diff options
Diffstat (limited to '8588.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 8588.txt | 2492 |
1 files changed, 2492 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/8588.txt b/8588.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..eb2ba8e --- /dev/null +++ b/8588.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2492 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Roughing It, Part 7., by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Roughing It, Part 7. + +Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +Release Date: July 2, 2004 [EBook #8588] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROUGHING IT, PART 7. *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + + ROUGHING IT + + by Mark Twain + + 1880 + + Part 7. + + + + +CHAPTER LXI. + +One of my comrades there--another of those victims of eighteen years of +unrequited toil and blighted hopes--was one of the gentlest spirits that +ever bore its patient cross in a weary exile: grave and simple Dick +Baker, pocket-miner of Dead-House Gulch.--He was forty-six, gray as a +rat, earnest, thoughtful, slenderly educated, slouchily dressed and +clay-soiled, but his heart was finer metal than any gold his shovel ever +brought to light--than any, indeed, that ever was mined or minted. + +Whenever he was out of luck and a little down-hearted, he would fall to +mourning over the loss of a wonderful cat he used to own (for where women +and children are not, men of kindly impulses take up with pets, for they +must love something). And he always spoke of the strange sagacity of +that cat with the air of a man who believed in his secret heart that +there was something human about it--may be even supernatural. + +I heard him talking about this animal once. He said: + +"Gentlemen, I used to have a cat here, by the name of Tom Quartz, which +you'd a took an interest in I reckon--most any body would. I had him +here eight year--and he was the remarkablest cat I ever see. He was a +large gray one of the Tom specie, an' he had more hard, natchral sense +than any man in this camp--'n' a power of dignity--he wouldn't let the +Gov'ner of Californy be familiar with him. He never ketched a rat in his +life--'peared to be above it. He never cared for nothing but mining. +He knowed more about mining, that cat did, than any man I ever, ever see. +You couldn't tell him noth'n 'bout placer diggin's--'n' as for pocket +mining, why he was just born for it. + +"He would dig out after me an' Jim when we went over the hills +prospect'n', and he would trot along behind us for as much as five mile, +if we went so fur. An' he had the best judgment about mining ground--why +you never see anything like it. When we went to work, he'd scatter a +glance around, 'n' if he didn't think much of the indications, he would +give a look as much as to say, 'Well, I'll have to get you to excuse me,' +'n' without another word he'd hyste his nose into the air 'n' shove for +home. But if the ground suited him, he would lay low 'n' keep dark till +the first pan was washed, 'n' then he would sidle up 'n' take a look, an' +if there was about six or seven grains of gold he was satisfied--he +didn't want no better prospect 'n' that--'n' then he would lay down on +our coats and snore like a steamboat till we'd struck the pocket, an' +then get up 'n' superintend. He was nearly lightnin' on superintending. + +"Well, bye an' bye, up comes this yer quartz excitement. Every body was +into it--every body was pick'n' 'n' blast'n' instead of shovelin' dirt on +the hill side--every body was put'n' down a shaft instead of scrapin' the +surface. Noth'n' would do Jim, but we must tackle the ledges, too, 'n' +so we did. We commenced put'n' down a shaft, 'n' Tom Quartz he begin to +wonder what in the Dickens it was all about. He hadn't ever seen any +mining like that before, 'n' he was all upset, as you may say--he +couldn't come to a right understanding of it no way--it was too many for +him. He was down on it, too, you bet you--he was down on it powerful +--'n' always appeared to consider it the cussedest foolishness out. But +that cat, you know, was always agin new fangled arrangements--somehow he +never could abide'em. You know how it is with old habits. But by an' by +Tom Quartz begin to git sort of reconciled a little, though he never +could altogether understand that eternal sinkin' of a shaft an' never +pannin' out any thing. At last he got to comin' down in the shaft, +hisself, to try to cipher it out. An' when he'd git the blues, 'n' feel +kind o'scruffy, 'n' aggravated 'n' disgusted--knowin' as he did, that the +bills was runnin' up all the time an' we warn't makin' a cent--he would +curl up on a gunny sack in the corner an' go to sleep. Well, one day +when the shaft was down about eight foot, the rock got so hard that we +had to put in a blast--the first blast'n' we'd ever done since Tom Quartz +was born. An' then we lit the fuse 'n' clumb out 'n' got off 'bout fifty +yards--'n' forgot 'n' left Tom Quartz sound asleep on the gunny sack. + +"In 'bout a minute we seen a puff of smoke bust up out of the hole, 'n' +then everything let go with an awful crash, 'n' about four million ton of +rocks 'n' dirt 'n' smoke 'n; splinters shot up 'bout a mile an' a half +into the air, an' by George, right in the dead centre of it was old Tom +Quartz a goin' end over end, an' a snortin' an' a sneez'n', an' a clawin' +an' a reachin' for things like all possessed. But it warn't no use, you +know, it warn't no use. An' that was the last we see of him for about +two minutes 'n' a half, an' then all of a sudden it begin to rain rocks +and rubbage, an' directly he come down ker-whop about ten foot off f'm +where we stood Well, I reckon he was p'raps the orneriest lookin' beast +you ever see. One ear was sot back on his neck, 'n' his tail was stove +up, 'n' his eye-winkers was swinged off, 'n' he was all blacked up with +powder an' smoke, an' all sloppy with mud 'n' slush f'm one end to the +other. + +"Well sir, it warn't no use to try to apologize--we couldn't say a word. +He took a sort of a disgusted look at hisself, 'n' then he looked at us +--an' it was just exactly the same as if he had said--'Gents, may be you +think it's smart to take advantage of a cat that 'ain't had no experience +of quartz minin', but I think different'--an' then he turned on his heel +'n' marched off home without ever saying another word. + +"That was jest his style. An' may be you won't believe it, but after +that you never see a cat so prejudiced agin quartz mining as what he was. +An' by an' bye when he did get to goin' down in the shaft agin, you'd 'a +been astonished at his sagacity. The minute we'd tetch off a blast 'n' +the fuse'd begin to sizzle, he'd give a look as much as to say: 'Well, +I'll have to git you to excuse me,' an' it was surpris'n' the way he'd +shin out of that hole 'n' go f'r a tree. Sagacity? It ain't no name for +it. 'Twas inspiration!" + +I said, "Well, Mr. Baker, his prejudice against quartz-mining was +remarkable, considering how he came by it. Couldn't you ever cure him of +it?" + +"Cure him! No! When Tom Quartz was sot once, he was always sot--and you +might a blowed him up as much as three million times 'n' you'd never a +broken him of his cussed prejudice agin quartz mining." + +The affection and the pride that lit up Baker's face when he delivered +this tribute to the firmness of his humble friend of other days, will +always be a vivid memory with me. + +At the end of two months we had never "struck" a pocket. We had panned +up and down the hillsides till they looked plowed like a field; we could +have put in a crop of grain, then, but there would have been no way to +get it to market. We got many good "prospects," but when the gold gave +out in the pan and we dug down, hoping and longing, we found only +emptiness--the pocket that should have been there was as barren as our +own.--At last we shouldered our pans and shovels and struck out over the +hills to try new localities. We prospected around Angel's Camp, in +Calaveras county, during three weeks, but had no success. Then we +wandered on foot among the mountains, sleeping under the trees at night, +for the weather was mild, but still we remained as centless as the last +rose of summer. That is a poor joke, but it is in pathetic harmony with +the circumstances, since we were so poor ourselves. In accordance with +the custom of the country, our door had always stood open and our board +welcome to tramping miners--they drifted along nearly every day, dumped +their paust shovels by the threshold and took "pot luck" with us--and now +on our own tramp we never found cold hospitality. + +Our wanderings were wide and in many directions; and now I could give the +reader a vivid description of the Big Trees and the marvels of the Yo +Semite--but what has this reader done to me that I should persecute him? +I will deliver him into the hands of less conscientious tourists and take +his blessing. Let me be charitable, though I fail in all virtues else. + +Note: Some of the phrases in the above are mining technicalities, purely, +and may be a little obscure to the general reader. In "placer diggings" +the gold is scattered all through the surface dirt; in "pocket" diggings +it is concentrated in one little spot; in "quartz" the gold is in a +solid, continuous vein of rock, enclosed between distinct walls of some +other kind of stone--and this is the most laborious and expensive of all +the different kinds of mining. "Prospecting" is hunting for a "placer"; +"indications" are signs of its presence; "panning out" refers to the +washing process by which the grains of gold are separated from the dirt; +a "prospect" is what one finds in the first panful of dirt--and its value +determines whether it is a good or a bad prospect, and whether it is +worth while to tarry there or seek further. + + + + +CHAPTER LXII. + +After a three months' absence, I found myself in San Francisco again, +without a cent. When my credit was about exhausted, (for I had become +too mean and lazy, now, to work on a morning paper, and there were no +vacancies on the evening journals,) I was created San Francisco +correspondent of the Enterprise, and at the end of five months I was out +of debt, but my interest in my work was gone; for my correspondence being +a daily one, without rest or respite, I got unspeakably tired of it. +I wanted another change. The vagabond instinct was strong upon me. +Fortune favored and I got a new berth and a delightful one. It was to go +down to the Sandwich Islands and write some letters for the Sacramento +Union, an excellent journal and liberal with employees. + +We sailed in the propeller Ajax, in the middle of winter. The almanac +called it winter, distinctly enough, but the weather was a compromise +between spring and summer. Six days out of port, it became summer +altogether. We had some thirty passengers; among them a cheerful soul +by the name of Williams, and three sea-worn old whaleship captains going +down to join their vessels. These latter played euchre in the smoking +room day and night, drank astonishing quantities of raw whisky without +being in the least affected by it, and were the happiest people I think +I ever saw. And then there was "the old Admiral--" a retired whaleman. +He was a roaring, terrific combination of wind and lightning and thunder, +and earnest, whole-souled profanity. But nevertheless he was +tender-hearted as a girl. He was a raving, deafening, devastating +typhoon, laying waste the cowering seas but with an unvexed refuge in the +centre where all comers were safe and at rest. Nobody could know the +"Admiral" without liking him; and in a sudden and dire emergency I think +no friend of his would know which to choose--to be cursed by him or +prayed for by a less efficient person. + +His Title of "Admiral" was more strictly "official" than any ever worn by +a naval officer before or since, perhaps--for it was the voluntary +offering of a whole nation, and came direct from the people themselves +without any intermediate red tape--the people of the Sandwich Islands. +It was a title that came to him freighted with affection, and honor, and +appreciation of his unpretending merit. And in testimony of the +genuineness of the title it was publicly ordained that an exclusive flag +should be devised for him and used solely to welcome his coming and wave +him God-speed in his going. From that time forth, whenever his ship was +signaled in the offing, or he catted his anchor and stood out to sea, +that ensign streamed from the royal halliards on the parliament house and +the nation lifted their hats to it with spontaneous accord. + +Yet he had never fired a gun or fought a battle in his life. When I knew +him on board the Ajax, he was seventy-two years old and had plowed the +salt water sixty-one of them. For sixteen years he had gone in and out +of the harbor of Honolulu in command of a whaleship, and for sixteen more +had been captain of a San Francisco and Sandwich Island passenger packet +and had never had an accident or lost a vessel. The simple natives knew +him for a friend who never failed them, and regarded him as children +regard a father. It was a dangerous thing to oppress them when the +roaring Admiral was around. + +Two years before I knew the Admiral, he had retired from the sea on a +competence, and had sworn a colossal nine-jointed oath that he would +"never go within smelling distance of the salt water again as long as he +lived." And he had conscientiously kept it. That is to say, he +considered he had kept it, and it would have been more than dangerous to +suggest to him, even in the gentlest way, that making eleven long sea +voyages, as a passenger, during the two years that had transpired since +he "retired," was only keeping the general spirit of it and not the +strict letter. + +The Admiral knew only one narrow line of conduct to pursue in any and all +cases where there was a fight, and that was to shoulder his way straight +in without an inquiry as to the rights or the merits of it, and take the +part of the weaker side.--And this was the reason why he was always sure +to be present at the trial of any universally execrated criminal to +oppress and intimidate the jury with a vindictive pantomime of what he +would do to them if he ever caught them out of the box. And this was why +harried cats and outlawed dogs that knew him confidently took sanctuary +under his chair in time of trouble. In the beginning he was the most +frantic and bloodthirsty Union man that drew breath in the shadow of the +Flag; but the instant the Southerners began to go down before the sweep +of the Northern armies, he ran up the Confederate colors and from that +time till the end was a rampant and inexorable secessionist. + +He hated intemperance with a more uncompromising animosity than any +individual I have ever met, of either sex; and he was never tired of +storming against it and beseeching friends and strangers alike to be wary +and drink with moderation. And yet if any creature had been guileless +enough to intimate that his absorbing nine gallons of "straight" whiskey +during our voyage was any fraction short of rigid or inflexible +abstemiousness, in that self-same moment the old man would have spun him +to the uttermost parts of the earth in the whirlwind of his wrath. Mind, +I am not saying his whisky ever affected his head or his legs, for it did +not, in even the slightest degree. He was a capacious container, but he +did not hold enough for that. He took a level tumblerful of whisky every +morning before he put his clothes on--"to sweeten his bilgewater," he +said.