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Title: Our Hawaii
(Islands and islanders)
Author: Charmian London
Release date: May 25, 2024 [eBook #73699]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: The MacMillan Company, 1917
Credits: Sean, an independent e-book maker in Canada (ttd ali at yahoo com)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OUR HAWAII ***
[Transcriber’s notes:
1. This text is based on the Internet Archive scan with the
identifier “ourhawaiiislands00lond”.
2. Variant spellings and hyphenations are retained throughout; only a
few simple printing errors have been remedied.
3. Italics are indicated _like this_.
4. All but one illustration is a captioned photo or group of photos.
The uncaptioned illustration is a color map of Hawaii. All
illustrations are full-page in the original.
5. The book lacks a clear layout in its use of major headings. All
headings and thought breaks (rows of asterisks) have been retained as
printed (centered or right-aligned). Footnotes are gathered at the end
of sections.]
[Illustration: Young Hawaii]
OUR HAWAII
(Islands and Islanders)
BY
CHARMIAN LONDON
(Mrs. Jack London)
AUTHOR OF “THE LOG OF THE SNARK”
“THE BOOK OF JACK LONDON”
New and Revised Edition
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1922
_All rights reserved_
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Copyright, 1917 and 1922,
By CHARMIAN K. LONDON
Set up and Electrotyped. Published December, 1917
New and Revised Edition; February, 1922
FERRIS PRINTING COMPANY
NEW YORK CITY
TO MY HAWAII
FOREWORD
This book was originally part of the jottings I kept during a two years’
cruise of Jack London and myself in the forty-five-foot ketch _Snark_
into the fabulous South Seas, by way of the Hawaiian Islands. The
seafaring portion of my notes was published in 1915 as “The Log of the
_Snark_.” The record of five months spent in the Paradise of the
Pacific, Hawaii, I made into another book, “Our Hawaii,” issued in 1917.
The present volume is a revision of the other, from which I have
eliminated the bulk of personal memoirs, by now incorporated into my
“Book of Jack London,” a thoroughgoing biography. I have substituted
more detail concerning the Territory of Hawaii, and endeavored to bring
my subject up to date. Also, instead of making an independent work out
of Jack London’s three articles, written in 1916, entitled, “My Hawaiian
Aloha,” I am making them a part of my book, placing them first, because
of their peculiar value with regard to vital points of view on Hawaii.
These articles, published in 1916 in _The Cosmopolitan Magazine_, were
pronounced by one citizen of Honolulu, eminent under more than two forms
of government in the troublous past of the Group, as of a worth to
Hawaii not to be estimated in gold and silver.
“They don’t know what they’ve got!” Jack London said of the American
public, when, in the _Snark_, he made Hawaii his first port of call, and
threw himself into the manifold beauty and wonder of this territory of
Uncle Sam. And “They don’t know what they’ve got,” he repeated to each
new unscrolling of its wonder and beauty during those months of
enjoyment and study of land and people. On his fourth visit, after the
breaking out of the Great War, he amended: “Because they have no other
place to go, they are just beginning to realize what they’ve got.”
The knowledge of the average American is woefully scant concerning this
islands possession, and woefully he distorts its very name, in
conversation and song, into something like Haw-way’-ah. To an adept in
the musical language there are fine nuances in the vowelly word; but
simple Hah-wy’-ee serves well.
What does the average middle-aged American know of the amazing history
of this amazing “native” people who vote as American citizens and sit in
the seats of government? The name Hawaii calls to memory vague dots on a
map of the Pacific Ocean, bearing a vaguely gastronomic caption that in
no wise reminds him of the Earl of Sandwich, Lord of the British
Admiralty, and patron of the intrepid discoverer, Captain Cook, whose
valiant bones even now rest on the Kona Coast. Savage, remote, alluring,
adventurous, are the impressions. Few have grasped the fact that that
pure Polynesian, Kamehameha I, the Charlemagne of Hawaii, deserves to
rank as one of the most remarkable figures of all time for his
revolutionary genius, unaided by outland influences. Dying in 1819,
little more than a year before the first missionaries sailed from
Boston, he had fought his way to the consolidation under one government
of the group of eight islands, ended feudal monarchy, abolished
idolatry, and all unknowing made land and inhabitants ripe for Christian
civilization and exploitation.
