by services which appeal to higher culture and instincts than
it possesses, and, indeed, generally, the island Episcopalians are not
in sympathy with the “symbolism” and “high ritual”
which from the first have been outstanding features of this “mission.”
The education of the young in the principles of the Prayer Book is aimed
at by the Bishop and his coadjutors, but in spite of zeal and devotion,
I doubt whether the English Church on these islands can ever be anything
but a pining and sickly exotic.</p>
<p>Kona looks supremely beautiful, a languid dream of all fair things.
Yet truly my heart warms to nothing so much as to a row of fat English
cabbages which grow in the rectory garden, with a complacent, self-asserting
John Bullism about them. It is best to leave the islands now.
I love them better every day, and dreams of Fatherland are growing fainter
in this perfumed air and under this glittering sky. A little longer,
and I too should say, like all who have made their homes here under
the deep banana shade,--</p>
<p> “We
will return no more,<br /> . . . . our island
home<br /> Is far beyond the wave, we will no
longer roam.”<br /> I.L.B.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>LETTER XXXI.</h3>
<p>HAWAIIAN HOTEL, HONOLULU. <i>August</i> 6<i>th</i>.</p>
<p>My fate is lying at the wharf in the shape of the Pacific Mail Steamer
<i>Costa Rica</i>, 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.</p>
<p>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!”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <i>gossip</i>
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 <i>nuhou</i>, mere tattle, the perpetual
talking about people, and the picking to tatters of every item of personal
detail, whether gathered from fact or imagination.</p>
<p>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 <i>nuhou</i>
is circulated is worthy of a better cause.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <i>menus</i>
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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>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 <i>Harper’s Monthly</i>, 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.”</p>
<p>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!</p>
<p>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. . . . .</p>
<p>up to here<br />S.S. COSTA RICA. <i>August</i> 7<i>th</i>.</p>
<p>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 <i>alohas</i>, 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
<i>aloha</i> was spoken, the last link with the islands was severed,
and half an hour later Honolulu was out of sight. . . . .</p>
<p>. . . . The breeze is freshening, and the <i>Costa Rica’s</i>
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! <i>Aloha nui</i> to
Hawaii-nei!<br /> I.L.B.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>A CHAPTER ON HAWAIIAN AFFAIRS.</h3>
<p>A few facts concerning the Hawaiian islands may serve to supplement
the deficiencies of the foregoing letters. The group is an hereditary
and constitutional monarchy. There is a house of nobles appointed
by the Crown, which consists of twenty members. The House of Representatives
consists of not less than twenty-four, or more than forty members elected
biennially. The Legislature fixes the number, and apportions the
same. The Houses sit together, and constitute the Legislative
Assembly. The property qualification for a representative is,
real estate worth $500, or an annual income of $250 from property, and
that for an elector is an annual income of $75. The Legislators
are paid, and the expense of a session is about $15,000. There
are three cabinet ministers appointed by the Crown, of the Interior,
Finance, and Foreign Affairs respectively, and an Attorney-General,
who may be regarded as a minister of justice. There is a Supreme
Court with a Chief Justice and two associate justices, and there are
circuit and district judges on all the larger islands, as well as sheriffs,
prisons, and police. There is a standing army of sixty men, mainly
for the purposes of guard duty, and rendering assistance to the police.</p>
<p>The question of “how to make ends meet” sorely exercises
the little kingdom. All sorts of improvements involving a largely
increased outlay are continually urged, while at the same time the burden
of taxation presses increasingly heavily, and there is a constant clamour
for the removal of some of the most lucrative imposts. Indeed,
the Hawaiian dog, with his tax and his “tag,” is seldom
out of the Legislative Assembly.</p>
<p>What may be termed the <i>per capita</i> taxes are, an annual poll
tax of one dollar levied on each male inhabitant between the ages of
seventeen and sixty, an annual road tax of two dollars upon all persons
between seventeen and fifty, and an annual school tax of two dollars
upon all persons between twenty-one and sixty. There is a direct
tax upon property of ½ per cent. upon its valuation, and specific
taxes of a dollar on every horse above two years old, and a dollar and
a half on each dog. Of the $206,000 raised by internal taxes during
the last biennial period, the horses paid $50,000, the mules $6,000,
and the dogs $19,000!</p>
<p>The indirect taxation in the shape of customs’ duties amounted
to $350,000 in the same period. The poor Hawaiian does not know
the blessing of a “Free Breakfast Table.”</p>
<p>The islands are large importers. The value of imported goods
paying duties was $1,437,000 in 1873, on which the Hawaiian Treasury
received $198,000 as customs’ duties. Twenty-five thousand
dollars’ worth of ale, porter, and light wines, and thirty thousand
dollars’ worth of spirits, show that the foreign population of
6,000 is more than sufficiently bibulous. The Chinamen, about
2,000 in number, are, or ought to be, responsible for $13,000 worth
of opium; and the $34,000 worth of tobacco and cigars is doubtless distributed
pretty equally over all the nationalities. Twenty-one thousand
gallons of spirits were imported in 1873. The licences to sell
spirits brought $18,000 dollars into the treasury in the last biennial
period, but those for the sale of <i>awa</i> and opium brought in $55,000
during the same time. These licences are confined to Honolulu.</p>
<p>There are two interesting items of customs receipts, a sum of $924,
the proceeds of a <i>per capita</i> tax of two dollars levied on passengers
landing on the islands, for the support of the Queen’s Hospital,
and a sum of $1,477, the proceeds of a tax levied on seamen for the
support of the Marine Hospital. There is a sum of $700 for passports,
as no Hawaiian or stranger can leave the kingdom without an official
permit.</p>
<p>There are 58 vessels registered under the Hawaiian flag, of which
40 are coasters, and 18 engaged in foreign freighting and whaling.</p>
<p>The value of domestic exports in 1873 was $1,725,507. Among
these are bananas, pineapples, <i>pulu</i>, cocoanuts, oranges, limes,
sandal-wood, tamarinds, betel leaves, shark’s fins, <i>paiai</i>,
whale oil, sperm oil, cocoanut oil, and whalebone. Among other
commodities there was exported, of coffee 262,000 lbs., of fungus 57,000lbs.,
of pea nuts 58,000 lbs., of cotton 8,000 lb., of rice 941,000 lbs.,
of paddy 507,000 lbs., of hides 20,000 packages, of goat skins 66,000,
of horns 13,000, and of tallow 609,000 lbs.</p>
<p>The expense of “keeping things going” on the islands
for the two years ending March 1st, 1874, amounted to $1,193,276, but
this included the funeral expenses of two kings, as well as of two extra
sessions of the Legislature, which amounted to $42,000. The decrease
in the revenue for the same period amounted to $45,000. The items
of Hawaiian expenditure were as follows:--</p>
<pre>For Civil List. $47,689.73<br /> “ Permanent Settlements, Queen Emma. 12,000.00<br /> “ Legislature and Privy Council. 15,288.50<br /> “ Extra Legislative Expenses. 19,011.87<br /> “ Department of the Judiciary. 72,245.64<br /> “ “ of Foreign Affairs and War. 78,145.85<br /> “ “ of the Interior. 389,009.08<br /> “ “ of Finance. 202,117.05<br /> “ “ of the Attorney-General 97,097.00<br /> “ Bureau of Public Instruction. 89,432.40<br /> “ Miscellaneous Expenditures. 170,474.67</pre>
<pre>The balance on hand in the Treasury,<br />March 31st, 1874. 764.57</pre>
<pre> -------------</pre>
<pre> $1,193,276.36</pre>
<p>That, under the head Finance, includes the interest on borrowed money.