--He took another after he got the most of his clothes on, "to +settle his mind and give him his bearings." He then shaved, and put on a +clean shirt; after which he recited the Lord's Prayer in a fervent, +thundering bass that shook the ship to her kelson and suspended all +conversation in the main cabin. Then, at this stage, being invariably +"by the head," or "by the stern," or "listed to port or starboard," he +took one more to "put him on an even keel so that he would mind his +hellum and not miss stays and go about, every time he came up in the +wind."--And now, his state-room door swung open and the sun of his +benignant face beamed redly out upon men and women and children, and he +roared his "Shipmets a'hoy!" in a way that was calculated to wake the +dead and precipitate the final resurrection; and forth he strode, a +picture to look at and a presence to enforce attention. Stalwart and +portly; not a gray hair; broadbrimmed slouch hat; semi-sailor toggery of +blue navy flannel--roomy and ample; a stately expanse of shirt-front and +a liberal amount of black silk neck-cloth tied with a sailor knot; large +chain and imposing seals impending from his fob; awe-inspiring feet, and +"a hand like the hand of Providence," as his whaling brethren expressed +it; wrist-bands and sleeves pushed back half way to the elbow, out of +respect for the warm weather, and exposing hairy arms, gaudy with red and +blue anchors, ships, and goddesses of liberty tattooed in India ink. +But these details were only secondary matters--his face was the lodestone +that chained the eye. It was a sultry disk, glowing determinedly out +through a weather beaten mask of mahogany, and studded with warts, seamed +with scars, "blazed" all over with unfailing fresh slips of the razor; +and with cheery eyes, under shaggy brows, contemplating the world from +over the back of a gnarled crag of a nose that loomed vast and lonely out +of the undulating immensity that spread away from its foundations. +At his heels frisked the darling of his bachelor estate, his terrier +"Fan," a creature no larger than a squirrel. The main part of his daily +life was occupied in looking after "Fan," in a motherly way, and +doctoring her for a hundred ailments which existed only in his +imagination. + +The Admiral seldom read newspapers; and when he did he never believed +anything they said. He read nothing, and believed in nothing, but "The +Old Guard," a secession periodical published in New York. He carried a +dozen copies of it with him, always, and referred to them for all +required information. If it was not there, he supplied it himself, out +of a bountiful fancy, inventing history, names, dates, and every thing +else necessary to make his point good in an argument. Consequently he +was a formidable antagonist in a dispute. Whenever he swung clear of the +record and began to create history, the enemy was helpless and had to +surrender. Indeed, the enemy could not keep from betraying some little +spark of indignation at his manufactured history--and when it came to +indignation, that was the Admiral's very "best hold." He was always +ready for a political argument, and if nobody started one he would do it +himself. With his third retort his temper would begin to rise, and +within five minutes he would be blowing a gale, and within fifteen his +smoking-room audience would be utterly stormed away and the old man left +solitary and alone, banging the table with his fist, kicking the chairs, +and roaring a hurricane of profanity. It got so, after a while, that +whenever the Admiral approached, with politics in his eye, the passengers +would drop out with quiet accord, afraid to meet him; and he would camp +on a deserted field. + +But he found his match at last, and before a full company. At one time +or another, everybody had entered the lists against him and been routed, +except the quiet passenger Williams. He had never been able to get an +expression of opinion out of him on politics. But now, just as the +Admiral drew near the door and the company were about to slip out, +Williams said: + +"Admiral, are you certain about that circumstance concerning the +clergymen you mentioned the other day?"--referring to a piece of the +Admiral's manufactured history. + +Every one was amazed at the man's rashness. The idea of deliberately +inviting annihilation was a thing incomprehensible. The retreat came to +a halt; then everybody sat down again wondering, to await the upshot of +it. The Admiral himself was as surprised as any one. He paused in the +door, with his red handkerchief half raised to his sweating face, and +contemplated the daring reptile in the corner. + +"Certain of it? Am I certain of it? Do you think I've been lying about +it? What do you take me for? Anybody that don't know that circumstance, +don't know anything; a child ought to know it. Read up your history! +Read it up-----, and don't come asking a man if he's certain about a bit +of ABC stuff that the very southern niggers know all about." + +Here the Admiral's fires began to wax hot, the atmosphere thickened, the +coming earthquake rumbled, he began to thunder and lighten. Within three +minutes his volcano was in full irruption and he was discharging flames +and ashes of indignation, belching black volumes of foul history aloft, +and vomiting red-hot torrents of profanity from his crater. Meantime +Williams sat silent, and apparently deeply and earnestly interested in +what the old man was saying. By and by, when the lull came, he said in +the most deferential way, and with the gratified air of a man who has had +a mystery cleared up which had been puzzling him uncomfortably: + +"Now I understand it. I always thought I knew that piece of history well +enough, but was still afraid to trust it, because there was not that +convincing particularity about it that one likes to have in history; but +when you mentioned every name, the other day, and every date, and every +little circumstance, in their just order and sequence, I said to myself, +this sounds something like--this is history--this is putting it in a +shape that gives a man confidence; and I said to myself afterward, I will +just ask the Admiral if he is perfectly certain about the details, and if +he is I will come out and thank him for clearing this matter up for me. +And that is what I want to do now--for until you set that matter right it +was nothing but just a confusion in my mind, without head or tail to it." + +Nobody ever saw the Admiral look so mollified before, and so pleased. +Nobody had ever received his bogus history as gospel before; its +genuineness had always been called in question either by words or looks; +but here was a man that not only swallowed it all down, but was grateful +for the dose. He was taken a back; he hardly knew what to say; even his +profanity failed him. Now, Williams continued, modestly and earnestly: + +"But Admiral, in saying that this was the first stone thrown, and that +this precipitated the war, you have overlooked a circumstance which you +are perfectly familiar with, but which has escaped your memory. Now I +grant you that what you have stated is correct in every detail--to wit: +that on the 16th of October, 1860, two Massachusetts clergymen, named +Waite and Granger, went in disguise to the house of John Moody, in +Rockport, at dead of night, and dragged forth two southern women and +their two little children, and after tarring and feathering them conveyed +them to Boston and burned them alive in the State House square; and I +also grant your proposition that this deed is what led to the secession +of South Carolina on the 20th of December following. Very well." [Here +the company were pleasantly surprised to hear Williams proceed to come +back at the Admiral with his own invincible weapon--clean, pure, +manufactured history, without a word of truth in it.] "Very well, I say. +But Admiral, why overlook the Willis and Morgan case in South Carolina? +You are too well informed a man not to know all about that circumstance. +Your arguments and your conversations have shown you to be intimately +conversant with every detail of this national quarrel. You develop +matters of history every day that show plainly that you are no smatterer +in it, content to nibble about the surface, but a man who has searched +the depths and possessed yourself of everything that has a bearing upon +the great question. Therefore, let me just recall to your mind that +Willis and Morgan case--though I see by your face that the whole thing is +already passing through your memory at this moment. On the 12th of +August, 1860, two months before the Waite and Granger affair, two South +Carolina clergymen, named John H. Morgan and Winthrop L. Willis, one a +Methodist and the other an Old School Baptist, disguised themselves, and +went at midnight to the house of a planter named Thompson--Archibald F. +Thompson, Vice President under Thomas Jefferson,--and took thence, at +midnight, his widowed aunt, (a Northern woman,) and her adopted child, an +orphan--named Mortimer Highie, afflicted with epilepsy and suffering at +the time from white swelling on one of his legs, and compelled to walk on +crutches in consequence; and the two ministers, in spite of the pleadings +of the victims, dragged them to the bush, tarred and feathered them, and +afterward burned them at the stake in the city of Charleston. You +remember perfectly well what a stir it made; you remember perfectly well +that even the Charleston Courier stigmatized the act as being unpleasant, +of questionable propriety, and scarcely justifiable, and likewise that it +would not be matter of surprise if retaliation ensued. And you remember +also, that this thing was the cause of the Massachusetts outrage. Who, +indeed, were the two Massachusetts ministers? and who were the two +Southern women they burned? I do not need to remind you, Admiral, with +your intimate knowledge of history, that Waite was the nephew of the +woman burned in Charleston; that Granger was her cousin in the second +degree, and that the woman they burned in Boston was the wife of John H. +Morgan, and the still loved but divorced wife of Winthrop L. Willis. +Now, Admiral, it is only fair that you should acknowledge that the first +provocation came from the Southern preachers and that the Northern ones +were justified in retaliating. In your arguments you never yet have +shown the least disposition to withhold a just verdict or be in anywise +unfair, when authoritative history condemned your position, and therefore +I have no hesitation in asking you to take the original blame from the +Massachusetts ministers, in this matter, and transfer it to the South +Carolina clergymen where it justly belongs." + +The Admiral was conquered. This sweet spoken creature who swallowed his +fraudulent history as if it were the bread of life; basked in his furious +blasphemy as if it were generous sunshine; found only calm, even-handed +justice in his rampart partisanship; and flooded him with invented +history so sugarcoated with flattery and deference that there was no +rejecting it, was "too many" for him. He stammered some awkward, profane +sentences about the-----Willis and Morgan business having escaped his +memory, but that he "remembered it now," and then, under pretence of +giving Fan some medicine for an imaginary cough, drew out of the battle +and went away, a vanquished man. Then cheers and laughter went up, and +Williams, the ship's benefactor was a hero. The news went about the +vessel, champagne was ordered, and enthusiastic reception instituted in +the smoking room, and everybody flocked thither to shake hands with the +conqueror. The wheelman said afterward, that the Admiral stood up behind +the pilot house and "ripped and cursed all to himself" till he loosened +the smokestack guys and becalmed the mainsail. + +The Admiral's power was broken. After that, if he began argument, +somebody would bring Williams, and the old man would grow weak and begin +to quiet down at once. And as soon as he was done, Williams in his +dulcet, insinuating way, would invent some history (referring for proof, +to the old man's own excellent memory and to copies of "The Old Guard" +known not to be in his possession) that would turn the tables completely +and leave the Admiral all abroad and helpless. By and by he came to so +dread Williams and his gilded tongue that he would stop talking when he +saw him approach, and finally ceased to mention politics altogether, and +from that time forward there was entire peace and serenity in the ship. + + + + +CHAPTER LXIII. + +On a certain bright morning the Islands hove in sight, lying low on the +lonely sea, and everybody climbed to the upper deck to look. After two +thousand miles of watery solitude the vision was a welcome one. As we +approached, the imposing promontory of Diamond Head rose up out of the +ocean its rugged front softened by the hazy distance, and presently the +details of the land began to make themselves manifest: first the line of +beach; then the plumed coacoanut trees of the tropics; then cabins of the +natives; then the white town of Honolulu, said to contain between twelve +and fifteen thousand inhabitants spread over a dead level; with streets +from twenty to thirty feet wide, solid and level as a floor, most of them +straight as a line and few as crooked as a corkscrew. + +The further I traveled through the town the better I liked it. +Every step revealed a new contrast--disclosed something I was +unaccustomed to. In place of the grand mud-colored brown fronts of +San Francisco, I saw dwellings built of straw, adobies, and cream-colored +pebble-and-shell-conglomerated coral, cut into oblong blocks and laid in +cement; also a great number of neat white cottages, with green +window-shutters; in place of front yards like billiard-tables with iron +fences around them, I saw these homes surrounded by ample yards, thickly +clad with green grass, and shaded by tall trees, through whose dense +foliage the sun could scarcely penetrate; in place of the customary +geranium, calla lily, etc., languishing in dust and general debility, I +saw luxurious banks and thickets of flowers, fresh as a meadow after a +rain, and glowing with the richest dyes; in place of the dingy horrors of +San Francisco's pleasure grove, the "Willows," I saw huge-bodied, +wide-spreading forest trees, with strange names and stranger appearance +--trees that cast a shadow like a thunder-cloud, and were able to stand +alone without being tied to green poles; in place of gold fish, wiggling +around in glass globes, assuming countless shades and degrees of +distortion through the magnifying and diminishing qualities of their +transparent prison houses, I saw cats--Tom-cats, Mary Ann cats, +long-tailed cats, bob-tailed cats, blind cats, one-eyed cats, wall-eyed +cats, cross-eyed cats, gray cats, black cats, white cats, yellow cats, +striped cats, spotted cats, tame cats, wild cats, singed cats, individual +cats, groups of cats, platoons of cats, companies of cats, regiments of +cats, armies of cats, multitudes of cats, millions of cats, and all of +them sleek, fat, lazy and sound asleep. I looked on a multitude of +people, some white, in white coats, vests, pantaloons, even white cloth +shoes, made snowy with chalk duly laid on every morning; but the majority +of the people were almost as dark as negroes--women with comely features, +fine black eyes, rounded forms, inclining to the voluptuous, clad in a +single bright red or white garment that fell free and unconfined from +shoulder to heel, long black hair falling loose, gypsy hats, encircled +with wreaths of natural flowers of