Of the many whom I have questioned, only one ever heard that, even
previous to the discovery of gold in California and the starting of our
forbears over the Plains by ox-team or across the Isthmus of Panama,
early settlers in California were sending their children to the
excellent missionary schools of these isles of inconsequential name.
Also they imported their wheat from the same “savage” strand.
In this my journal, covering those few months spent a decade ago in
Hawaii, concluding with a resume of experiences there in 1915, 1916,
1919 and 1920, I have tried to limn a picture of the charm of the
Hawaiian Islander as he was, and of his becoming, together with the
enchantment of his lofty isles and their abundant hospitality.
Men will continue to sorrow because circumstances may hold them from
exploring the South Pacific; meantime they neglect the romance and
loveliness that is close at hand, less than a week’s voyage from the
mainland.
Charmian London.
Jack London Ranch,
Glen Ellen, California.
1921.
ILLUSTRATIONS
Young Hawaii Frontispiece
Facing page
Map: Hawaii. 1
(1) The Peninsula. (2) The Bungalow. (3) The _Snark_, and 24
the Owner Ashore.
(1) Damon Gardens, Honolulu. (2) Rice Fields on Kauai. 50
(1) Working Garb in Elysium. (2) Duke Kahanamoku, 1915. 74
(1) Old Hawaiian. (2) The Sudden Vision. (3) The Mirrored 96
Mountains. (Painting by Hitchcock)
(1) Diamond Head. (2) A Pair of Jacks—Atkinson and London. 116
(3) Ahiumanu.
(1) Princess Likelike (Mrs. Cleghorn). (2) Princess 138
Victoria Kaiulani. (3) Kaiulani at Ainahau. (4)
“Kaiulani’s Banyan.”
(1) Landing at Kalaupapa, 1907. (2) The Forbidden Pali 162
Trail, 1907. (3) Coast of Molokai—Federal Leprosarium on
Shore. (4) American-Hawaiian. (5) Father Damien’s Grave,
1907.
(1) Hana. (2) The Ruin of Haleakala. (3) Von and Kakina. 184
(1) Prince Cupid. (2) Original “Monument.” (3) The 202
Prince’s Canoe. (4) At Keauhou, Preparing the Feast. (5)
Jack at Cook Monument. (6) King Kalakaua and Robert
Louis Stevenson. (7) Kealakekua Bay—Captain Cook
Monument at +.
(1) Where the Queen Composed “Aloha Oe.” (2) A 224
Hair-raising Bridge on the Ditch Trail. (3) A
Characteristic Mountain Trail in Hawaii.
(1) Iao Valley, Island of Maui. (2) Rainbow Falls, Hawaii. 246
(1) Alika Lava Flow, 1919. (2) Pit of Halemaumau. 272
(1) Kahilis at Funeral of Prince David Kawananakoa. (2) 294
Kamehameha the Great. (3) and (4) Sports of Kings.
(1) Jack and Charmian London, Waikiki. (2) A Race Around 316
Oahu. (3) Sailor Jack Aboard the Hawaii. (4)
Pa’-u-Rider.
(1) Queen Lydia Kamakaeha Liliuokalani. (2) Governor John 336
Owen Dominis, the Queen’s Consort. (3) A Honolulu
Garden—Residence of Queen Emma.