The funded national debt is $340,000. Of this sum a portion bears
no stated interest, only such as may arise from the very dubious profits
of the Hawaiian hotel. The interest charges are 12 per cent. on
$25,000, and 9 per cent. on $272,000. The estimates for the present
biennial period involve a large increase of debt. The present
financial position of the kingdom is, an increasing expenditure and
a decreasing revenue.</p>
<p>The statistics of the Judiciary Department for the last two years
present a few features of interest. There were 4,000 convictions
out of 5,764 cases brought before the courts, equal to a fourteenth
part of the population. The total number of offences in the category
is 125. Of these some are decidedly local. Thus, for “furnishing
intoxicating liquors to Hawaiians” 92 persons were punished; for
“exhibition of <i>Hula</i>,” 10; for “selling <i>awa</i>
without licence,” 12; for “selling opium without licence,”
24. It is not surprising to those who know the habits of the people,
that the convictions for violations of the marriage tie, though greatly
diminished, should reach the number of 384, while under the head “Deserting
Husbands and Wives,” 67 convictions are recorded. For “practising
medicine without a licence,” 56 persons were punished; for “furious
riding,” 197; for “cruelty to animals,” 37; for “gaming,”
121; for “gross cheating,” 32; for “violating the
Sabbath,” 61. We must remember that the returns include
foreigners and Chinamen, or else the reputation for “harmlessness”
which Hawaiians possess would suffer seriously when we read that within
the last two years there were 178 convictions for “assault,”
248 for “assault and battery,” 12 for “assaults with
dangerous weapons,” 49 for “affray,” 674 for “drunkenness,”
87 for “disturbing quiet of the night,” and 13 for “murder.”
Yet the number of criminal cases has largely diminished, and taking
civil and criminal together, there has been a decrease of 656 for the
last biennial period, as compared with that immediately preceding it.</p>
<p>The administration of justice is confessedly one of the most efficient
departments of Hawaiian affairs. Chief Justice Allen, both as
a lawyer and a gentleman, is worthy to fill the highest position in
his native country (America), and the Associate Justices, as well as
the native and foreign judges throughout the islands, are highly esteemed
for honour and uprightness. I never heard an uttered suspicion
of venality or unfairness against anyone of them, and apparently the
Judiciary Department of Hawaii deserves the same confidence which we
repose in our own.</p>
<p>The Educational System has been carefully modelled, and is carried
out with tolerable efficiency. Eighty-seven per cent. of the whole
school population are actually at school, and the inspector of schools
states that a person who cannot read and write is rarely met with.
Each common school is graded into two, three, or four classes, according
to the intelligence and proficiency of the pupils, and the curriculum
of study is as follows:--</p>
<p>CLASS I.--Reading, mental and written arithmetic, geography, penmanship,
and composition.</p>
<p>CLASS II.--Reading, mental arithmetic, geography, penmanship.</p>
<p>CLASS III.--Reading, first principles of arithmetic, penmanship.</p>
<p>CLASS IV.--Primer, use of slate and pencil.</p>
<p>The youngest children are not classified until they can put letters
together in syllables.</p>
<p>Vocal music is taught wherever competent teachers are found.</p>
<p>The total sum expended on education, including the grants to “family”
and other schools, is about $40,000 a year. <a name="citation453"></a><a href="#footnote453">{453}</a></p>
<p>It has been remarked that the rising race of Hawaiians has an increased
contempt for industry in the form of manual labour, and it is proposed
by the Board of Education that such labour shall be made a part of common
school education, so that on both girls and boys a desire to provide
for their own wants in an honest way shall be officially inculcated.
There is a Government Reformatory School, and industrial and family
schools for both girls and boys are scattered over the islands.
The supply of literature in the vernacular is meagre, and few of the
natives have any intelligent comprehension of English.</p>
<p>The group has an area of about 4,000,000 acres, of which about 200,000
may be regarded as arable, and 150,000 as specially adapted for the
culture of sugar-cane. Sugar, the great staple production, gives
employment in its cultivation and manufacture to nearly 4,000 hands.
Only a fifteenth part of the estimated arable area is under cultivation.
Over 6,000 natives are returned as the possessors of <i>Kuleanas</i>
or freeholds, but many of these are heavily mortgaged. Many of
the larger lands are held on lease from the crown or chiefs, and there
are difficulties attending the purchase of small properties.</p>
<p>Almost all the roots and fruits of the torrid and temperate zones
can be grown upon the islands, and the banana, <i>kalo</i>, yam, sweet
potato, cocoanut, breadfruit, arrowroot, sugar-cane, strawberry, raspberry,
whortleberry, and native apple, are said to be indigenous.</p>
<p>The indigenous <i>fauna</i> is small, consisting only of hogs, dogs,
rats, and an anomalous bat which flies by day: There are few insects,
except such as have been imported, and these, which consist of centipedes,
scorpions, cockroaches, mosquitoes, and fleas, are happily confined
to certain localities, and the two first have left most of their venom
behind them. A small lizard is abundant, but snakes, toads, and
frogs have not yet effected a landing.</p>
<p>The ornithology of the islands is scanty. Domestic fowls are
supposed to be indigenous. Wild geese are numerous among the mountains
of Hawaii, and plovers, snipe, and wild ducks, are found on all the
islands. A handsome owl, called the owl-hawk, is common.