a brilliant carmine tint; plenty of +dark men in various costumes, and some with nothing on but a battered +stove-pipe hat tilted on the nose, and a very scant breech-clout; +--certain smoke-dried children were clothed in nothing but sunshine +--a very neat fitting and picturesque apparel indeed. + +In place of roughs and rowdies staring and blackguarding on the corners, +I saw long-haired, saddle-colored Sandwich Island maidens sitting on the +ground in the shade of corner houses, gazing indolently at whatever or +whoever happened along; instead of wretched cobble-stone pavements, I +walked on a firm foundation of coral, built up from the bottom of the sea +by the absurd but persevering insect of that name, with a light layer of +lava and cinders overlying the coral, belched up out of fathomless +perdition long ago through the seared and blackened crater that stands +dead and harmless in the distance now; instead of cramped and crowded +street-cars, I met dusky native women sweeping by, free as the wind, on +fleet horses and astride, with gaudy riding-sashes, streaming like +banners behind them; instead of the combined stenches of Chinadom and +Brannan street slaughter-houses, I breathed the balmy fragrance of +jessamine, oleander, and the Pride of India; in place of the hurry and +bustle and noisy confusion of San Francisco, I moved in the midst of a +Summer calm as tranquil as dawn in the Garden of Eden; in place of the +Golden City's skirting sand hills and the placid bay, I saw on the one +side a frame-work of tall, precipitous mountains close at hand, clad in +refreshing green, and cleft by deep, cool, chasm-like valleys--and in +front the grand sweep of the ocean; a brilliant, transparent green near +the shore, bound and bordered by a long white line of foamy spray dashing +against the reef, and further out the dead blue water of the deep sea, +flecked with "white caps," and in the far horizon a single, lonely sail +--a mere accent-mark to emphasize a slumberous calm and a solitude that +were without sound or limit. When the sun sunk down--the one intruder +from other realms and persistent in suggestions of them--it was tranced +luxury to sit in the perfumed air and forget that there was any world but +these enchanted islands. + +It was such ecstacy to dream, and dream--till you got a bite. + +A scorpion bite. Then the first duty was to get up out of the grass and +kill the scorpion; and the next to bathe the bitten place with alcohol or +brandy; and the next to resolve to keep out of the grass in future. Then +came an adjournment to the bed-chamber and the pastime of writing up the +day's journal with one hand and the destruction of mosquitoes with the +other--a whole community of them at a slap. Then, observing an enemy +approaching,--a hairy tarantula on stilts--why not set the spittoon on +him? It is done, and the projecting ends of his paws give a luminous +idea of the magnitude of his reach. Then to bed and become a promenade +for a centipede with forty-two legs on a side and every foot hot enough +to burn a hole through a raw-hide. More soaking with alcohol, and a +resolution to examine the bed before entering it, in future. Then wait, +and suffer, till all the mosquitoes in the neighborhood have crawled in +under the bar, then slip out quickly, shut them in and sleep peacefully +on the floor till morning. Meantime it is comforting to curse the +tropics in occasional wakeful intervals. + +We had an abundance of fruit in Honolulu, of course. Oranges, +pine-apples, bananas, strawberries, lemons, limes, mangoes, guavas, +melons, and a rare and curious luxury called the chirimoya, which is +deliciousness itself. Then there is the tamarind. I thought tamarinds +were made to eat, but that was probably not the idea. I ate several, and +it seemed to me that they were rather sour that year. They pursed up my +lips, till they resembled the stem-end of a tomato, and I had to take my +sustenance through a quill for twenty-four hours. + +They sharpened my teeth till I could have shaved with them, and gave them +a "wire edge" that I was afraid would stay; but a citizen said "no, it +will come off when the enamel does"--which was comforting, at any rate. +I found, afterward, that only strangers eat tamarinds--but they only eat +them once. + + + + +CHAPTER LXIV. + +In my diary of our third day in Honolulu, I find this: + +I am probably the most sensitive man in Hawaii to-night--especially about +sitting down in the presence of my betters. I have ridden fifteen or +twenty miles on horse-back since 5 P.M. and to tell the honest truth, I +have a delicacy about sitting down at all. + +An excursion to Diamond Head and the King's Coacoanut Grove was planned +to-day--time, 4:30 P.M.--the party to consist of half a dozen gentlemen +and three ladies. They all started at the appointed hour except myself. +I was at the Government prison, (with Captain Fish and another +whaleship-skipper, Captain Phillips,) and got so interested in its +examination that I did not notice how quickly the time was passing. +Somebody remarked that it was twenty minutes past five o'clock, and that +woke me up. It was a fortunate circumstance that Captain Phillips was +along with his "turn out," as he calls a top-buggy that Captain Cook +brought here in 1778, and a horse that was here when Captain Cook came. +Captain Phillips takes a just pride in his driving and in the speed of +his horse, and to his passion for displaying them I owe it that we were +only sixteen minutes coming from the prison to the American Hotel--a +distance which has been estimated to be over half a mile. But it took +some fearful driving. The Captain's whip came down fast, and the blows +started so much dust out of the horse's hide that during the last half of +the journey we rode through an impenetrable fog, and ran by a pocket +compass in the hands of Captain Fish, a whaler of twenty-six years +experience, who sat there through the perilous voyage as self-possessed +as if he had been on the euchre-deck of his own ship, and calmly said, +"Port your helm--port," from time to time, and "Hold her a little free +--steady--so--so," and "Luff--hard down to starboard!" and never once +lost his presence of mind or betrayed the least anxiety by voice or +manner. When we came to anchor at last, and Captain Phillips looked at +his watch and said, "Sixteen minutes--I told you it was in her! that's +over three miles an hour!" I could see he felt entitled to a compliment, +and so I said I had never seen lightning go like that horse. And I never +had. + +The landlord of the American said the party had been gone nearly an hour, +but that he could give me my choice of several horses that could overtake +them. I said, never mind--I preferred a safe horse to a fast one--I +would like to have an excessively gentle horse--a horse with no spirit +whatever--a lame one, if he had such a thing. Inside of five minutes I +was mounted, and perfectly satisfied with my outfit. I had no time to +label him "This is a horse," and so if the public took him for a sheep I +cannot help it. I was satisfied, and that was the main thing. I could +see that he had as many fine points as any man's horse, and so I hung my +hat on one of them, behind the saddle, and swabbed the perspiration from +my face and started. I named him after this island, "Oahu" (pronounced +O-waw-hee). The first gate he came to he started in; I had neither whip +nor spur, and so I simply argued the case with him. He resisted +argument, but ultimately yielded to insult and abuse. He backed out of +that gate and steered for another one on the other side of the street. +I triumphed by my former process. Within the next six hundred yards he +crossed the street fourteen times and attempted thirteen gates, and in +the meantime the tropical sun was beating down and threatening to cave +the top of my head in, and I was literally dripping with perspiration. +He abandoned the gate business after that and went along peaceably +enough, but absorbed in meditation. I noticed this latter circumstance, +and it soon began to fill me with apprehension. I said to my self, this +creature is planning some new outrage, some fresh deviltry or other--no +horse ever thought over a subject so profoundly as this one is doing just +for nothing. The more this thing preyed upon my mind the more uneasy I +became, until the suspense became almost unbearable and I dismounted to +see if there was anything wild in his eye--for I had heard that the eye +of this noblest of our domestic animals is very expressive. + +I cannot describe what a load of anxiety was lifted from my mind when I +found that he was only asleep. I woke him up and started him into a +faster walk, and then the villainy of his nature came out again. He +tried to climb over a stone wall, five or six feet high. I saw that I +must apply force to this horse, and that I might as well begin first as +last. I plucked a stout switch from a tamarind tree, and the moment he +saw it, he surrendered. He broke into a convulsive sort of a canter, +which had three short steps in it and one long one, and reminded me +alternately of the clattering shake of the great earthquake, and the +sweeping plunging of the Ajax in a storm. + +And now there can be no fitter occasion than the present to pronounce a +left-handed blessing upon the man who invented the American saddle. +There is no seat to speak of about it--one might as well sit in a shovel +--and the stirrups are nothing but an ornamental nuisance. If I were to +write down here all the abuse I expended on those stirrups, it would make +a large book, even without pictures. Sometimes I got one foot so far +through, that the stirrup partook of the nature of an anklet; sometimes +both feet were through, and I was handcuffed by the legs; and sometimes +my feet got clear out and left the stirrups wildly dangling about my +shins. Even when I was in proper position and carefully balanced upon +the balls of my feet, there was no comfort in it, on account of my +nervous dread that they were going to slip one way or the other in a +moment. But the subject is too exasperating to write about. + +A mile and a half from town, I came to a grove of tall cocoanut trees, +with clean, branchless stems reaching straight up sixty or seventy feet +and topped with a spray of green foliage sheltering clusters of +cocoa-nuts--not more picturesque than a forest of collossal ragged +parasols, with bunches of magnified grapes under them, would be. + +I once heard a gouty northern invalid say that a cocoanut tree might be +poetical, possibly it was; but it looked like a feather-duster struck by +lightning. I think that describes it better than a picture--and yet, +without any question, there is something fascinating about a cocoa-nut +tree--and graceful, too. + +About a dozen cottages, some frame and the others of native grass, +nestled sleepily in the shade here and there. The grass cabins are of a +grayish color, are shaped much like our own cottages, only with higher +and steeper roofs usually, and are made of some kind of weed strongly +bound together in bundles. The roofs are very thick, and so are the +walls; the latter have square holes in them for windows. At a little +distance these cabins have a furry appearance, as if they might be made +of bear skins. They are very cool and pleasant inside. The King's flag +was flying from the roof of one of the cottages, and His Majesty was +probably within. He owns the whole concern thereabouts, and passes his +time there frequently, on sultry days "laying off." The spot is called +"The King's Grove." + +Near by is an interesting ruin--the meagre remains of an ancient heathen +temple--a place where human sacrifices were offered up in those old +bygone days when the simple child of nature, yielding momentarily to sin +when sorely tempted, acknowledged his error when calm reflection had +shown it him, and came forward with noble frankness and offered up his +grandmother as an atoning sacrifice--in those old days when the luckless +sinner could keep on cleansing his conscience and achieving periodical +happiness as long as his relations held out; long, long before the +missionaries braved a thousand privations to come and make them +permanently miserable by telling them how beautiful and how blissful a +place heaven is, and how nearly impossible it is to get there; and showed +the poor native how dreary a place perdition is and what unnecessarily +liberal facilities there are for going to it; showed him how, in his +ignorance he had gone and fooled away all his kinfolks to no purpose; +showed him what rapture it is to work all day long for fifty cents to buy +food for next day with, as compared with fishing for pastime and lolling +in the shade through eternal Summer, and eating of the bounty that nobody +labored to provide but Nature. How sad it is to think of the multitudes +who have gone to their graves in this beautiful island and never knew +there was a hell! + +This ancient temple was built of rough blocks of lava, and was simply a +roofless inclosure a hundred and thirty feet long and seventy wide +--nothing but naked walls, very thick, but not much higher than a man's +head. They will last for ages no doubt, if left unmolested. Its three +altars and other sacred appurtenances have crumbled and passed away years +ago. It is said that in the old times thousands of human beings were +slaughtered here, in the presence of naked and howling savages. If these +mute stones could speak, what tales they could tell, what pictures they +could describe, of fettered victims writhing under the knife; of massed +forms straining forward out of the gloom, with ferocious faces lit up by +the sacrificial fires; of the background of ghostly trees; of the dark +pyramid of Diamond Head standing sentinel over the uncanny scene, and the +peaceful moon looking down upon it through rifts in the cloud-rack! + +When Kamehameha (pronounced Ka-may-ha-may-ah) the Great--who was a sort +of a Napoleon in military genius and uniform success--invaded this island +of Oahu three quarters of a century ago, and exterminated the army sent +to oppose him, and took full and final possession of the country, he +searched out the dead body of the King of Oahu, and those of the +principal chiefs, and impaled their heads on the walls of this temple. + +Those were savage times when this old slaughter-house was in its prime. +The King and the chiefs ruled the common herd with a rod of iron; made +them gather all the provisions the masters needed; build all the houses +and temples; stand all the expenses, of whatever kind; take kicks and +cuffs for thanks; drag out lives well flavored with misery, and then +suffer death for trifling offences or yield up their lives on the +sacrificial altars to purchase favors from the gods for their hard +rulers. The missionaries have clothed them, educated them, broken up the +tyrannous authority of their chiefs, and given them freedom and the right +to enjoy whatever their hands and brains produce with equal laws for all, +and punishment for all alike who transgress them. The contrast is so +strong--the benefit conferred upon this people by the missionaries is so +prominent, so palpable and so unquestionable, that the frankest +compliment I can pay them, and the best, is simply to point to the +condition of the Sandwich Islanders of Captain Cook's time, and their +condition to-day. + +Their work speaks for itself. + + + + +CHAPTER LXV. + +By and by, after a rugged climb, we halted on the summit of a hill which +commanded a far-reaching view. The moon rose and flooded mountain and +valley and ocean with a mellow radiance, and out of the shadows of the +foliage the distant lights of Honolulu glinted like an encampment of +fireflies. The air was heavy with the fragrance of flowers. The halt +was brief.