[Illustration: Map of Hawaii]
OUR HAWAII
MY HAWAIIAN ALOHA
THREE ARTICLES BY JACK LONDON
PART ONE
Once upon a time, only the other day, when jovial King Kalakaua
established a record for the kings of earth and time, there entered into
his Polynesian brain as merry a scheme of international intrigue as ever
might have altered the destiny of races and places. The time was 1881;
the place of the intrigue, the palace of the Mikado at Tokio. The record
must not be omitted, for it was none other than that for the first time
in the history of kings and of the world a reigning sovereign, in his
own royal person, put a girdle around the earth.
The intrigue? It was certainly as international as any international
intrigue could be. Also, it was equally as dark, while it was precisely
in alignment with the future conflicting courses of empires. Manifest
destiny was more than incidentally concerned. When the manifest
destinies of two dynamic races move on ancient and immemorial lines
toward each other from east to west and west to east along the same
parallels of latitude, there is an inevitable point on the earth’s
surface where they will collide. In this case, the races were the
Anglo-Saxon (represented by the Americans), and the Mongolian
(represented by the Japanese). The place was Hawaii, the lovely and
lovable, beloved of countless many as “Hawaii Nei.”
Kalakaua, despite his merriness, foresaw clearly, either that the United
States would absorb Hawaii, or that, allied by closest marital ties to
the royal house of the Rising Sun, Hawaii could be a brother kingdom in
an empire. That he saw clearly, the situation to-day attests. Hawaii Nei
is a territory of the United States. There are more Japanese resident in
Hawaii at the present time than are resident other nationalities, not
even excepting the native Hawaiians.
The figures are eloquent. In round numbers, there are twenty-five
thousand pure Hawaiians, twenty-five thousand various Caucasians,
twenty-three thousand Portuguese, twenty-one thousand Chinese, fifteen
thousand Filipinos, a sprinkling of many other breeds, an amazing
complexity of intermingled breeds, and ninety thousand Japanese. And,
most amazingly eloquent of all statistics are those of the race purity
of the Japanese mating. In the year 1914, the Registrar General is
authority for the statements that one American male and one Spanish male
respectively married Japanese females, that one Japanese male married a
Hapa-Haole, or Caucasian-Hawaiian female, and that three Japanese males
married pure Hawaiian females. When it comes to an innate antipathy
toward mongrelization, the dominant national in Hawaii, the Japanese,
proves himself more jealously exclusive by far than any other national.
Omitting the records of all the other nationals which go to make up the
amazing mongrelization of races in this smelting pot of the races, let
the record of pure-blood Americans be cited. In the same year of 1914,
the Registrar General reports that of American males who intermingled
their breed and seed with alien races, eleven married pure Hawaiians,
twenty-five married Caucasian-Hawaiians, three married pure Chinese,
four married Chinese-Hawaiians, and one married a pure Japanese. To sum
the same thing up with a cross bearing: in the same year 1914, of over
eighteen hundred Japanese women who married, only two married outside
their race; of over eight hundred pure Caucasian women who married, over
two hundred intermingled their breed and seed with races alien to their
own. Reduced to decimals, of the females who went over the fence of race
to secure fathers for their children, .25 of pure Caucasian women were
guilty; .0014 of Japanese women were guilty—in vulgar fraction, one out
of four[1] Caucasian women; one out of one thousand Japanese women.
King Kalakaua, at the time he germinated his idea, was the royal guest
of the Mikado in a special palace which was all his to lodge in, along
with his suite. But Kalakaua was resolved upon an international intrigue
which was, to say the least, ethnologically ticklish; while his suite
consisted of two Americans, one, Colonel C. H. Judd, his Chamberlain,
the other, Mr. William N. Armstrong, his Attorney-General. They
represented one of the race manifest destinies, and he knew it would
never do for them to know what he had up his kingly sleeve. So, on this
day in 1881, he gave them the royal slip, sneaked out of the palace the
back way, and hied him to the Mikado’s palace.