There is a paroquet with purple feathers, another with scarlet, a woodpecker
with variegated plumage of red, green, and yellow, and a small black
bird with a single yellow feather under each wing. There are few
singing birds, but one of the few has as sweet a note as that of the
English thrush. There are very few varieties of moths and butterflies.</p>
<p>The <i>flora</i> of the Hawaiian Islands is far scantier than that
of the South Sea groups, and cannot compare with that of many other
tropical as well as temperate regions. But all the islands are
rich in cryptogamous plants, of which there is an almost infinite variety.</p>
<p>Hawaii is still in process of construction, and is subject to volcanic
eruptions, earthquakes, and tidal waves. Hurricanes are unknown,
and thunderstorms are rare and light.</p>
<p>Under favourable circumstances of moisture, the soil is most prolific,
and “patch cultivation” in glens and ravines, as well as
on mountain sides, produces astonishing results. A <i>Kalo</i>
patch of forty square feet will support a man for a year. An acre
of favourably situated land will grow a thousand stems of bananas, which
will produce annually ten tons of fruit. The sweet potato flourishes
on the most unpromising lava, where soil can hardly be said to exist,
and in good localities produces 200 barrels to the acre. On dry
light soils the Irish potato grows anyhow and anywhere, with no other
trouble than that of planting the sets. Most vegetable dyes, drugs,
and spices can be raised. Forty diverse fruits present an overflowing
cornucopia. The esculents of the temperate zones flourish.
The coffee bush produces from three to five pounds of berries the third
year after planting. The average yield of sugar is two and a half
tons to the acre. Pineapples grow like weeds in some districts,
and water melons are almost a drug. The bamboo is known to grow
sixteen inches in a day. Wherever there is a sufficient rainfall,
the earth teems with plenty.</p>
<p>Yet the Hawaiian Islands can hardly be regarded as a field for emigration,
though nature is lavish, and the climate the most delicious and salubrious
in the world. Farming, as we understand it, is unknown.
The dearth of insectivorous birds seriously affects the cultivation
of a soil naturally bounteous to excess. The narrow gorges in
which terraced “patch cultivation,” is so successful, offer
no temptations to a man with the world before him. The larger
areas require labour, and labour is not to be had. Though wheat
and other cereals mature, attacks of weevil prevent their storage, and
all the grain and flour consumed are imported from California.</p>
<p>Cacao, cinnamon, and allspice, are subject to an apparently ineradicable
blight. The blight which has attacked the coffee shrub is so severe,
that the larger plantations have been dug up, and coffee is now raised
by patch culture, mainly among the guava scrub which fringes the forests.
Oranges suffer from blight also, and some of the finest groves have
been cut down. Cotton suffers from the ravages of a caterpillar.
The mulberry tree, which, from its rapid growth, would be invaluable
to silk growers, is covered with a black and white blight. Sheep
are at present successful, but in some localities the spread of a pestilent
“oat-burr” is depreciating the value of their wool.
The forests, which are essential to the well-being of the islands, are
disappearing in some quarters, owing to the attacks of a grub, as well
as the ravages of cattle.</p>
<p>Cocoanuts, bananas, yams, sweet potatoes, <i>kalo</i>, and breadfruit,
the staple food of the native population, are free from blight, and
so are potatoes and rice. Beef cattle can be raised for almost
nothing, and in some districts beef can be bought for the cent or two
per pound which pays for the cutting up of the carcase. Every
one can live abundantly, and without the “sweat of the brow,”
but few can make money, owing to the various forms of blight, the scarcity
of labour, and the lack of a profitable market.</p>
<p>There is little healthy activity in any department of business.
The whaling fleet has deserted the islands. A general <i>pilikia</i>
prevails. Settlements are disappearing, valley lands are falling
out of cultivation, Hilo grass and guava scrub are burying the traces
of a former population. The natives are rapidly diminishing, <a name="citation457"></a><a href="#footnote457">{457}</a>
the old industries are abandoned, and the inherent immorality of the
race, the great outstanding cause of its decay, still resists the influence
of Christian teaching and example.</p>
<p>An exotic civilization is having a fair trial on the Hawaiian Islands.
With the exception of the serious maladies introduced by foreigners
in the early days, and the disastrous moral influence exercised by worthless
whites, they have suffered none of the wrongs usually inflicted on the
feebler by the stronger race. The rights of the natives were in
the first instance carefully secured to them, and have since been protected
by equal laws, righteously administered. The Hawaiians have been
aided towards independence in political matters, and the foreigners,
who framed the laws and constitution, and have directed Hawaiian affairs,
such as Richards, Lee, Judd, Allen, and Wyllie, were men above reproach;
and missionary influence, of all others the most friendly to the natives,
has predominated for fifty years.</p>
<p>The effects of missionary labour have been scarcely touched upon
in the foregoing letters, and here, in preference to giving any opinion
of my own, I quote from Mr. R. H. Dana, an Episcopalian, and a barrister
of the highest standing in America, well known in this country by his
writings, who sums up his investigations on the Sandwich Islands in
the following dispassionate words:</p>
<p>“It is no small thing to say of the missionaries of the American
Board, that in less than forty years they have taught this whole people
to read and to write, to cipher and to sew. They have given them
an alphabet, grammar, and dictionary; preserved their language from
extinction; given it a literature, and translated into it the Bible,
and works of devotion, science, and entertainment, etc. They have
established schools, reared up native teachers, and so pressed their
work, that now the proportion of inhabitants who can read and write
is greater than in New England. And whereas they found these islanders
a nation of half-naked savages, living in the surf and on the sand,
eating raw fish, fighting among themselves, tyrannized over by feudal
chiefs, and abandoned to sensuality, they now see them decently clothed,
recognizing the law of marriage, knowing something of accounts, going
to school and public worship more regularly than the people do at home,
and the more elevated of them taking part in conducting the affairs
of the constitutional monarchy under which they live, holding seats
on the judicial bench and in the legislative chambers, and filling posts
in the local magistracies.”</p>
<p>If space permitted, the testimony of “Mark Twain,” given
in “Roughing It,” might be added to the above, and the remaining
missionaries may well point to the visible results of their labours,
with the one word <i>Circumspice</i>!</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h3>A CHAPTER ON HAWAIIAN HISTORY.</h3>
<p>In the pre-historic days of Hawaii, for 500 years, as the bards sing,
before Captain Cook landed, and indeed for some years afterwards, each
island had its king, chiefs, and internal dissensions; and incessant
wars, with a reckless waste of human life, kept the whole group in turmoil.