--Gayly laughing and talking, the party galloped on, and I +clung to the pommel and cantered after. Presently we came to a place +where no grass grew--a wide expanse of deep sand. They said it was an +old battle ground. All around everywhere, not three feet apart, the +bleached bones of men gleamed white in the moonlight. We picked up a lot +of them for mementoes. I got quite a number of arm bones and leg bones +--of great chiefs, may be, who had fought savagely in that fearful battle +in the old days, when blood flowed like wine where we now stood--and wore +the choicest of them out on Oahu afterward, trying to make him go. All +sorts of bones could be found except skulls; but a citizen said, +irreverently, that there had been an unusual number of "skull-hunters" +there lately--a species of sportsmen I had never heard of before. + +Nothing whatever is known about this place--its story is a secret that +will never be revealed. The oldest natives make no pretense of being +possessed of its history. They say these bones were here when they were +children. They were here when their grandfathers were children--but how +they came here, they can only conjecture. Many people believe this spot +to be an ancient battle-ground, and it is usual to call it so; and they +believe that these skeletons have lain for ages just where their +proprietors fell in the great fight. Other people believe that +Kamehameha I. fought his first battle here. On this point, I have heard +a story, which may have been taken from one of the numerous books which +have been written concerning these islands--I do not know where the +narrator got it. He said that when Kamehameha (who was at first merely a +subordinate chief on the island of Hawaii), landed here, he brought a +large army with him, and encamped at Waikiki. The Oahuans marched +against him, and so confident were they of success that they readily +acceded to a demand of their priests that they should draw a line where +these bones now lie, and take an oath that, if forced to retreat at all, +they would never retreat beyond this boundary. The priests told them +that death and everlasting punishment would overtake any who violated the +oath, and the march was resumed. Kamehameha drove them back step by +step; the priests fought in the front rank and exhorted them both by +voice and inspiriting example to remember their oath--to die, if need be, +but never cross the fatal line. The struggle was manfully maintained, +but at last the chief priest fell, pierced to the heart with a spear, and +the unlucky omen fell like a blight upon the brave souls at his back; +with a triumphant shout the invaders pressed forward--the line was +crossed--the offended gods deserted the despairing army, and, accepting +the doom their perjury had brought upon them, they broke and fled over +the plain where Honolulu stands now--up the beautiful Nuuanu Valley +--paused a moment, hemmed in by precipitous mountains on either hand and +the frightful precipice of the Pari in front, and then were driven over +--a sheer plunge of six hundred feet! + +The story is pretty enough, but Mr. Jarves' excellent history says the +Oahuans were intrenched in Nuuanu Valley; that Kamehameha ousted them, +routed them, pursued them up the valley and drove them over the +precipice. He makes no mention of our bone-yard at all in his book. + +Impressed by the profound silence and repose that rested over the +beautiful landscape, and being, as usual, in the rear, I gave voice to my +thoughts. I said: + +"What a picture is here slumbering in the solemn glory of the moon! How +strong the rugged outlines of the dead volcano stand out against the +clear sky! What a snowy fringe marks the bursting of the surf over the +long, curved reef! How calmly the dim city sleeps yonder in the plain! +How soft the shadows lie upon the stately mountains that border the +dream-haunted Mauoa Valley! What a grand pyramid of billowy clouds +towers above the storied Pari! How the grim warriors of the past seem +flocking in ghostly squadrons to their ancient battlefield again--how the +wails of the dying well up from the--" + +At this point the horse called Oahu sat down in the sand. Sat down to +listen, I suppose. Never mind what he heard, I stopped apostrophising +and convinced him that I was not a man to allow contempt of Court on the +part of a horse. I broke the back-bone of a Chief over his rump and set +out to join the cavalcade again. + +Very considerably fagged out we arrived in town at 9 o'clock at night, +myself in the lead--for when my horse finally came to understand that he +was homeward bound and hadn't far to go, he turned his attention strictly +to business. + +This is a good time to drop in a paragraph of information. There is no +regular livery stable in Honolulu, or, indeed, in any part of the Kingdom +of Hawaii; therefore unless you are acquainted with wealthy residents +(who all have good horses), you must hire animals of the wretchedest +description from the Kanakas. (i.e. natives.) Any horse you hire, even +though it be from a white man, is not often of much account, because it +will be brought in for you from some ranch, and has necessarily been +leading a hard life. If the Kanakas who have been caring for him +(inveterate riders they are) have not ridden him half to death every day +themselves, you can depend upon it they have been doing the same thing by +proxy, by clandestinely hiring him out. At least, so I am informed. The +result is, that no horse has a chance to eat, drink, rest, recuperate, or +look well or feel well, and so strangers go about the Islands mounted as +I was to-day. + +In hiring a horse from a Kanaka, you must have all your eyes about you, +because you can rest satisfied that you are dealing with a shrewd +unprincipled rascal. You may leave your door open and your trunk +unlocked as long as you please, and he will not meddle with your +property; he has no important vices and no inclination to commit robbery +on a large scale; but if he can get ahead of you in the horse business, +he will take a genuine delight in doing it. This traits is +characteristic of horse jockeys, the world over, is it not? He will +overcharge you if he can; he will hire you a fine-looking horse at night +(anybody's--may be the King's, if the royal steed be in convenient view), +and bring you the mate to my Oahu in the morning, and contend that it is +the same animal. If you make trouble, he will get out by saying it was +not himself who made the bargain with you, but his brother, "who went out +in the country this morning." They have always got a "brother" to shift +the responsibility upon. A victim said to one of these fellows one day: + +"But I know I hired the horse of you, because I noticed that scar on your +cheek." + +The reply was not bad: "Oh, yes--yes--my brother all same--we twins!" + +A friend of mine, J. Smith, hired a horse yesterday, the Kanaka +warranting him to be in excellent condition. + +Smith had a saddle and blanket of his own, and he ordered the Kanaka to +put these on the horse. The Kanaka protested that he was perfectly +willing to trust the gentleman with the saddle that was already on the +animal, but Smith refused to use it. The change was made; then Smith +noticed that the Kanaka had only changed the saddles, and had left the +original blanket on the horse; he said he forgot to change the blankets, +and so, to cut the bother short, Smith mounted and rode away. The horse +went lame a mile from town, and afterward got to cutting up some +extraordinary capers. Smith got down and took off the saddle, but the +blanket stuck fast to the horse--glued to a procession of raw places. +The Kanaka's mysterious conduct stood explained. + +Another friend of mine bought a pretty good horse from a native, a day or +two ago, after a tolerably thorough examination of the animal. He +discovered today that the horse was as blind as a bat, in one eye. He +meant to have examined that eye, and came home with a general notion that +he had done it; but he remembers now that every time he made the attempt +his attention was called to something else by his victimizer. + +One more instance, and then I will pass to something else. I am informed +that when a certain Mr. L., a visiting stranger, was here, he bought a +pair of very respectable-looking match horses from a native. They were +in a little stable with a partition through the middle of it--one horse +in each apartment. Mr. L. examined one of them critically through a +window (the Kanaka's "brother" having gone to the country with the key), +and then went around the house and examined the other through a window on +the other side. He said it was the neatest match he had ever seen, and +paid for the horses on the spot. Whereupon the Kanaka departed to join +his brother in the country. The fellow had shamefully swindled L. There +was only one "match" horse, and he had examined his starboard side +through one window and his port side through another! I decline to +believe this story, but I give it because it is worth something as a +fanciful illustration of a fixed fact--namely, that the Kanaka +horse-jockey is fertile in invention and elastic in conscience. + +You can buy a pretty good horse for forty or fifty dollars, and a good +enough horse for all practical purposes for two dollars and a half. I +estimate "Oahu" to be worth somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty-five +cents. A good deal better animal than he is was sold here day before +yesterday for a dollar and seventy-five cents, and sold again to-day for +two dollars and twenty-five cents; Williams bought a handsome and lively +little pony yesterday for ten dollars; and about the best common horse on +the island (and he is a really good one) sold yesterday, with Mexican +saddle and bridle, for seventy dollars--a horse which is well and widely +known, and greatly respected for his speed, good disposition and +everlasting bottom. + +You give your horse a little grain once a day; it comes from San +Francisco, and is worth about two cents a pound; and you give him as much +hay as he wants; it is cut and brought to the market by natives, and is +not very good it is baled into long, round bundles, about the size of a +large man; one of them is stuck by the middle on each end of a six foot +pole, and the Kanaka shoulders the pole and walks about the streets +between the upright bales in search of customers. These hay bales, thus +carried, have a general resemblance to a colossal capital 'H.' + +The hay-bundles cost twenty-five cents apiece, and one will last a horse +about a day. You can get a horse for a song, a week's hay for another +song, and you can turn your animal loose among the luxuriant grass in +your neighbor's broad front yard without a song at all--you do it at +midnight, and stable the beast again before morning. You have been at no +expense thus far, but when you come to buy a saddle and bridle they will +cost you from twenty to thirty-five dollars. You can hire a horse, +saddle and bridle at from seven to ten dollars a week, and the owner will +take care of them at his own expense. + +It is time to close this day's record--bed time. As I prepare for sleep, +a rich voice rises out of the still night, and, far as this ocean rock is +toward the ends of the earth, I recognize a familiar home air. But the +words seem somewhat out of joint: + + +"Waikiki lantoni oe Kaa hooly hooly wawhoo." + +Translated, that means "When we were marching through Georgia." + + + + +CHAPTER LXVI. + +Passing through the market place we saw that feature of Honolulu under +its most favorable auspices--that is, in the full glory of Saturday +afternoon, which is a festive day with the natives. The native girls by +twos and threes and parties of a dozen, and sometimes in whole platoons +and companies, went cantering up and down the neighboring streets astride +of fleet but homely horses, and with their gaudy riding habits streaming +like banners behind them. Such a troop of free and easy riders, in their +natural home, the saddle, makes a gay and graceful spectacle. The riding +habit I speak of is simply a long, broad scarf, like a tavern table cloth +brilliantly colored, wrapped around the loins once, then apparently +passed between the limbs and each end thrown backward over the same, and +floating and flapping behind on both sides beyond the horse's tail like a +couple of fancy flags; then, slipping the stirrup-irons between her toes, +the girl throws her chest for ward, sits up like a Major General and goes +sweeping by like the wind. + +The girls put on all the finery they can on Saturday afternoon--fine +black silk robes; flowing red ones that nearly put your eyes out; others +as white as snow; still others that discount the rainbow; and they wear +their hair in nets, and trim their jaunty hats with fresh flowers, and +encircle their dusky throats with home-made necklaces of the brilliant +vermillion-tinted blossom of the ohia; and they fill the markets and the +adjacent street with their bright presences, and smell like a rag factory +on fire with their offensive cocoanut oil. + +Occasionally you see a heathen from the sunny isles away down in the +South Seas, with his face and neck tatooed till he looks like the +customary mendicant from Washoe who has been blown up in a mine. Some +are tattooed a dead blue color down to the upper lip--masked, as it were +--leaving the natural light yellow skin of Micronesia unstained from +thence down; some with broad marks drawn down from hair to neck, on both +sides of the face, and a strip of the original yellow skin, two inches +wide, down the center--a gridiron with a spoke broken out; and some with +the entire face discolored with the popular mortification tint, relieved +only by one or two thin, wavy threads of natural yellow running across +the face from ear to ear, and eyes twinkling out of this darkness, from +under shadowing hat-brims, like stars in the dark of the moon. + +Moving among the stirring crowds, you come to the poi merchants, +squatting in the shade on their hams, in true native fashion, and +surrounded by purchasers. (The Sandwich Islanders always squat on their +hams, and who knows but they may be the old original "ham sandwiches?" +The thought is pregnant with interest.) The poi looks like common flour +paste, and is kept in large bowls formed of a species of gourd, and +capable of holding from one to three or four gallons. Poi is the chief +article of food among the natives, and is prepared from the taro plant. + +The taro root looks like a thick, or, if you please, a corpulent sweet +potato, in shape, but is of a light purple color when boiled. When +boiled it answers as a passable substitute for bread. The buck Kanakas +bake it under ground, then mash it up well with a heavy lava pestle, mix +water with it until it becomes a paste, set it aside and let if ferment, +and then it is poi--and an unseductive mixture it is, almost tasteless +before it ferments and too sour for a luxury afterward. But nothing is +more nutritious. When solely used, however, it produces acrid humors, a +fact which sufficiently accounts for the humorous character of the +Kanakas. I think there must be as much of a knack in handling poi as +there is in eating with chopsticks. The forefinger is thrust into the +mess and stirred quickly round several times and drawn as quickly out, +thickly coated, just as it it were poulticed; the head is thrown back, +the finger inserted in the mouth