All of which, between kings, is a very outré thing to do. But what was
mere etiquette between kings?—Kalakaua reasoned. Besides, Kalakaua was
a main-traveled sovereign and a very cosmopolitan through contact with
all sorts and conditions of men at the feasting board under the ringing
grass-thatched roof of the royal canoe house at Honolulu, while the
Mikado had never been off his tight little island. Of course, the Mikado
was surprised at this unannounced and entirely unceremonious afternoon
call. But not for nothing was he the Son of Heaven, equipped with all
the perfection of gentleness that belongs to a much longer than a
nine-hundred-years-old name. To his dying day Kalakaua never dreamed of
the _faux pas_ he committed that day in 1881.
He went directly to the point, exposited the manifest destinies moving
from east to west and west to east, and proposed no less than that an
imperial prince of the Mikado’s line should espouse the Princess
Kaiulani of Hawaii. He assured this delicate, hot-house culture of a man
whose civilization was already a dim and distant achievement at the time
Kalakaua’s forebears were on the perilous and savage Polynesian
canoe-drift over the Pacific ere ever they came to colonize Hawaii—this
pallid palace flower of a monarch did he assure that the Princess
Kaiulani was some princess. And in this Kalakaua made no mistake. She
was all that he could say of her, and more. Not alone was she the most
refined and peach-blow blossom of a woman that Hawaii had ever produced,
to whom connoisseurs of beauty and of spirit like Robert Louis Stevenson
had bowed knee and head and presented with poems and pearls; but she was
Kalakaua’s own niece and heir to the throne of Hawaii. Thus, the
Americans, moving westward would be compelled to stop on the far shore
of the Pacific; while Hawaii, taken under Japan’s wing, would become the
easterly outpost of Japan.
Kalakaua died without knowing how clearly he foresaw the trend of
events. To-day the United States possesses Hawaii, which, in turn, is
populated by more Japanese than by any other nationality. Practically
every second person in the island is a Japanese, and the Japanese are
breeding true to pure race lines while all the others are cross-breeding
to an extent that would be a scandal on any stock farm.
Fortunately for the United States, the Mikado reflected. Because he
reflected, Hawaii to-day is not a naval base for Japan and a menace to
the United States. The _haoles_, or whites, overthrew the Hawaiian
Monarchy, formed the Dole Republic, and shortly thereafter brought their
loot in under the sheltering folds of the Stars and Stripes. There is
little use to balk at the word “loot.” The white man is the born looter.
And just as the North American Indian was looted of his continent by the
white man, so was the Hawaiian looted by the white men of his islands.
Such things be. They are morally indefensible. As facts they are
irrefragable—as irrefragable as the facts that water drowns, that frost
bites, and that fire incinerates.
And let this particular haole who writes these lines here and now
subscribe his joy and gladness in the Hawaiian loot. Of all places of
beauty and joy under the sun—but there, I was born in California, which
is no mean place in itself, and it would be more meet to let some of the
talking be done by the Hawaii-born, both Polynesian and haole. First of
all, the Hawaii-born, unlike the Californian, does not talk big. “When
you come down to the Islands you must visit us,” he will say; “we’ll
give you a good time.” That’s all. No swank. Just like an invitation to
dinner. And after the visit is accomplished you will confess to yourself
that you never knew before what a good time was, and that for the first
time you have learned the full alphabet of hospitality. There is nothing
like it. The Hawaii-born won’t tell you about it. He just does it.
Said Ellis, nearly a century ago, in his _Polynesian Researches_: “On
the arrival of strangers, every man endeavored to obtain one as a friend
and carry him off to his own habitation, where he is treated with the
greatest kindness by the inhabitants of the district; they place him on
a high seat and feed him with abundance of the finest food.”
Such was Captain Cook’s experience when he discovered Hawaii, and
despite what happened to him because of his abuse of so fine
hospitality, the same hospitality has persisted in the Hawaiians of this
day. Oh, please make no mistake. No longer, as he lands, will the latest
beach-comber, whaleship deserter, or tourist, be carried up among the
palms by an enthusiastic and loving population and be placed in the high
seat. When, in a single week to-day, a dozen steamships land thousands
of tourists, the impossibility of such lavishness of hospitality is
understandable. It can’t be done.