Chaotic and legendary as early Hawaiian history is, there is enough
to show that there must have been regularly organized communities on
the islands for a very long period, with a civilization and polity which,
though utterly unworthy of Christianity, were enlightened and advanced
for Polynesian heathenism.</p>
<p>The kingly office was hereditary, and the king’s power absolute.
On the different islands the kings and chiefs who together constituted
a privileged class, admitted the priesthood to some portion of their
privileges, probably with the view of enslaving the people more completely
through the agency of religion, and held the lower classes in absolute
subserviency by the most rigorous of feudal systems, which included
<i>hana poalima</i>, or forced labour, and the <i>tabu</i>, well known
throughout Polynesia.</p>
<p>A very interesting history begins with Kamehameha the Great, the
Conqueror, or the Terrible; the “Napoleon of the Pacific,”
as he has been called. He united an overmastering ambition to
a singular gift of ruling, and without education, training, or the help
of a single political precedent to guide him, animated not only by the
lust of conquest, but by the desire to create a nationality, he subjugated
every thing that his canoes could reach, and fused a rabble of savages
and chieftaincies into a united nation, every individual of which to
this day inherits something of the patriotism of the Conqueror.</p>
<p>His wars were by no means puny either in proportions or slaughter,
as, for instance, when he meditated the conquest of Kauai, his expedition
included seven thousand picked warriors, twenty-one schooners, forty
swivels, six mortars, and an abundance of ammunition! His victories
are celebrated in countless <i>mêlés</i> or unwritten songs,
which are said to be marked by real poetic feeling and simplicity, and
to resemble the Ossianic poems in majesty and melancholy. He founded
the dynasty which for seventy years has stood as firmly, and exercised
its functions for the welfare of the people on the whole as efficiently,
as any other government.</p>
<p>The king was forty-five years old when, having “no more worlds
to conquer,” he devoted himself to the consolidation of his kingdom.
He placed governors on each island, directly responsible to himself,
who nominated chiefs of districts, heads of villages, and all petty
officers; and tax-gatherers, who, for lack of the art of writing, kept
their accounts by a method in use in the English exchequer in ancient
times. He appointed a council of chiefs, with whom he advised
on important matters, and a council of “wise men” who assisted
him in framing laws, and in regulating concerns of minor importance.
In all matters of national importance, the governors and high chiefs
of the islands met with the sovereign in consultations. These
were conducted with great privacy, and the results were promulgated
through the islands by heralds whose office was hereditary.</p>
<p>Kamehameha enacted statutes against theft, murder, and oppression,
and though he wielded oppressive and despotic authority himself, his
people enjoyed a golden age as compared with those that were past.
The king, governors, and chiefs constituted the magistracy, and there
was an appeal from both chiefs and governors to the king. It was
usual for both parties to be heard face to face in the enclosure in
front of the house of the king or governor, no lawyers were employed,
and every man advocated his own cause, sitting cross-legged before the
judges. Swiftness and decision characterized the redress of grievances
and the administration of justice. Kamehameha reduced the feudal
tenure of land, which had heretofore been the theory, into absolute
practice, claiming for the crown the sole ownership of the land, and
dividing it among his followers on the conditions of tribute and military
service. The common people were attached to the soil and transferred
with it. A chief might nominate his wife, or son, or any other
person to succeed him in his possessions, but at his death they reverted
to the king, whose order was required before the testamentary wish became
of any value. There were some wise regulations generally applicable,
concerning the planting of cocoanut trees, and a law that the water
should be conducted over every plantation twice a week in general, and
once a week during the dry season. This king constructed immense
fish-ponds on the sea coast, and devoted himself to commerce with such
success that in one year he exported $400,000 of sandalwood (felled
and shipped at the cost of much suffering to the common people), and
on finding that a large proportion of the profit had been dissipated
by harbour dues at Canton, he took up the idea and established harbour
dues at Honolulu.</p>
<p>From Vancouver Kamehameha learned of the grandeur and power of Christian
nations; and in the idea that his people might grow great through Christianity,
he asked him, in 1794, that Christian teachers might be sent from England.
This request, if ever presented, was disregarded, as was another made
by Captain Turnbull in 1803, and this exceptionally great Polynesian
died the year before the light of the Gospel shone on Hawaiian shores.</p>
<p>Some persons, it does not appear whether they were English or American,
attempted his conversion; but the astute savage, after listening to
their eloquent statements of the power of faith, pressed on them as
a crucial test to throw themselves from the top of an adjacent precipice,
making his reception of their religion contingent on their arrival unhurt
at its base. He built large <i>heiaus</i>, amongst others the
one at Kawaihae, at the dedication of which to his favourite war god
eleven human sacrifices were offered. To the end he remained devoted
to the state religion, and the last instances of capital punishment
for breaking <i>tabu</i>, a thraldom deeply interwoven with the religious
system, occurred in the last year of his reign, when one man was put
to death for putting on a chief’s girdle, another for eating of
a tabooed dish, and a third for leaving a house under <i>tabu</i>, and
entering one which was not so.</p>
<p>His last prayers were to his great red-feathered god Kukailimoku,
and priests bringing idols crowded round him in his dying agony.