and the delicacy stripped off and +swallowed--the eye closing gently, meanwhile, in a languid sort of +ecstasy. Many a different finger goes into the same bowl and many a +different kind of dirt and shade and quality of flavor is added to the +virtues of its contents. + +Around a small shanty was collected a crowd of natives buying the awa +root. It is said that but for the use of this root the destruction of +the people in former times by certain imported diseases would have been +far greater than it was, and by others it is said that this is merely a +fancy. All agree that poi will rejuvenate a man who is used up and his +vitality almost annihilated by hard drinking, and that in some kinds of +diseases it will restore health after all medicines have failed; but all +are not willing to allow to the awa the virtues claimed for it. The +natives manufacture an intoxicating drink from it which is fearful in its +effects when persistently indulged in. It covers the body with dry, +white scales, inflames the eyes, and causes premature decripitude. +Although the man before whose establishment we stopped has to pay a +Government license of eight hundred dollars a year for the exclusive +right to sell awa root, it is said that he makes a small fortune every +twelve-month; while saloon keepers, who pay a thousand dollars a year for +the privilege of retailing whiskey, etc., only make a bare living. + +We found the fish market crowded; for the native is very fond of fish, +and eats the article raw and alive! Let us change the subject. + +In old times here Saturday was a grand gala day indeed. All the native +population of the town forsook their labors, and those of the surrounding +country journeyed to the city. Then the white folks had to stay indoors, +for every street was so packed with charging cavaliers and cavalieresses +that it was next to impossible to thread one's way through the cavalcades +without getting crippled. + +At night they feasted and the girls danced the lascivious hula hula--a +dance that is said to exhibit the very perfection of educated notion of +limb and arm, hand, head and body, and the exactest uniformity of +movement and accuracy of "time." It was performed by a circle of girls +with no raiment on them to speak of, who went through an infinite variety +of motions and figures without prompting, and yet so true was their +"time," and in such perfect concert did they move that when they were +placed in a straight line, hands, arms, bodies, limbs and heads waved, +swayed, gesticulated, bowed, stooped, whirled, squirmed, twisted and +undulated as if they were part and parcel of a single individual; and it +was difficult to believe they were not moved in a body by some exquisite +piece of mechanism. + +Of late years, however, Saturday has lost most of its quondam gala +features. This weekly stampede of the natives interfered too much with +labor and the interests of the white folks, and by sticking in a law +here, and preaching a sermon there, and by various other means, they +gradually broke it up. The demoralizing hula hula was forbidden to be +performed, save at night, with closed doors, in presence of few +spectators, and only by permission duly procured from the authorities and +the payment of ten dollars for the same. There are few girls now-a-days +able to dance this ancient national dance in the highest perfection of +the art. + +The missionaries have christianized and educated all the natives. They +all belong to the Church, and there is not one of them, above the age of +eight years, but can read and write with facility in the native tongue. +It is the most universally educated race of people outside of China. +They have any quantity of books, printed in the Kanaka language, and all +the natives are fond of reading. They are inveterate church-goers +--nothing can keep them away. All this ameliorating cultivation has at +last built up in the native women a profound respect for chastity--in +other people. Perhaps that is enough to say on that head. The national +sin will die out when the race does, but perhaps not earlier.--But +doubtless this purifying is not far off, when we reflect that contact +with civilization and the whites has reduced the native population from +four hundred thousand (Captain Cook's estimate,) to fifty-five thousand +in something over eighty years! + +Society is a queer medley in this notable missionary, whaling and +governmental centre. If you get into conversation with a stranger and +experience that natural desire to know what sort of ground you are +treading on by finding out what manner of man your stranger is, strike +out boldly and address him as "Captain." Watch him narrowly, and if you +see by his countenance that you are on the wrong tack, ask him where he +preaches. It is a safe bet that he is either a missionary or captain of +a whaler. I am now personally acquainted with seventy-two captains and +ninety-six missionaries. The captains and ministers form one-half of the +population; the third fourth is composed of common Kanakas and mercantile +foreigners and their families, and the final fourth is made up of high +officers of the Hawaiian Government. And there are just about cats +enough for three apiece all around. + +A solemn stranger met me in the suburbs the other day, and said: + +"Good morning, your reverence. Preach in the stone church yonder, no +doubt?" + +"No, I don't. I'm not a preacher." + +"Really, I beg your pardon, Captain. I trust you had a good season. How +much oil"-- + +"Oil? What do you take me for? I'm not a whaler." + +"Oh, I beg a thousand pardons, your Excellency. + +"Major General in the household troops, no doubt? Minister of the +Interior, likely? Secretary of war? First Gentleman of the Bed-chamber? +Commissioner of the Royal"-- + +"Stuff! I'm no official. I'm not connected in any way with the +Government." + +"Bless my life! Then, who the mischief are you? what the mischief are +you? and how the mischief did you get here, and where in thunder did you +come from?" + +"I'm only a private personage--an unassuming stranger--lately arrived +from America." + +"No? Not a missionary! Not a whaler! not a member of his Majesty's +Government! not even Secretary of the Navy! Ah, Heaven! it is too +blissful to be true; alas, I do but dream. And yet that noble, honest +countenance--those oblique, ingenuous eyes--that massive head, incapable +of--of--anything; your hand; give me your hand, bright waif. Excuse +these tears. For sixteen weary years I have yearned for a moment like +this, and"-- + +Here his feelings were too much for him, and he swooned away. I pitied +this poor creature from the bottom of my heart. I was deeply moved. I +shed a few tears on him and kissed him for his mother. I then took what +small change he had and "shoved". + + + + +CHAPTER LXVII. + +I still quote from my journal: + +I found the national Legislature to consist of half a dozen white men and +some thirty or forty natives. It was a dark assemblage. The nobles and +Ministers (about a dozen of them altogether) occupied the extreme left of +the hall, with David Kalakaua (the King's Chamberlain) and Prince William +at the head. The President of the Assembly, His Royal Highness M. +Kekuanaoa, [Kekuanaoa is not of the blood royal. He derives his princely +rank from his wife, who was a daughter of Kamehameha the Great. Under +other monarchies the male line takes precedence of the female in tracing +genealogies, but here the opposite is the case--the female line takes +precedence. Their reason for this is exceedingly sensible, and I +recommend it to the aristocracy of Europe: They say it is easy to know +who a man's mother was, but, etc., etc.] and the Vice President (the +latter a white man,) sat in the pulpit, if I may so term it. +The President is the King's father. He is an erect, strongly built, +massive featured, white-haired, tawny old gentleman of eighty years of +age or thereabouts. He was simply but well dressed, in a blue cloth coat +and white vest, and white pantaloons, without spot, dust or blemish upon +them. He bears himself with a calm, stately dignity, and is a man of +noble presence. He was a young man and a distinguished warrior under +that terrific fighter, Kamehameha I., more than half a century ago. A +knowledge of his career suggested some such thought as this: "This man, +naked as the day he was born, and war-club and spear in hand, has charged +at the head of a horde of savages against other hordes of savages more +than a generation and a half ago, and reveled in slaughter and carnage; +has worshipped wooden images on his devout knees; has seen hundreds of +his race offered up in heathen temples as sacrifices to wooden idols, at +a time when no missionary's foot had ever pressed this soil, and he had +never heard of the white man's God; has believed his enemy could secretly +pray him to death; has seen the day, in his childhood, when it was a +crime punishable by death for a man to eat with his wife, or for a +plebeian to let his shadow fall upon the King--and now look at him; an +educated Christian; neatly and handsomely dressed; a high-minded, elegant +gentleman; a traveler, in some degree, and one who has been the honored +guest of royalty in Europe; a man practiced in holding the reins of an +enlightened government, and well versed in the politics of his country +and in general, practical information. Look at him, sitting there +presiding over the deliberations of a legislative body, among whom are +white men--a grave, dignified, statesmanlike personage, and as seemingly +natural and fitted to the place as if he had been born in it and had +never been out of it in his life time. How the experiences of this old +man's eventful life shame the cheap inventions of romance!" + +The christianizing of the natives has hardly even weakened some of their +barbarian superstitions, much less destroyed them. I have just referred +to one of these. It is still a popular belief that if your enemy can get +hold of any article belonging to you he can get down on his knees over it +and pray you to death. Therefore many a native gives up and dies merely +because he imagines that some enemy is putting him through a course of +damaging prayer. This praying an individual to death seems absurd enough +at a first glance, but then when we call to mind some of the pulpit +efforts of certain of our own ministers the thing looks plausible. + +In former times, among the Islanders, not only a plurality of wives was +customary, but a plurality of husbands likewise. Some native women of +noble rank had as many as six husbands. A woman thus supplied did not +reside with all her husbands at once, but lived several months with each +in turn. An understood sign hung at her door during these months. When +the sign was taken down, it meant "NEXT." + +In those days woman was rigidly taught to "know her place." Her place +was to do all the work, take all the cuffs, provide all the food, and +content herself with what was left after her lord had finished his +dinner. She was not only forbidden, by ancient law, and under penalty of +death, to eat with her husband or enter a canoe, but was debarred, under +the same penalty, from eating bananas, pine-apples, oranges and other +choice fruits at any time or in any place. She had to confine herself +pretty strictly to "poi" and hard work. These poor ignorant heathen seem +to have had a sort of groping idea of what came of woman eating fruit in +the garden of Eden, and they did not choose to take any more chances. +But the missionaries broke up this satisfactory arrangement of things. +They liberated woman and made her the equal of man. + +The natives had a romantic fashion of burying some of their children +alive when the family became larger than necessary. The missionaries +interfered in this matter too, and stopped it. + +To this day the natives are able to lie down and die whenever they want +to, whether there is anything the matter with them or not. If a Kanaka +takes a notion to die, that is the end of him; nobody can persuade him to +hold on; all the doctors in the world could not save him. + +A luxury which they enjoy more than anything else, is a large funeral. +If a person wants to get rid of a troublesome native, it is only +necessary to promise him a fine funeral and name the hour and he will be +on hand to the minute--at least his remains will. + +All the natives are Christians, now, but many of them still desert to the +Great Shark God for temporary succor in time of trouble. An irruption of +the great volcano of Kilauea, or an earthquake, always brings a deal of +latent loyalty to the Great Shark God to the surface. It is common +report that the King, educated, cultivated and refined Christian +gentleman as he undoubtedly is, still turns to the idols of his fathers +for help when disaster threatens. A planter caught a shark, and one of +his christianized natives testified his emancipation from the thrall of +ancient superstition by assisting to dissect the shark after a fashion +forbidden by his abandoned creed. But remorse shortly began to torture +him. He grew moody and sought solitude; brooded over his sin, refused +food, and finally said he must die and ought to die, for he had sinned +against the Great Shark God and could never know peace any more. He was +proof against persuasion and ridicule, and in the course of a day or two +took to his bed and died, although he showed no symptom of disease. +His young daughter followed his lead and suffered a like fate within the +week. Superstition is ingrained in the native blood and bone and it is +only natural that it should crop out in time of distress. Wherever one +goes in the Islands, he will find small piles of stones by the wayside, +covered with leafy offerings, placed there by the natives to appease evil +spirits or honor local deities belonging to the mythology of former days. + +In the rural districts of any of the Islands, the traveler hourly comes +upon parties of dusky maidens bathing in the streams or in the sea +without any clothing on and exhibiting no very intemperate zeal in the +matter of hiding their nakedness. When the missionaries first took up +their residence in Honolulu, the native women would pay their families +frequent friendly visits, day by day, not even clothed with a blush. +It was found a hard matter to convince them that this was rather +indelicate. Finally the missionaries provided them with long, loose +calico robes, and that ended the difficulty--for the women would troop +through the town, stark naked, with their robes folded under their arms, +march to the missionary houses and then proceed to dress!