But—the old hospitality holds. Come with your invitations, or letters
of introduction, and you will find yourself immediately instated in the
high seat of abundance. Or, come uninvited, without credentials, merely
stay a real, decent while, and yourself be “good,” and make good the
good in you—but, oh, softly, and gently, and sweetly, and manly, and
womanly—and you will slowly steal into the Hawaiian heart, which is all
of softness, and gentleness, and sweetness, and manliness, and
womanliness, and one day, to your own vast surprise, you will find
yourself seated in a high place of hospitableness than which there is
none higher on this earth’s surface. You will have loved your way there,
and you will find it the abode of love.
Nor is that all. Since I, as an attestant, am doing the talking, let me
be forgiven my first-person intrusions. Detesting the tourist route, as
a matter of private whim or quirk of temperament, nevertheless I have
crossed the tourist route in many places over the world and know
thoroughly what I am talking about. And I can and do aver, that, in this
year 1916, I know of no place where the unheralded and uncredentialed
tourist, if he is anything of anything in himself, so quickly finds
himself among friends as here in Hawaii. Let me add: I know of no people
in any place who have been stung more frequently and deeply by chance
visitors than have the people of Hawaii. Yet the old heart and _hale_
(house) hospitality holds. The Hawaii-born is like the leopard; spotted
for good or ill, neither can change his spots.
Why, only last evening I was talking with an Hawaii matron—how shall I
say?—one of the first ladies. Her and her husband’s trip to Japan for
Cherry Blossom Time was canceled for a year. Why? She had received a
wireless from a steamer which had already sailed from San Francisco,
from a girl friend, a new bride, who was coming to partake of a
generally extended hospitality of several years before. “But why give up
your own good time?” I said; “turn your house and servants over to the
young couple and you go on your own trip just the same.” “But that would
never do,” said she. That was all. She had no thought of house and
servants. She had once offered her hospitality. She must be there, on
the spot, in heart and _hale_ and person. And she, island-born, had
always traveled east to the States and to Europe, while this was her
first and long anticipated journey west to the Orient. But that she
should be remiss in the traditional and trained and innate hospitality
of Hawaii was unthinkable. Of course she would remain. What else could
she do?
Oh, what’s the use? I was going to make the Hawaii-born talk. They
won’t. They can’t. I shall have to go on and do all the talking myself.
They are poor boosters. They even try to boost, on occasion; but the
latest steamship and railroad publicity agent from the mainland will
give them cards and spades and talk all around them when it comes to
describing what Hawaii so beautifully and charmingly is. Take
surf-boarding, for instance. A California real estate agent, with that
one asset, could make the burnt, barren heart of Sahara into an oasis
for kings. Not only did the Hawaii-born not talk about it, but they
forgot about it. Just as the sport was at its dying gasp, along came
one, Alexander Ford, from the mainland. And he talked. Surf-boarding was
the sport of sports. There was nothing like it anywhere else in the
world. They ought to be ashamed for letting it languish. It was one of
the Island’s assets, a drawing card for travelers that would fill their
hotels and bring them many permanent residents, etc., etc.
He continued to talk, and the Hawaii-born smiled. “What are you going to
do about it?” they said, when he button-holed them into corners. “This
is just talk, you know, just a line of talk.”
“I’m not going to do anything except talk,” Ford replied. “It’s you
fellows who’ve got to do the doing.”
And all was as he said. And all of which I know for myself, at first
hand, for I lived on Waikiki Beach at the time in a tent where stands
the Outrigger Club to-day—twelve hundred members, with hundreds more on
the waiting list, and with what seems like half a mile of surf-board
lockers.
“Oh, yes,—there’s fishing in the Islands,” has been the customary
manner of the Hawaii-born’s talk, when on the mainland or in Europe.