His last words were “<i>Move on in my good way and</i>”--
In the death-room the high chiefs consulted, and one, to testify his
great grief, proposed to eat the body raw, but was overruled by the
majority. So the flesh was separated from the bones, and they
were tied up in <i>tapa</i>, and concealed so effectually that they
have never since been found. A holocaust of three hundred dogs
gave splendour to his obsequies. “These are our gods whom
I worship,” he had said to Kotzebue, while showing him one of
the temples. “Whether I do right or wrong I do not know,
but I follow my faith, which cannot be wicked, as it commands me never
to do wrong.”</p>
<p>Kamehameha the Great died in 1819, and his son Liholiho, who loved
whisky and pleasure, was peaceably crowned king in his room, and by
his name. He, with the powerful aid of the Queen Dowager Kaahumanu,
abolished <i>tabu</i>, and his subjects cast away their idols, and fell
into indifferent scepticism, the high priest Hewahewa being the first
to light the iconoclastic torch, having previously given his opinion
that there was only one great <i>akua</i> or spirit in <i>lani</i>,
the heavens. This Kamehameha II. was the king who with his queen,
died of measles in London in 1824, after which the <i>Blonde</i> frigate
was sent to restore their bodies with much ceremony to Hawaiian soil.</p>
<p>Kamehameha III., a minor, another son of the Conqueror, succeeded,
and reigned for thirty years, dividing the lands among the nobles and
the people, and conferring upon his kingdom an equable constitution.
The law officially abolishing idolatry was confirmed by him, and while
complete religious toleration otherwise was granted, the Christian faith
was established in these words:--“The religion of the Lord Jesus
Christ shall continue to be the established national religion of the
Hawaiian Islands.” His words on July 31st, 1843, when the
English colours, wrongfully hoisted, were lowered in favour of the Hawaiian
flag, are the national motto:--“The life of the land is established
in righteousness.” In his reign Hawaiian independence was
recognised by Great Britain, France, and America. His Premier
for some time was Mr. Wyllie, who with a rare devotion and disinterestedness
devoted his life and a large fortune to his adopted country.</p>
<p>Kamehameha IV., a grandson of the Conqueror, succeeded him in 1854.
He was a patriotic prince, and strove hard to advance the civilization
of his people, and to arrest their decrease by reformatory and sanitary
measures. He was the most accomplished prince of his line, and
his death in 1863, soon after that of his only child, the Prince of
Hawaii, was very deeply regretted. His widow, Queen Kaleleonalani,
or Emma, visited England after his death.</p>
<p>He was succeeded by his brother, a man of a very different stamp,
who was buried on January 11, 1873, after a partial outbreak of the
orgies wherewith the natives disgraced themselves after the death of
a chief in the old heathen days. It is rare to meet with two people
successively who hold the same opinion of Kamehameha V. He was
evidently a man of some talent and strong will, intensely patriotic,
and determined not to be a merely ornamental figure-head of a government
administered by foreigners in his name. He ardently desired the
encouragement of foreign immigration, and the opening of a free market
in America for Hawaiian produce. He ruled, as well as reigned,
and though he abrogated the constitution of 1852, and introduced several
features of absolutism into the government, on the whole he seems to
have done well by his people. He is said to have been regal and
dignified, to have worked hard, to have written correct state papers,
and to have been capable of the deportment of an educated Christian
gentleman, but to have reimbursed himself for this subservience to conventionality
by occasionally retiring to an undignified residence on the sea-shore,
where he transformed himself into the likeness of one of his half-clad
heathen ancestors, debased himself by whisky, and revelled in the <i>hula-hula</i>.
He is said also to have been so far under the empire of the old superstitions,
as to consult an ancient witch on affairs of importance.</p>
<p>He died amidst the rejoicings incident to his birthday, and on the
next day “lay in state in the throne-room of the palace, while
his ministers, his staff, and the chiefs of the realm kept watch over
him, and sombre <i>kahilis</i> waving at his head, beat a rude and silent
dead-march for the crowds of people, subjects and aliens, who continuously
filed through the apartment, for a curious farewell glance at the last
of the Kamehamehas.”</p>
<p>His death closed the first era of Hawaiian history, and the orderly
succession of one recognised dynasty. No successor to the throne
had been proclaimed, and the king left no nearer kin than the Princess
Keelikolani, his half-sister, a lady not in the line of regal descent.</p>
<p>Under these novel circumstances, it devolved upon the Legislative
Assembly to elect by ballot “some native <i>Alii</i> of the kingdom
as successor to the throne.” The candidates were the High
Chief Kalakaua, the present King, and Prince Lunalilo, the late King,
but the “Well-Beloved,” as Lunalilo was called, was elected
unanimously, amidst an outburst of popular enthusiasm.</p>
<p>From his high resolves and generous instincts much was expected,
and the unhappy failing, to which, after the most painful struggles,
he succumbed, on the solicitation of some bad or thoughtless foreigners,
if it lessened him aught in the public esteem, abated nothing of the
wonderful love that was felt for him.</p>
<p>He died, after a lingering illness, on February 3, 1874. Although
the event had been expected for some time, its announcement was received
with profound sorrow by the whole community, while the native subjects
of the deceased sovereign, according to ancient custom, expressed their
feelings in loud wailing, which echoed mournfully through the still,
red air of early daylight. On the following evening the body was
placed on a shrouded bier, and was escorted in solemn procession by
the government officials and the late king’s staff, to the Iolani
Palace, there to lie in state. It was a cloudless moonlight; not
a leaf stirred or bird sang, and the crowd, consisting of several thousands,
opened to the right and left to let the dismal death-train pass, in
a stillness which was only broken by the solemn tramp of the bearers.</p>
<p>The next day the corpse lay in state, in all the splendour that the
islands could bestow, dressed in the clothes the king wore when he took
the oath of office, and resting on the royal robe of yellow feathers,
a fathom square. <a name="citation468"></a><a href="#footnote468">{468}</a>
Between eight and ten thousand persons passed through the palace during
the morning, and foreigners as well as natives wept tears of genuine
grief; while in the palace grounds the wailing knew no intermission,
and many of the natives spent hours in reciting <i>kanakaus</i> in honour
of the deceased. At midnight the king’s remains were placed
in a coffin, his aged father, His Highness Kanaina, who was broken-hearted
for his loss, standing by. When the body was raised from the feather
robe, he ordered that it should be wrapped in it, and thus be deposited
in its resting place. “He is the last of our race,”
he said; “it belongs to him.” The natives in attendance
turned pale at this command, for the robe was the property of Kekauluohi,
the dead king’s mother, and had descended to her from her kingly
ancestors.</p>
<p>Averse through his life to useless parade and display, Lunalilo left
directions for a simple funeral, and that none of the old heathenish
observances should ensue upon his death. So, amidst unbounded
grief, he was carried to the grave with hymns and anthems, and the hopes
of Hawaii were buried with him.</p>
<p>He died without naming a successor, and thus for the second time
within fourteen months, a king came to be elected by ballot.</p>