--The natives +soon manifested a strong proclivity for clothing, but it was shortly +apparent that they only wanted it for grandeur. The missionaries +imported a quantity of hats, bonnets, and other male and female wearing +apparel, instituted a general distribution, and begged the people not to +come to church naked, next Sunday, as usual. And they did not; but the +national spirit of unselfishness led them to divide up with neighbors who +were not at the distribution, and next Sabbath the poor preachers could +hardly keep countenance before their vast congregations. In the midst of +the reading of a hymn a brown, stately dame would sweep up the aisle with +a world of airs, with nothing in the world on but a "stovepipe" hat and a +pair of cheap gloves; another dame would follow, tricked out in a man's +shirt, and nothing else; another one would enter with a flourish, with +simply the sleeves of a bright calico dress tied around her waist and the +rest of the garment dragging behind like a peacock's tail off duty; a +stately "buck" Kanaka would stalk in with a woman's bonnet on, wrong side +before--only this, and nothing more; after him would stride his fellow, +with the legs of a pair of pantaloons tied around his neck, the rest of +his person untrammeled; in his rear would come another gentleman simply +gotten up in a fiery neck-tie and a striped vest. + +The poor creatures were beaming with complacency and wholly unconscious +of any absurdity in their appearance. They gazed at each other with +happy admiration, and it was plain to see that the young girls were +taking note of what each other had on, as naturally as if they had always +lived in a land of Bibles and knew what churches were made for; here was +the evidence of a dawning civilization. The spectacle which the +congregation presented was so extraordinary and withal so moving, that +the missionaries found it difficult to keep to the text and go on with +the services; and by and by when the simple children of the sun began a +general swapping of garments in open meeting and produced some +irresistibly grotesque effects in the course of re-dressing, there was +nothing for it but to cut the thing short with the benediction and +dismiss the fantastic assemblage. + +In our country, children play "keep house;" and in the same high-sounding +but miniature way the grown folk here, with the poor little material of +slender territory and meagre population, play "empire." There is his +royal Majesty the King, with a New York detective's income of thirty or +thirty-five thousand dollars a year from the "royal civil list" and the +"royal domain." He lives in a two-story frame "palace." + +And there is the "royal family"--the customary hive of royal brothers, +sisters, cousins and other noble drones and vagrants usual to monarchy, +--all with a spoon in the national pap-dish, and all bearing such titles as +his or her Royal Highness the Prince or Princess So-and-so. Few of them +can carry their royal splendors far enough to ride in carriages, however; +they sport the economical Kanaka horse or "hoof it" with the plebeians. + +Then there is his Excellency the "royal Chamberlain"--a sinecure, for his +majesty dresses himself with his own hands, except when he is ruralizing +at Waikiki and then he requires no dressing. + +Next we have his Excellency the Commander-in-chief of the Household +Troops, whose forces consist of about the number of soldiers usually +placed under a corporal in other lands. + +Next comes the royal Steward and the Grand Equerry in Waiting--high +dignitaries with modest salaries and little to do. + +Then we have his Excellency the First Gentleman of the Bed-chamber--an +office as easy as it is magnificent. + +Next we come to his Excellency the Prime Minister, a renegade American +from New Hampshire, all jaw, vanity, bombast and ignorance, a lawyer of +"shyster" calibre, a fraud by nature, a humble worshipper of the sceptre +above him, a reptile never tired of sneering at the land of his birth or +glorifying the ten-acre kingdom that has adopted him--salary, $4,000 a +year, vast consequence, and no perquisites. + +Then we have his Excellency the Imperial Minister of Finance, who handles +a million dollars of public money a year, sends in his annual "budget" +with great ceremony, talks prodigiously of "finance," suggests imposing +schemes for paying off the "national debt" (of $150,000,) and does it all +for $4,000 a year and unimaginable glory. + +Next we have his Excellency the Minister of War, who holds sway over the +royal armies--they consist of two hundred and thirty uniformed Kanakas, +mostly Brigadier Generals, and if the country ever gets into trouble with +a foreign power we shall probably hear from them. I knew an American +whose copper-plate visiting card bore this impressive legend: +"Lieutenant-Colonel in the Royal Infantry." To say that he was proud of +this distinction is stating it but tamely. The Minister of War has also +in his charge some venerable swivels on Punch-Bowl Hill wherewith royal +salutes are fired when foreign vessels of war enter the port. + +Next comes his Excellency the Minister of the Navy--a nabob who rules the +"royal fleet," (a steam-tug and a sixty-ton schooner.) + +And next comes his Grace the Lord Bishop of Honolulu, the chief dignitary +of the "Established Church"--for when the American Presbyterian +missionaries had completed the reduction of the nation to a compact +condition of Christianity, native royalty stepped in and erected the +grand dignity of an "Established (Episcopal) Church" over it, and +imported a cheap ready-made Bishop from England to take charge. The +chagrin of the missionaries has never been comprehensively expressed, to +this day, profanity not being admissible. + +Next comes his Excellency the Minister of Public Instruction. + +Next, their Excellencies the Governors of Oahu, Hawaii, etc., and after +them a string of High Sheriffs and other small fry too numerous for +computation. + +Then there are their Excellencies the Envoy Extraordinary and Minister +Plenipotentiary of his Imperial Majesty the Emperor of the French; her +British Majesty's Minister; the Minister Resident, of the United States; +and some six or eight representatives of other foreign nations, all with +sounding titles, imposing dignity and prodigious but economical state. + +Imagine all this grandeur in a play-house "kingdom" whose population +falls absolutely short of sixty thousand souls! + +The people are so accustomed to nine-jointed titles and colossal magnates +that a foreign prince makes very little more stir in Honolulu than a +Western Congressman does in New York. + +And let it be borne in mind that there is a strictly defined "court +costume" of so "stunning" a nature that it would make the clown in a +circus look tame and commonplace by comparison; and each Hawaiian +official dignitary has a gorgeous vari-colored, gold-laced uniform +peculiar to his office--no two of them are alike, and it is hard to tell +which one is the "loudest." The King had a "drawing-room" at stated +intervals, like other monarchs, and when these varied uniforms congregate +there--weak-eyed people have to contemplate the spectacle through smoked +glass. Is there not a gratifying contrast between this latter-day +exhibition and the one the ancestors of some of these magnates afforded +the missionaries the Sunday after the old-time distribution of clothing? +Behold what religion and civilization have wrought! + + + + +CHAPTER LXVIII. + +While I was in Honolulu I witnessed the ceremonious funeral of the King's +sister, her Royal Highness the Princess Victoria. According to the royal +custom, the remains had lain in state at the palace thirty days, watched +day and night by a guard of honor. And during all that time a great +multitude of natives from the several islands had kept the palace grounds +well crowded and had made the place a pandemonium every night with their +howlings and wailings, beating of tom-toms and dancing of the (at other +times) forbidden "hula-hula" by half-clad maidens to the music of songs +of questionable decency chanted in honor of the deceased. The printed +programme of the funeral procession interested me at the time; and after +what I have just said of Hawaiian grandiloquence in the matter of +"playing empire," I am persuaded that a perusal of it may interest the +reader: + + After reading the long list of dignitaries, etc., and remembering + the sparseness of the population, one is almost inclined to wonder + where the material for that portion of the procession devoted to + "Hawaiian Population Generally" is going to be procured: + +Undertaker. +Royal School. Kawaiahao School. Roman Catholic School. Maemae School. +Honolulu Fire Department. +Mechanics' Benefit Union. +Attending Physicians. +Knonohikis (Superintendents) of the Crown Lands, Konohikis of the Private + Lands of His Majesty Konohikis of the Private Lands of Her late Royal +Highness. +Governor of Oahu and Staff. +Hulumanu (Military Company). +Household Troops. +The Prince of Hawaii's Own (Military Company). +The King's household servants. +Servants of Her late Royal Highness. +Protestant Clergy. The Clergy of the Roman Catholic Church. +His Lordship Louis Maigret, The Right Rev. Bishop of Arathea, + Vicar-Apostolic of the Hawaiian Islands. +The Clergy of the Hawaiian Reformed Catholic Church. +His Lordship the Right Rev. Bishop of Honolulu. +Her Majesty Queen Emma's Carriage. +His Majesty's Staff. +Carriage of Her late Royal Highness. +Carriage of Her Majesty the Queen Dowager. +The King's Chancellor. +Cabinet Ministers. +His Excellency the Minister Resident of the United States. +H. B. M's Commissioner. +H. B. M's Acting Commissioner. +Judges of Supreme Court. +Privy Councillors. +Members of Legislative Assembly. +Consular Corps. +Circuit Judges. +Clerks of Government Departments. +Members of the Bar. +Collector General, Custom-house Officers and Officers of the Customs. +Marshal and Sheriffs of the different Islands. +King's Yeomanry. +Foreign Residents. +Ahahui Kaahumanu. +Hawaiian Population Generally. +Hawaiian Cavalry. +Police Force. + +I resume my journal at the point where the procession arrived at the +royal mausoleum: + + As the procession filed through the gate, the military deployed + handsomely to the right and left and formed an avenue through which + the long column of mourners passed to the tomb. The coffin was + borne through the door of the mausoleum, followed by the King and + his chiefs, the great officers of the kingdom, foreign Consuls, + Embassadors and distinguished guests (Burlingame and General Van + Valkenburgh). Several of the kahilis were then fastened to a + frame-work in front of the tomb, there to remain until they decay + and fall to pieces, or, forestalling this, until another scion of + royalty dies. At this point of the proceedings the multitude set + up such a heart-broken wailing as I hope never to hear again. + +The soldiers fired three volleys of musketry--the wailing being +previously silenced to permit of the guns being heard. His Highness +Prince William, in a showy military uniform (the "true prince," this +--scion of the house over-thrown by the present dynasty--he was formerly +betrothed to the Princess but was not allowed to marry her), stood guard +and paced back and forth within the door. The privileged few who +followed the coffin into the mausoleum remained sometime, but the King +soon came out and stood in the door and near one side of it. A stranger +could have guessed his rank (although he was so simply and +unpretentiously dressed) by the profound deference paid him by all +persons in his vicinity; by seeing his high officers receive his quiet +orders and suggestions with bowed and uncovered heads; and by observing +how careful those persons who came out of the mausoleum were to avoid +"crowding" him (although there was room enough in the doorway for a wagon +to pass, for that matter); how respectfully they edged out sideways, +scraping their backs against the wall and always presenting a front view +of their persons to his Majesty, and never putting their hats on until +they were well out of the royal presence. + +He was dressed entirely in black--dress-coat and silk hat--and looked +rather democratic in the midst of the showy uniforms about him. On his +breast he wore a large gold star, which was half hidden by the lapel of +his coat. He remained at the door a half hour, and occasionally gave an +order to the men who were erecting the kahilis [Ranks of long-handled +mops made of gaudy feathers--sacred to royalty. They are stuck in the +ground around the tomb and left there.] before the tomb. He had the +good taste to make one of them substitute black crape for the ordinary +hempen rope he was about to tie one of them to the frame-work with. +Finally he entered his carriage and drove away, and the populace shortly +began to drop into his wake. While he was in view there was but one man +who attracted more attention than himself, and that was Harris (the +Yankee Prime Minister). This feeble personage had crape enough around +his hat to express the grief of an entire nation, and as usual he +neglected no opportunity of making himself conspicuous and exciting the +admiration of the simple Kanakas. Oh! noble ambition of this modern +Richelieu! + +It is interesting to contrast the funeral ceremonies of the Princess +Victoria with those of her noted ancestor Kamehameha the Conqueror, who +died fifty years ago--in 1819, the year before the first missionaries +came. + + "On the 8th of May, 1819, at the age of sixty-six, he died, as he + had lived, in the faith of his country. It was his misfortune not + to have come in contact with men who could have rightly influenced + his religious aspirations. Judged by his advantages and compared + with the most eminent of his countrymen he may be justly styled not + only great, but good. To this day his memory warms the heart and + elevates the national feelings of Hawaiians. They are proud of + their old warrior King; they love his name; his deeds form their + historical age; and an enthusiasm everywhere prevails, shared even + by foreigners who knew his worth, that constitutes the firmest + pillar of the throne of his dynasty. + + "In lieu of human victims (the custom of that age), a sacrifice of + three hundred dogs attended his obsequies--no mean holocaust when + their national value and the estimation in which they were held are + considered. The bones of Kamehameha, after being kept for a while, + were so carefully concealed that all knowledge of their final + resting place is now lost. There was a proverb current among the + common people that the bones of a cruel King could not be hid; they + made fish-hooks and arrows of them, upon which, in using them, they + vented their abhorrence of his memory in bitter execrations." + +The account of the circumstances of his death, as written by the native +historians, is full of minute detail, but there is scarcely a line of it +which does not mention or illustrate some by-gone custom of the country. +In this respect it is the most comprehensive document I have yet met +with. I will quote it entire: + + "When Kamehameha was dangerously sick, and the priests were unable + to cure him, they said: 'Be of good courage and build a house for + the god' (his own private god or idol), that thou mayest recover.' + The chiefs corroborated this advice of the priests, and a place of + worship was prepared for Kukailimoku, and consecrated in the + evening. They proposed also to the King, with a view to prolong his + life, that human victims should be sacrificed to his deity; upon + which the greater part of the people absconded through fear of + death, and concealed themselves in hiding places till the tabu [Tabu + (pronounced tah-boo,) means prohibition (we have borrowed it,) or + sacred. The tabu was sometimes permanent, sometimes temporary; and + the person or thing placed under tabu was for the time being sacred + to the purpose for which it was set apart. In the above case the + victims selected under the tabu would be sacred to the sacrifice] + in which destruction impended, was past. It is doubtful whether + Kamehameha approved of the plan of the chiefs and priests to + sacrifice men, as he was known to say, 'The men are sacred for the + King;' meaning that they were for the service of his successor. + This information was derived from Liholiho, his son. + + "After this, his sickness increased to such a degree that he had not + strength to turn himself in his bed. When another season, + consecrated for worship at the new temple (heiau) arrived, he said + to his son, Liholiho, 'Go