“Come down some time and we’ll take you fishing.”—Just the same casual
dinner sort of an invitation to take pot luck. And, if encouraged, he
will go on and describe with antiquarian detail, how, in the good old
days, the natives wove baskets and twisted fish lines that lasted a
century from the fibers of a plant that grew only in the spray of the
waterfall; or cleared the surface of the water with a spread of the oil
of the kukui nut and caught squid with bright cowrie shells tied fast on
the end of a string; or, fathoms deep, in the caves of the coral-cliffs,
encountered the octopus and bit him to death with their teeth in the
soft bone between his eyes above his parrot-beak.
Meanwhile these are the glad young days of new-fangled ways of
fish-catching in which the Hawaii-born’s auditor is interested; and
meanwhile, from Nova Scotia to Florida and across the Gulf sea shore to
the coast of California, a thousand railroads, steamship lines,
promotion committees, boards of trade, and real estate agents are
booming the tarpon and the tuna that may occasionally be caught in their
adjacent waters.
And all the time, though the world is just coming to learn of it, the
one unchallengeable paradise for big-game-fishing is Hawaii. First of
all, there are the fish. And they are all the year round, in amazing
variety and profusion. The United States Fish Commission, without
completing the task, has already described 447 distinct species,
exclusive of the big, deep-sea game-fish. It is a matter of taking any
day and any choice, from harpooning sharks to shooting flying-fish—like
quail—with shotguns, or taking a stab at a whale, or trapping a
lobster. One can fish with barbless hooks and a six-pound sinker at the
end of a drop-line off Molokai in forty fathoms of water and catch at a
single session, a miscellany as generous as to include: the six to eight
pound _moelua_, the fifteen pound _upakapaka_, the ten-pound _lehe_, the
_kawelea_ which is first cousin to the “barricoot,” the _hapuupuu_, the
_awaa_, and say, maybe, the toothsome and gamy _kahala mokulaie_. And
the bait one will use on his forty-fathom line will be the fish called
the _opelu_, which, in turn, is caught with a bait of crushed pumpkin.
But let not the light-tackle sportsman be dismayed by the foregoing
description of such crass, gross ways of catching unthinkable and
unpronounceable fish. Let him take a six ounce tip and a nine-thread
line and essay one of Hawaii’s black sea bass. They catch them here
weighing over six hundred pounds, and they certainly do run bigger than
do those in the kelp beds off Southern California. Does the light-tackle
man want tarpon? He will find them here as gamy and as large as in
Florida, and they will leap in the air—ware slack!—like range mustangs
to fling the hook clear.
Nor has the tale begun. Of the barracuda, Hawaiian waters boast twenty
species, sharp-toothed, voracious, running to a fathom and even more in
length, and, unlike the Florida barracuda, traveling in schools. There
are the albacore and the dolphin—no mean fish for light tackle; to say
nothing of the ocean bonita and the California bonita. There is the
_ulua_ pound for pound the gamest salt-water fish that ever tried a rod;
and there is the _ono_, half way a swordfish, called by the ancient
Hawaiians the father of the mackerel. Also, there is the swordfish, at
which light-tackle men have never been known to sneer—after they had
once hooked one. The swordfish of Hawaii, known by its immemorial native
name of _a’u_, averages from three to four hundred pounds, although they
have been caught between six and seven hundred pounds, sporting swords
five feet and more in length. And not least are those two cousins of the
amber jack of Florida, the yellow tail and the amber fish, named by
Holder as the fish of Southern California par excellence and by him
described for their beauty and desperateness in putting up a fight.
And the tuna must not be omitted, or, at any rate, the _thunnus
thynnus_, the _thunnus alalonsa_, and the _thunnus macrapterus_, so
called by the scientists, but known by the Hawaiians under the generic
name of _ahi_, and, by light-tackle men as the leaping tuna, the
long-fin tuna, and the yellow-fin tuna. In the past two months, Messrs.