<p>The proceedings at the election of Lunalilo were marked by an order,
regularity, and peaceableness which reflected extreme credit on the
civilization of the Hawaiians, but in the subsequent period the temper
of the people had considerably changed, and they had been affected by
influences to which some allusions were made in Letter XIX.</p>
<p>In politics, Lunalilo’s views were essentially democratic,
and he showed an almost undue deference to the will of the people, giving
them a year’s practical experience of democracy which they will
never forget.</p>
<p>An antagonism to the foreign residents, or rather to their political
influence, had grown rapidly. Some of the Americans had been unwise
in their language, and the discussion on the proposed cession of Pearl
River increased the popular discontent, and the jealousy of foreign
interference in island affairs. “America gave us the light,”
said a native pastor, in a sermon which was reported over the islands,
“but now that we have the light, we should be left to use it for
ourselves.” This sentence represented the bulk of the national
feeling, which, if partially unenlightened, is intensely, passionately,
almost fanatically patriotic.</p>
<p>The biennial election of delegates to the Legislative Assembly occurred
shortly before Lunalilo’s death, and the rallying-cry, “Hawaii
for the Hawaiians,” was used with such effect that the most respectable
foreign candidates, even in the capital, had not a chance of success,
and for the first time in Hawaiian constitutional history, a house was
elected, consisting, with one exception, of natives. Immediately
on the king’s death, Kalakaua, who was understood to represent
the foreign interest as well as the policy indicated by the popular
rallying-cry, and Queen Emma, came forward as candidates; the walls
were placarded with addresses, mass meetings were held, canvassers were
busy night and day, promises impossible of fulfilment were made, and
for eight days the Hawaiian capital presented those scenes of excitement,
wrangling, and mutual misrepresentation which we associate with popular
elections elsewhere, and everywhere.</p>
<p>The day of election came, and thirty-nine votes were given for Kalakaua,
and six for Emma. On the announcement of this result, a hoarse,
indignant roar, mingled with cheers from the crowd without, was heard
within the Assembly chamber, and on the committee appointed to convey
to Kalakaua the news of his election, attempting to take their seats
in a carriage, they were driven back, maimed and bleeding, into the
Courthouse; the carriage was torn to pieces, and the spokes of the wheels
were distributed as weapons among the rioters. The “gentle
children of the sun” were seen under a new aspect; they became
furious, the latent savagery came out, the doors of the Hall of Assembly
were battered in, the windows were shattered with clubs and volleys
of stones, nine of the representatives, who were known to have voted
for Kalakaua, were severely injured; the chairs, tables, and furnishings
of the rooms were broken up and thrown out of the windows, along with
valuable public and private documents; kerosene was demanded to fire
the buildings; the police remained neutral, and conflagration and murder
would have followed, had not the ministers dispatched an urgent request
for assistance to the United States’ ships of war, <i>Portsmouth</i>
and <i>Tuscarora</i>, and H.B.M. ship <i>Tenedos</i>, which was promptly
met by the landing of such a force of sailors and marines as dispersed
the rioters.</p>
<p>Seventy arrests were made, the foreign marines held possession of
the Courthouse, Palace, and Government offices, Kalakaua took the oath
of office in private; the Representatives, with bandaged heads, and
arms in slings, limped, and in some instances were supported, to their
desks, to be liberated from their duties by the king in person, and
in ten days the joint protectorate was withdrawn.</p>
<p>Those who know the natives best were taken by surprise, and are compelled
to recognise that a restive, half-sullen, half-defiant spirit is abroad
among them, and that the task of governing them may not be the easy
thing which it has been since the days of Kamehameha the Great.
Nor do the foreign residents, especially the Americans, feel so safe
as formerly, without the presence of a man-of-war in the harbour, since
the people of Oahu have so unexpectedly developed one of the prominent
arts of civilized democracy, cruel, reckless, and unreasoning mobbing.</p>
<p>Of King Kalakaua, who began his reign under such unfortunate auspices,
little at present can be said. Island affairs have not settled
down into their old quietude, and party spirit, arising out of the election,
has not died out among the natives. The king chose his advisers
wisely, and made a concession to native feeling by appointing a native
named Nahaolelua to a seat in the cabinet as Minister of Finance, but
his first arrangement was upset, and a good deal of confusion has subsequently
prevailed.</p>
<p>The Queen, Kapiolani, is a Hawaiian lady of high character and extreme
amiability, and both King and Queen have been exemplary in their domestic
relations.</p>
<p>Kalakaua’s first act was to proclaim his brother, Prince Leleiohoku,
his successor, investing him at the same time with the title, “His
Royal Highness,” and his second was to reorganize the military
service, with the view of making it an efficient and well-disciplined
force.</p>
<p>There is something melancholy in the fact that this small Pacific
kingdom has to fall back upon the old world resource of a standing army,
as large, in proportion to its population, as that of the German Empire.</p>
<p>Those readers who have become interested in the Sandwich Islands
through the foregoing Letters, will join me in the earnest wish that
this people, which has advanced from heathenism and barbarism to Christianity
and civilization in the short space of a single generation, may enjoy
peace and prosperity under King Kalakaua, that the extinction which
threatens the nation may be averted, and that under a gracious Divine
Providence, Hawaii may still remain the inheritance of the Hawaiians.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>NOTES.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p><a name="footnote0"></a><a href="#citation0">{0}</a> A native word
used to signify an old resident.</p>
<p><a name="footnote14"></a><a href="#citation14">{14}</a> A Frugiferous
bat.</p>
<p><a name="footnote28"></a><a href="#citation28">{28}</a> The kahili
is shaped like an enormous bottle brush. The fines are sometimes
twenty feet high, with handles twelve or fifteen feet long, covered
with tortoiseshell and whale tooth ivory. The upper part is formed of
a cylinder of wicker work about a foot in diameter, on which red, black,
and yellow feathers are fastened. These insignia are carried in
procession instead of banners, and used to be fixed in the ground near
the temporary residence of the king or chiefs. At the funeral
of the late king seventy-six large and small kahilis were carried by
the retainers of chief families.</p>
<p><a name="footnote40"></a><a href="#citation40">{40}</a> A week after
her sailing, this unlucky ship put back with some mysterious ailment,
and on her final arrival at San Francisco, her condition was found to
be such that it was a marvel that she had made the passage at all.</p>
<p><a name="footnote44"></a><a href="#citation44">{44}</a> Dear old
craft! I would not change her now for the finest palace which
floats on the Hudson, or the trimmest of the Hutchesons’ beautiful
West Highland fleet.</p>
<p><a name="footnote47"></a><a href="#citation47">{47}</a> This temperature
is, of course, in shallow water. The United States surveying vessel,
<i>Tuscarora</i>, lately left San Diego, California, shaping a straight
course for Honolulu, and found a nearly uniform temperature of from
33° to 34° Fahrenheit at all depths below 1100 fathoms.