thou and make supplication to thy god; I + am not able to go, and will offer my prayers at home.' When his + devotions to his feathered god, Kukailimoku, were concluded, a + certain religiously disposed individual, who had a bird god, + suggested to the King that through its influence his sickness might + be removed. The name of this god was Pua; its body was made of a + bird, now eaten by the Hawaiians, and called in their language alae. + Kamehameha was willing that a trial should be made, and two houses + were constructed to facilitate the experiment; but while dwelling in + them he became so very weak as not to receive food. After lying + there three days, his wives, children and chiefs, perceiving that he + was very low, returned him to his own house. In the evening he was + carried to the eating house, where he took a little food in his + mouth which he did not swallow; also a cup of water. The chiefs + requested him to give them his counsel; but he made no reply, and + was carried back to the dwelling house; but when near midnight--ten + o'clock, perhaps--he was carried again to the place to eat; but, as + before, he merely tasted of what was presented to him. Then + Kaikioewa addressed him thus: 'Here we all are, your younger + brethren, your son Liholiho and your foreigner; impart to us your + dying charge, that Liholiho and Kaahumanu may hear.' Then Kamehameha + inquired, 'What do you say?' Kaikioewa repeated, 'Your counsels for + us.' + + "He then said, 'Move on in my good way and--.' He could proceed no + further. The foreigner, Mr. Young, embraced and kissed him. + Hoapili also embraced him, whispering something in his ear, after + which he was taken back to the house. About twelve he was carried + once more to the house for eating, into which his head entered, + while his body was in the dwelling house immediately adjoining. It + should be remarked that this frequent carrying of a sick chief from + one house to another resulted from the tabu system, then in force. + There were at that time six houses (huts) connected with an + establishment--one was for worship, one for the men to eat in, an + eating house for the women, a house to sleep in, a house in which to + manufacture kapa (native cloth) and one where, at certain intervals, + the women might dwell in seclusion. + + "The sick was once more taken to his house, when he expired; this + was at two o'clock, a circumstance from which Leleiohoku derived his + name. As he breathed his last, Kalaimoku came to the eating house + to order those in it to go out. There were two aged persons thus + directed to depart; one went, the other remained on account of love + to the King, by whom he had formerly been kindly sustained. The + children also were sent away. Then Kalaimoku came to the house, and + the chiefs had a consultation. One of them spoke thus: 'This is my + thought--we will eat him raw. [This sounds suspicious, in view of + the fact that all Sandwich Island historians, white and black, + protest that cannibalism never existed in the islands. However, + since they only proposed to "eat him raw" we "won't count that". + But it would certainly have been cannibalism if they had cooked + him.--M. T.] Kaahumanu (one of the dead King's widows) replied, + 'Perhaps his body is not at our disposal; that is more properly with + his successor. Our part in him--his breath--has departed; his + remains will be disposed of by Liholiho.' + + "After this conversation the body was taken into the consecrated + house for the performance of the proper rites by the priest and the + new King. The name of this ceremony is uko; and when the sacred hog + was baked the priest offered it to the dead body, and it became a + god, the King at the same time repeating the customary prayers. + + "Then the priest, addressing himself to the King and chiefs, said: + 'I will now make known to you the rules to be observed respecting + persons to be sacrificed on the burial of this body. If you obtain + one man before the corpse is removed, one will be sufficient; but + after it leaves this house four will be required. If delayed until + we carry the corpse to the grave there must be ten; but after it is + deposited in the grave there must be fifteen. To-morrow morning + there will be a tabu, and, if the sacrifice be delayed until that + time, forty men must die.' + + "Then the high priest, Hewahewa, inquired of the chiefs, 'Where + shall be the residence of King Liholiho?' They replied, 'Where, + indeed? You, of all men, ought to know.' Then the priest observed, + 'There are two suitable places; one is Kau, the other is Kohala.' + The chiefs preferred the latter, as it was more thickly inhabited. + The priest added, 'These are proper places for the King's residence; + but he must not remain in Kona, for it is polluted.' This was + agreed to. It was now break of day. As he was being carried to the + place of burial the people perceived that their King was dead, and + they wailed. When the corpse was removed from the house to the + tomb, a distance of one chain, the procession was met by a certain + man who was ardently attached to the deceased. He leaped upon the + chiefs who were carrying the King's body; he desired to die with him + on account of his love. The chiefs drove him away. He persisted in + making numerous attempts, which were unavailing. Kalaimoka also had + it in his heart to die with him, but was prevented by Hookio. + + "The morning following Kamehameha's death, Liholiho and his train + departed for Kohala, according to the suggestions of the priest, to + avoid the defilement occasioned by the dead. At this time if a + chief died the land was polluted, and the heirs sought a residence + in another part of the country until the corpse was dissected and + the bones tied in a bundle, which being done, the season of + defilement terminated. If the deceased were not a chief, the house + only was defiled which became pure again on the burial of the body. + Such were the laws on this subject. + + "On the morning on which Liholiho sailed in his canoe for Kohala, + the chiefs and people mourned after their manner on occasion of a + chief's death, conducting themselves like madmen and like beasts. + Their conduct was such as to forbid description; The priests, also, + put into action the sorcery apparatus, that the person who had + prayed the King to death might die; for it was not believed that + Kamehameha's departure was the effect either of sickness or old age. + When the sorcerers set up by their fire-places sticks with a strip + of kapa flying at the top, the chief Keeaumoku, Kaahumaun's brother, + came in a state of intoxication and broke the flag-staff of the + sorcerers, from which it was inferred that Kaahumanu and her friends + had been instrumental in the King's death. On this account they + were subjected to abuse." + +You have the contrast, now, and a strange one it is. This great Queen, +Kaahumanu, who was "subjected to abuse" during the frightful orgies that +followed the King's death, in accordance with ancient custom, afterward +became a devout Christian and a steadfast and powerful friend of the +missionaries. + +Dogs were, and still are, reared and fattened for food, by the natives +--hence the reference to their value in one of the above paragraphs. + +Forty years ago it was the custom in the Islands to suspend all law for a +certain number of days after the death of a royal personage; and then a +saturnalia ensued which one may picture to himself after a fashion, but +not in the full horror of the reality. The people shaved their heads, +knocked out a tooth or two, plucked out an eye sometimes, cut, bruised, +mutilated or burned their flesh, got drunk, burned each other's huts, +maimed or murdered one another according to the caprice of the moment, +and both sexes gave themselves up to brutal and unbridled licentiousness. + +And after it all, came a torpor from which the nation slowly emerged +bewildered and dazed, as if from a hideous half-remembered nightmare. +They were not the salt of the earth, those "gentle children of the sun." + +The natives still keep up an old custom of theirs which cannot be +comforting to an invalid. When they think a sick friend is going to die, +a couple of dozen neighbors surround his hut and keep up a deafening +wailing night and day till he either dies or gets well. No doubt this +arrangement has helped many a subject to a shroud before his appointed +time. + +They surround a hut and wail in the same heart-broken way when its +occupant returns from a journey. This is their dismal idea of a welcome. +A very little of it would go a great way with most of us. + + + + +CHAPTER LXIX. + +Bound for Hawaii (a hundred and fifty miles distant,) to visit the great +volcano and behold the other notable things which distinguish that island +above the remainder of the group, we sailed from Honolulu on a certain +Saturday afternoon, in the good schooner Boomerang. + +The Boomerang was about as long as two street cars, and about as wide as +one. She was so small (though she was larger than the majority of the +inter-island coasters) that when I stood on her deck I felt but little +smaller than the Colossus of Rhodes must have felt when he had a +man-of-war under him. I could reach the water when she lay over under a +strong breeze. When the Captain and my comrade (a Mr. Billings), myself +and four other persons were all assembled on the little after portion of +the deck which is sacred to the cabin passengers, it was full--there was +not room for any more quality folks. Another section of the deck, twice +as large as ours, was full of natives of both sexes, with their customary +dogs, mats, blankets, pipes, calabashes of poi, fleas, and other luxuries +and baggage of minor importance. As soon as we set sail the natives all +lay down on the deck as thick as negroes in a slave-pen, and smoked, +conversed, and spit on each other, and were truly sociable. + +The little low-ceiled cabin below was rather larger than a hearse, and as +dark as a vault. It had two coffins on each side--I mean two bunks. +A small table, capable of accommodating three persons at dinner, stood +against the forward bulkhead, and over it hung the dingiest whale oil +lantern that ever peopled the obscurity of a dungeon with ghostly shapes. +The floor room unoccupied was not extensive. One might swing a cat in +it, perhaps, but not a long cat. The hold forward of the bulkhead had +but little freight in it, and from morning till night a portly old +rooster, with a voice like Baalam's ass, and the same disposition to use +it, strutted up and down in that part of the vessel and crowed. He +usually took dinner at six o'clock, and then, after an hour devoted to +meditation, he mounted a barrel and crowed a good part of the night. +He got hoarser all the time, but he scorned to allow any personal +consideration to interfere with his duty, and kept up his labors in +defiance of threatened diphtheria. + +Sleeping was out of the question when he was on watch. He was a source +of genuine aggravation and annoyance. It was worse than useless to shout +at him or apply offensive epithets to him--he only took these things for +applause, and strained himself to make more noise. Occasionally, during +the day, I threw potatoes at him through an aperture in the bulkhead, but +he only dodged and went on crowing. + +The first night, as I lay in my coffin, idly watching the dim lamp +swinging to the rolling of the ship, and snuffing the nauseous odors of +bilge water, I felt something gallop over me. I turned out promptly. +However, I turned in again when I found it was only a rat. Presently +something galloped over me once more. I knew it was not a rat this time, +and I thought it might be a centipede, because the Captain had killed one +on deck in the afternoon. I turned out. The first glance at the pillow +showed me repulsive sentinel perched upon each end of it--cockroaches as +large as peach leaves--fellows with long, quivering antennae and fiery, +malignant eyes. They were grating their teeth like tobacco worms, and +appeared to be dissatisfied about something. I had often heard that +these reptiles were in the habit of eating off sleeping sailors' toe +nails down to the quick, and I would not get in the bunk any more. I lay +down on the floor. But a rat came and bothered me, and shortly afterward +a procession of cockroaches arrived and camped in my hair. In a few +moments the rooster was crowing with uncommon spirit and a party of fleas +were throwing double somersaults about my person in the wildest disorder, +and taking a bite every time they struck. I was beginning to feel really +annoyed. I got up and put my clothes on and went on deck. + +The above is not overdrawn; it is a truthful sketch of inter-island +schooner life. There is no such thing as keeping a vessel in elegant +condition, when she carries molasses and Kanakas. + +It was compensation for my sufferings to come unexpectedly upon so +beautiful a scene as met my eye--to step suddenly out of the sepulchral +gloom of the cabin and stand under the strong light of the moon--in the +centre, as it were, of a glittering sea of liquid silver--to see the +broad sails straining in the gale, the ship heeled over on her side, the +angry foam hissing past her lee bulwarks, and sparkling sheets of spray +dashing high over her bows and raining upon her decks; to brace myself +and hang fast to the first object that presented itself, with hat jammed +down and coat tails whipping in the breeze, and feel that exhilaration +that thrills in one's hair and quivers down his back bone when he knows +that every inch of canvas is drawing and the vessel cleaving through the +waves at her utmost speed. There was no darkness, no dimness, no +obscurity there. All was brightness, every object was vividly defined. +Every prostrate Kanaka; every coil of rope; every calabash of poi; every +puppy; every seam in the flooring; every bolthead; every object; however +minute, showed sharp and distinct in its every outline; and the shadow of +the broad mainsail lay black as a pall upon the deck, leaving Billings's +white upturned face glorified and his body in a total eclipse. +Monday morning we were close to the island of Hawaii. Two of its high +mountains were in view--Mauna Loa and Hualaiai. + +The latter is an imposing peak, but being only ten thousand feet high is +seldom mentioned or heard of. Mauna Loa is said to be sixteen thousand +feet high. The rays of glittering snow and ice, that clasped its summit +like a claw, looked refreshing when viewed from the blistering climate we +were in. One could stand on that mountain (wrapped up in blankets and +furs to keep warm), and while he nibbled a snowball or an icicle to +quench his thirst he could look down the long sweep of its sides and see +spots where plants are growing that grow only where the bitter cold of +Winter prevails; lower down he could see sections devoted to production +that thrive in the temperate zone alone; and at the bottom of the +mountain he could see the home of the tufted cocoa-palms and other +species of vegetation that grow only in the sultry atmosphere of eternal +Summer. He could see all the climes of the world at a single glance of +the eye, and that glance would only pass over a distance of four or five +miles as the bird flies! + +By and by we took boat and went ashore at Kailua, designing to ride +horseback through the pleasant orange and coffee region of Kona, and +rejoin the vessel at a point some leagues distant. This journey is well +worth taking. The trail passes along on high ground--say a thousand feet +above sea level--and usually about a mile distant from the ocean, which +is always in sight, save that occasionally you find yourself buried in +the forest in the midst of a rank tropical vegetation and a dense growth +of trees, whose great bows overarch the road and shut out sun and sea and +everything, and leave you in a dim, shady tunnel, haunted with invisible +singing birds and fragrant with the odor of flowers. It was pleasant to +ride occasionally in the warm sun, and feast the eye upon the +ever-changing panorama of the forest (beyond and below us), with its many +tints, its softened lights and shadows, its billowy undulations sweeping +gently down from the mountain to the sea. It was pleasant also, at +intervals, to leave the sultry sun and pass into the cool, green depths +of this forest and indulge in sentimental reflections under the +inspiration of its brooding twilight and its whispering foliage. +We rode through one orange grove that had ten thousand tree in it! +They were all laden with fruit. + +At one farmhouse we got some large peaches of excellent flavor. +This fruit, as a general thing, does not do well in the Sandwich Islands. +It takes a sort of almond shape, and is small and bitter. It needs +frost, they say, and perhaps it does; if this be so, it will have a good +opportunity to go on needing it, as it will not be likely to get it. +The trees from which the fine fruit I have spoken of, came, had been +planted and replanted sixteen times, and to this treatment the proprietor +of the orchard attributed his-success. + +We passed several sugar plantations--new ones and not very extensive. +The crops were, in most cases, third rattoons. [NOTE.--The first crop is +called "plant cane;" subsequent crops which spring from the original +roots, without replanting, are called "rattoons."] Almost everywhere on +the island of Hawaii sugar-cane matures in twelve months, both rattoons +and plant, and although it ought to be taken off as soon as it tassels, +no doubt, it is not absolutely necessary to do it until about four months +afterward. In Kona, the average yield of an acre of ground is two tons +of sugar, they say. This is only a moderate yield for these islands, but +would be astounding for Louisiana and most other sugar growing countries. +The plantations in Kona being on pretty high ground--up among the light +and frequent rains--no irrigation whatever is required. + + + + +CHAPTER LXX. + +We stopped some time at one of the plantations, to rest ourselves and +refresh the horses. We had a chatty conversation with several gentlemen +present; but there was one person, a middle aged man, with an absent look +in his face, who simply glanced up, gave us good-day and lapsed again +into the meditations which our coming had interrupted. The planters +whispered us not to mind him--crazy. They said he was in the Islands for +his health; was a preacher; his home, Michigan. They said that if he +woke up presently and fell to talking about a correspondence which he had +some time held with Mr. Greeley about a trifle of some kind, we must +humor him and listen with interest; and we must humor his fancy that this +correspondence was the talk of the world. + +It was easy to see that he was a gentle creature and that his madness had +nothing vicious in it. He looked pale, and a little worn, as if with +perplexing thought and anxiety of mind. He sat a long time, looking at +the floor, and at intervals muttering to himself and nodding his head +acquiescingly or shaking it in mild protest. He was lost in his thought, +or in his memories. We continued our talk with the planters, branching +from subject to subject. But at last the word "circumstance," casually +dropped, in the course of conversation, attracted his attention and +brought an eager look into his countenance. He faced about in his chair +and said: + +"Circumstance? What circumstance? Ah, I know--I know too well. So you +have heard of it too." [With a sigh.] "Well, no matter--all the world +has heard of it. All the world. The whole world. It is a large world, +too, for a thing to travel so far in--now isn't it? Yes, yes--the +Greeley correspondence with Erickson has created the saddest and +bitterest controversy on both sides of the ocean--and still they keep it +up! It makes us famous, but at what a sorrowful sacrifice! I was so +sorry when I heard that it had caused that bloody and distressful war +over there in Italy. It was little comfort to me, after so much +bloodshed, to know that the victors sided with me, and the vanquished +with Greeley.--It is little comfort to know that Horace Greeley is +responsible for the battle of Sadowa, and not me. + +"Queen Victoria wrote me that she felt just as I did about it--she said +that as much as she was opposed to Greeley and the spirit he showed in +the correspondence with me, she would not have had Sadowa happen for +hundreds of dollars. I can show you her letter, if you would like to see +it. But gentlemen, much as you may think you know about that unhappy +correspondence, you cannot know the straight of it till you hear it from +my lips. It has always been garbled in the journals, and even in +history. Yes, even in history--think of it! Let me--please let me, give +you the matter, exactly as it occurred. I truly will not abuse your +confidence." + +Then he leaned forward, all interest, all earnestness, and told his +story--and told it appealingly, too, and yet in the simplest and most +unpretentious way; indeed, in such a way as to suggest to one, all the +time, that this was a faithful, honorable witness, giving evidence in the +sacred interest of justice, and under oath. He said: + +"Mrs. Beazeley--Mrs. Jackson Beazeley, widow, of the village of +Campbellton, Kansas,--wrote me about a matter which was near her heart +--a matter which many might think trivial, but to her it was a thing of +deep concern. I was living in Michigan, then--serving in the ministry. +She was, and is, an estimable woman--a woman to whom poverty and hardship +have proven incentives to industry, in place of discouragements. +Her only treasure was her son William, a youth just verging upon manhood; +religious, amiable, and sincerely attached to agriculture. He was the +widow's comfort and her pride. And so, moved by her love for him, she +wrote me about a matter, as I have said before, which lay near her heart +--because it lay near her boy's. She desired me to confer with +Mr. Greeley about turnips. Turnips were the dream of her child's young +ambition. While other youths were frittering away in frivolous +amusements the precious years of budding vigor which God had given them +for useful preparation, this boy was patiently enriching his mind with +information concerning turnips. The sentiment which he felt toward the +turnip was akin to adoration. He could not think of the turnip without +emotion; he could not speak of it calmly; he could not contemplate it +without exaltation. He could not eat it without shedding tears. All the +poetry in his sensitive nature was in sympathy with the gracious +vegetable. With the earliest pipe of dawn he sought his patch, and when +the curtaining night drove him from it he shut himself up with his books +and garnered statistics till sleep overcame him. On rainy days he sat +and talked hours together with his mother about turnips. When company +came, he made it his loving duty to put aside everything else and +converse with them all the day long of his great joy in the turnip. + +"And yet, was this joy rounded and complete? Was there no secret alloy of +unhappiness in it? Alas, there was. There was a canker gnawing at his +heart; the noblest inspiration of his soul eluded his endeavor--viz: he +could not make of the turnip a climbing vine. Months went by; the bloom +forsook his cheek, the fire faded out of his eye; sighings and +abstraction usurped the place of smiles and cheerful converse. But a +watchful eye noted these things and in time a motherly sympathy unsealed +the secret. Hence the letter to me. She pleaded for attention--she said +her boy was dying by inches. + +"I was a stranger to Mr. Greeley, but what of that? The matter was +urgent. I wrote and begged him to solve the difficult problem if +possible and save the student's life. My interest grew, until it partook +of the anxiety of the mother. I waited in much suspense.--At last the +answer came. + +"I found that I could not read it readily, the handwriting being +unfamiliar and my emotions somewhat wrought up. It seemed to refer in +part to the boy's case, but chiefly to other and irrelevant matters--such +as paving-stones, electricity, oysters, and something which I took to be +'absolution' or 'agrarianism,' I could not be certain which; still, these +appeared to be simply casual mentions, nothing more; friendly in spirit, +without doubt, but lacking the connection or coherence necessary to make +them useful.--I judged that my understanding was affected by my feelings, +and so laid the letter away till morning. + +"In the morning I read it again, but with difficulty and uncertainty +still, for I had lost some little rest and my mental vision seemed +clouded. The note was more connected, now, but did not meet the +emergency it was expected to meet. It was too discursive. It appeared +to read as follows, though I was not certain of some of the words: + + "Polygamy dissembles majesty; extracts redeem polarity; causes + hitherto exist. Ovations pursue wisdom, or warts inherit and + condemn. Boston, botany, cakes, folony undertakes, but who shall + allay? We fear not. Yrxwly, + HEVACE EVEELOJ.' + +"But there did not seem to be a word about turnips. There seemed to be +no suggestion as to how they might be made to grow like vines. There was +not even a reference to the Beazeleys. I slept upon the matter; I ate no +supper, neither any breakfast next morning. So I resumed my work with a +brain refreshed, and was very hopeful. Now the letter took a different +aspect-all save the signature, which latter I judged to be only a +harmless affectation of Hebrew. The epistle was necessarily from Mr. +Greeley, for it bore the printed heading of The Tribune, and I had +written to no one else there. The letter, I say, had taken a different +aspect, but still its language was eccentric and avoided the issue. It +now appeared to say: + + "Bolivia extemporizes mackerel; borax esteems polygamy; sausages + wither in the east. Creation perdu, is done; for woes inherent one + can damn. Buttons, buttons, corks, geology underrates but we shall + allay. My beer's out. Yrxwly, + HEVACE EVEELOJ.' + +"I was evidently overworked. My comprehension was impaired. Therefore I +gave two days to recreation, and then returned to my task greatly +refreshed. The letter now took this form: + + "Poultices do sometimes choke swine; tulips reduce posterity; causes + leather to resist. Our notions empower wisdom, her let's afford + while we can. Butter but any cakes, fill any undertaker, we'll wean + him from his filly. We feel hot. + Yrxwly, HEVACE EVEELOJ.' + +"I was still not satisfied. These generalities did not meet the +question. They were crisp, and vigorous, and delivered with a confidence +that almost compelled conviction; but at such a time as this, with a +human life at stake, they seemed inappropriate, worldly, and in bad +taste. At any other time I would have been not only glad, but proud, to +receive from a man like Mr. Greeley a letter of this kind, and would have +studied it earnestly and tried to improve myself all I could; but now, +with that poor boy in his far home languishing for relief, I had no heart +for learning. + +"Three days passed by, and I read the note again. Again its tenor had +changed. It now appeared to say: + + "Potations do sometimes wake wines; turnips restrain passion; causes + necessary to state. Infest the poor widow; her lord's effects will + be void. But dirt, bathing, etc., etc., followed unfairly, will + worm him from his folly--so swear not. + Yrxwly, HEVACE EVEELOJ.' + +"This was more like it. But I was unable to proceed. I was too much +worn. The word 'turnips' brought temporary joy and encouragement, but my +strength was so much impaired, and the delay might be so perilous for the +boy, that I relinquished the idea of pursuing the translation further, +and resolved to do what I ought to have done at first. I sat down and +wrote Mr. Greeley as follows: + + "DEAR SIR: I fear I do not entirely comprehend your kind note. It + cannot be possible, Sir, that 'turnips restrain passion'--at least + the study or contemplation of turnips cannot--for it is this very + employment that has scorched our poor friend's mind and sapped his + bodily strength.--But if they do restrain it, will you bear with us + a little further and explain how they should be prepared? I observe + that you say 'causes necessary to state,' but you have omitted to + state them. + + "Under a misapprehension, you seem to attribute to me interested + motives in this matter--to call it by no harsher term. But I assure + you, dear sir, that if I seem to be 'infesting the widow,' it is all + seeming, and void of reality. It is from no seeking of mine that I + am in this position. She asked me, herself, to write you. I never + have infested her--indeed I scarcely know her. I do not infest + anybody. I try to go along, in my humble way, doing as near right + as I can, never harming anybody, and never throwing out + insinuations. As for 'her lord and his effects,' they are of no + interest to me. I trust I have effects enough of my own--shall + endeavor to get along with them, at any rate, and not go mousing + around to get hold of somebody's that are 'void.' But do you not + see?--this woman is a widow--she has no 'lord.' He is dead--or + pretended to be, when they buried him. Therefore, no amount of + 'dirt, bathing,' etc., etc., howsoever 'unfairly followed' will be + likely to 'worm him from his folly'--if being dead and a ghost is + 'folly.' Your closing remark is as unkind as it was uncalled for; + and if report says true you might have applied it to yourself, sir, + with more point and less impropriety. + Very Truly Yours, SIMON ERICKSON. + +"In the course of a few days, Mr. Greely did what would have saved a +world of trouble, and much mental and bodily suffering and +misunderstanding, if he had done it sooner. To wit, he sent an +intelligible rescript or translation of his original note, made in a +plain hand by his clerk. Then the mystery cleared, and I saw that his +heart had been right, all the time. I will recite the note in its +clarified form: + + [Translation.] + 'Potatoes do sometimes make vines; turnips remain passive: cause + unnecessary to state. Inform the poor widow her lad's efforts will + be vain. But diet, bathing, etc. etc., followed uniformly, will + wean him from his folly--so fear not. + Yours, HORACE GREELEY.' + +"But alas, it was too late, gentlemen--too late. The criminal delay had +done its work--young Beazely was no more. His spirit had taken its +flight to a land where all anxieties shall be charmed away, all desires +gratified, all ambitions realized. Poor lad, they laid him to his rest +with a turnip in each hand." + +So ended Erickson, and lapsed again into nodding, mumbling, and +abstraction. The company broke up, and left him so.... But they did not +say what drove him crazy. In the momentary confusion, I forgot to ask. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Roughing It, Part 7. +by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROUGHING IT, PART 7. *** + +***** This file should be named 8588.txt or 8588.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/8/5/8/8588/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. |