The following table gives a good idea of the temperature of ocean water
in this region of the Pacific:--</p>
<pre>100 . . 64° 7<br />200 . . 48° 7<br />300 . . 42° 4<br />400 . . 40° 4<br />500 . . 39° 4<br />600 . . 38° 6<br />700 . . 38° 3<br />800 . . 37° 5<br />900 . . 36° 6<br />1000 . . 35° 6<br />1200 . . 35° 4<br />3054 . . 33° 2</pre>
<p>The <i>Tuscarora</i> found the extraordinary depth of 3023 fathoms
at a distance of only 43 miles from Molokai.</p>
<p><a name="footnote59a"></a><a href="#citation59a">{59a}</a> Metrosideros
Polymorpha.</p>
<p><a name="footnote59b"></a><a href="#citation59b">{59b}</a> Colocasia
antiquorum (arum esculentum).</p>
<p><a name="footnote59c"></a><a href="#citation59c">{59c}</a> Morinda
Citrifolia.</p>
<p><a name="footnote62"></a><a href="#citation62">{62}</a> I have since
learned that it is the same as the Kaldera bush of Southern India, and
that the powerful fragrance of its flowers is the subject of continual
allusions in Sanskrit poetry under the name of Ketaka, and that oil
impregnated with its odour is highly prized as a perfume in India.
The Hawaiians also used it to give a delicious scent to the Tapa made
for their chiefs from the inner bark of the paper mulberry.</p>
<p><a name="footnote65"></a><a href="#citation65">{65}</a> See Brigham,
on the “Hawaiian Volcanoes.”</p>
<p><a name="footnote66"></a><a href="#citation66">{66}</a> In explorations
some months later, I found nearly similar phenomena, in two other of
the streams on the windward side of Hawaii.</p>
<p><a name="footnote95"></a><a href="#citation95">{95}</a> “Reef
Rovings.”</p>
<p><a name="footnote121"></a><a href="#citation121">{121}</a> In 1873
the export of sugar reached a total of upwards of 23,000,000 lbs.</p>
<p><a name="footnote128"></a><a href="#citation128">{128}</a> NOTE.--Throughout
these letters the botanical names given are only those which are current
on the Islands. Those specimens of ferns which survived the rough
usage which befel them, are to be seen in the Herbarium of the Botanical
Garden at Oxford, and have been named and classified by my cousin, Professor
Lawson.</p>
<p><a name="footnote138"></a><a href="#citation138">{138}</a> “The
road from Hilo to Laupahoehoe, a distance of thirty miles, runs somewhat
inland, and is one of the most remarkable in the world. Ravines,
1,800 or 2,000 feet deep, and less than a mile wide, extend far up the
slopes of Mauna Kea. Streams, liable to sudden and tremendous
freshets, must be traversed on a path of indescribable steepness, winding
zig-zag up and down the beautifully-wooded slopes or precipices, which
are ornamented with cascades of every conceivable form. Few strangers,
when they come to the worst precipices, dare to ride down, but such
is the nature of the rough steps, that a horse or mule will pass them
with less difficulty than a man on foot who is unused to climbing.
No less than sixty-five streams must be crossed in a distance of thirty
miles.”--Brigham “<i>On the Hawaiian Volcanoes</i>.”</p>
<p><a name="footnote148"></a><a href="#citation148">{148}</a> The Lord’s
Prayer in Hawaiian runs thus:--E ko mako Makua i-loko o ka Lani, e hoanoia
Kou Inoa E hiki mai Kou auhuni e malamaia Kou Makemake ma ka-nei honua
e like me ia i malamaia ma ka Lani e haawi mai i a makau i ai no keia
la e kala mai i ko makou lawehalaana me makou e kala nei i ka poe i
lawehala mai i a makou mai alakai i a makou i ka hoowalewaleia mai ata
e hookapele i a makou mai ka ino no ka mea Nou ke Aupuni a me ka Mana
a me ka hoonaniia a mau loa ‘ku. Amene.</p>
<p><a name="footnote165"></a><a href="#citation165">{165}</a> A small
bird, Melithreptes Pacifica, inhabits the mountainous regions of Hawaii,
and has under each wing a single feather, one inch long, of a bright
canary yellow. The birds are caught by means of a viscid substance
smeared on poles. Formerly they were strictly <i>tabu</i>.
It is of these feathers that the <i>mamo</i> or war-cloak of Kamehameha
I., now used on state occasions by the Hawaiian kings, is composed.
This priceless mantle is four feet long, eleven and a half feet wide
at the bottom, and its formation occupied nine successive reigns.
It is one of the costliest of royal ornaments, if the labour spent upon
it is estimated, and the feathers of which it is made have been valued
at a dollar and a half for five.</p>
<p><a name="footnote199"></a><a href="#citation199">{199}</a> Cynodon
Dactylon (?)</p>
<p><a name="footnote203"></a><a href="#citation203">{203}</a> Physalis
Peruviana.</p>
<p><a name="footnote215"></a><a href="#citation215">{215}</a> This was
almost his last exploit. A few days later the sheriff had the
painful duty of committing him as a leper to the leper settlement on
Molokai. He was a leading spirit among the Hilo natives, and his
joyous nature will be missed by everyone. He has left a wife and
some beautiful children, who, it is feared, will eventually share his
fate.</p>
<p><a name="footnote223"></a><a href="#citation223">{223}</a> In 1873
the export of wool had increased to 329,507 lbs.</p>
<p><a name="footnote235"></a><a href="#citation235">{235}</a> The Inspector
of Schools has since told me that there is a track as bad, if not worse,
in the Hana district on Maui.</p>
<p><a name="footnote256"></a><a href="#citation256">{256}</a> It gives
me pleasure to add that the Sisters have lived down this very natural
distrust, and that in a subsequent residence of five months on the islands,
I never heard but one opinion, and that of the most favourable kind,
regarding the Lahaina School, and the excellence and wisdom of the manner
in which it is conducted. I have been told by many who on most
points are quite out of sympathy with the Sisters, not only that their
work is recognized as a most valuable agency, but that their influence
has come to be regarded as among the chiefest of the blessings of Lahaina.</p>
<p><a name="footnote270"></a><a href="#citation270">{270}</a> The <i>Nuhou</i>
has since expired.</p>
<p><a name="footnote276"></a><a href="#citation276">{276}</a> This monster
is a cephalopod of the order <i>Dibranchiata</i>, and has eight flexible
arms, each crowded with 120 pair of suckers, and two longer feelers
about six feet in length, differing considerably from the others in
form.</p>
<p><a name="footnote295"></a><a href="#citation295">{295}</a> According
to the revenue returns for the biennial period ending March 31, 1874,
the revenue derived from <i>awa</i> was over $9000, and that from opium
over $46,000.</p>
<p><a name="footnote296"></a><a href="#citation296">{296}</a> The following
paragraph from Dr. Rupert Anderson’s sober-minded book on the
Sandwich Islands fully bears out the king’s remarks: “The
islands all lie within the range of the trade winds, which blow with
great regularity nine months of the year, and on the leeward side, where
their course is obstructed by mountains, there are regular land and
sea breezes. The weather at all seasons is delightful, the sky
usually cloudless, the atmosphere clear and bracing. Nothing can
exceed the soft brilliancy of the moonlight nights. Thunderstorms
are rare and light in their nature. Hurricanes are unknown.
The general temperature is the nearest in the world to that point regarded
by physiologists as most conducive to health and longevity. By
ascending the mountains any desirable degree of temperature may be obtained.”</p>
<p><a name="footnote303"></a><a href="#citation303">{303}</a> These
circumstances are well-known throughout the islands, and with the omission
of some personal details, there is nothing which may not be known by
a larger public.</p>
<p><a name="footnote335"></a><a href="#citation335">{335}</a> According
to Mr. Brigham, the products of the Hawaiian volcanoes are: native sulphur,
pyrites, salt, sal ammoniac, hydrochloric acid, hæmatite, sulphurous
acid, sulphuric acid, quartz, crystals, palagonite, feldspar, chrysolite,
Thompsonite, gypsum, solfatarite, copperas, nitre, arragonite, Labradorite,
limonite.</p>
<p><a name="footnote381"></a><a href="#citation381">{381}</a> I venture
to present this journal letter just as it was written, trusting that
the interest which attaches to volcanic regions, will carry the reader
through the minuteness and multiplicity of the details.</p>
<p><a name="footnote388"></a><a href="#citation388">{388}</a> Since
then, the Austins of Onomea were standing on a similar ledge, when a
sound as of a surge striking below, made them jump back hastily, and
in another moment the projection split off, and was engulfed in the
fiery lake.</p>
<p><a name="footnote411"></a><a href="#citation411">{411}</a> Since
white men have inhabited the islands, there have been ten recorded eruptions
from the craters of Mauna Loa, and one from Hualalai.</p>
<p><a name="footnote422"></a><a href="#citation422">{422}</a> Several
letters are omitted here, as they contain repetitions of journeys and
circumstances which have been amply detailed before. I went to
the Kona district for a few days only, intending to return to friends
on Kauai and Maui; but owing to an alteration in the sailings of the
<i>Kilauea</i>, was detained there for a month, and afterwards, owing
to uncertainties connected with the San Francisco steamers, was obliged
to leave the Islands abruptly, after a residence of nearly seven months.</p>
<p><a name="footnote453"></a><a href="#citation453">{453}</a> The schools
of the kingdom are as follows:--</p>
<pre> Number<br /> Schools. Boys. Girls. Total.</pre>
<pre>Common Schools 196 3193 2329 5522<br />Government Boarding Schools 3 185 - 185<br />Government Haw.-Eng. Day Schools 5 415 246 661<br />Subsidized Boarding Schools 10 168 191 359<br />Subsidized Day Schools 9 201 210 411<br />Independent Boarding Schools 3 14 62 76<br />Independent Day Schools 16 287 254 541<br /> --------------------------------<br />Total 242 4463 3292 7755</pre>
<p><a name="footnote457"></a><a href="#citation457">{457}</a> The population
by the last census, taken in 1872, is as follows:--</p>
<pre>Total number of natives in 1872 49,O44<br /> “ “ half-castes in 1872 2,487<br /> “ “ Chinese in 1872 1,938<br /> “ “ Americans in 1872 889<br /> “ “ Hawaiians born of foreign parents, 1872 849<br /> “ “ Britons in 1872 619<br /> “ “ Portuguese in 1872 395<br /> “ “ Germans in 1872 224<br /> “ “ French in 1872 88<br /> “ “ other foreigners in 1872 364<br />
------<br />Total population in 1872 56,897</pre>
<pre> --------------------------</pre>
<pre>Total number of natives, </pre>
<pre><i>including half-castes</i></pre>
<pre>, in 1866 58,765<br /> “ “ “ “ “ in 1872 51,531<br /> ------<br />Decrease since 1866 7,234</pre>
<p>The excess of males over females is 6,403 souls.</p>
<pre> AREA AND POPULATION OF EACH ISLAND.</pre>
<pre> Acres. Height Population<br /> in feet. in 1872.</pre>
<pre>Hawaii 2,500,000 13,953 16,001<br />Maui 400,000 10,200 12,334<br />Oahu 350,000 3,800 20,671<br />Kauai 350,000 4,800 4,961<br />Molokai 200,000 2,800 2,349<br />Lanai 100,000 2,400 348<br />Niihau 70,000 800 233<br />Kahoolawe 30,000 400 -<br /> -------<br />
Total 56,897</pre>
<p><a name="footnote468"></a><a href="#citation468">{468}</a> Only one
robe like this remains, that which is spread over the throne at the
opening of Parliament. The one buried with Lunalilo could not
be reproduced for one hundred thousand dollars.</p>
<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 6750 ***</div>
</body>
</html>
|