Jump, Burnham and Morris, from the mainland, seem to have broken every
world record in the tuna line. They had to come to Hawaii to do it, but,
once here, they did it easily, even if Morris did break a few ribs in
the doing of it. Just the other day, on their last trip, Mr. Jump landed
a sixty-seven pound yellow-fin on a nine-thread line, and Mr. Morris
similarly a fifty-five pound one. The record for Catalina is fifty-one
pounds. Pshaw! Let this writer from California talk big, after the
manner of his home state, and still keep within the truth. A yellow-fin
tuna, recently landed out of Hawaiian waters and sold on the Honolulu
market, weighed two hundred and eighty-seven pounds.
-----
[1] Statistics compiled in 1921 by the Bishop Museum, of Honolulu, show
that one out of every six women of Caucasian birth in the Territory of
Hawaii marries a Hawaiian or part-Hawaiian; and other figures prove that
a large percentage of part-Hawaiian women marry either Hawaiians or
part-Hawaiians. Still another large proportion marries Caucasians or
Chinese. Further, the figures illustrate that the new stock is better
able to withstand disease and is, in that sense, more vigorous than its
Hawaiian ancestors, as well as more prolific. It is the creation of a
new race, strong, virile, and productive; while the pure-blooded
Hawaiians steadily decrease in numbers.
PART TWO
Hawaii is the home of shanghaied men and women, and of the descendants
of shanghaied men and women. They never intended to be here at all. Very
rarely, since the first whites came, has one, with the deliberate plan
of coming to remain, remained. Somehow, the love of the Islands, like
the love of a woman, just happens. One cannot determine in advance to
love a particular woman, nor can one so determine to love Hawaii. One
sees, and one loves or does not love. With Hawaii it seems always to be
love at first sight. Those for whom the Islands were made, or who were
made for the Islands, are swept off their feet in the first moments of
meeting, embrace, and are embraced.
I remember a dear friend who resolved to come to Hawaii and make it his
home forever. He packed up his wife, all his belongings including his
garden hose and rake and hoe, said “Goodbye, proud California,” and
departed. Now he was a poet, with an eye and soul for beauty, and it was
only to be expected that he would lose his heart to Hawaii as Mark Twain
and Stevenson and Stoddard had before him. So he came, with his wife and
garden hose and rake and hoe. Heaven alone knows what preconceptions he
must have entertained. But the fact remains that he found naught of
beauty and charm and delight. His stay in Hawaii, brief as it was, was a
hideous nightmare. In no time he was back in California. To this day he
speaks with plaintive bitterness of his experience, although he never
mentions what became of his garden hose and rake and hoe. Surely the
soil could not have proved niggardly to him!
Otherwise was it with Mark Twain, who wrote of Hawaii long after his
visit: “No alien land in all the world has any deep, strong charm for me
but that one; no other land could so longingly and beseechingly haunt me
sleeping and waking, through half a lifetime, as that one has done.
Other things leave me, but it abides; other things change, but it
remains the same. For me its balmy airs are always blowing, its summer
seas flashing in the sun; the pulsing of its surf-beat is in my ears; I
can see its garlanded crags, its leaping cascades, its plumy palms
drowsing by the shore, its remote summits floating like islands above
the cloudrack; I can feel the spirit of its woodland solitudes; I can
hear the plash of its brooks; in my nostrils still lives the breath of
flowers that perished twenty years ago.”
One reads of the first Chief Justice under the Kamehamehas, that he was
on his way around the Horn to Oregon when he was persuaded to remain in
Hawaii. Truly, Hawaii is a woman beautiful and vastly more persuasive
and seductive than her sister sirens of the sea.
The sailor boy, Archibald Scott Cleghorn, had no intention of leaving
his ship; but he looked upon the Princess Likelike, the Princess
Likelike looked on him, and he remained to become the father of the
Princess Kaiulani and to dignify a place of honor through long years. He
was not the first sailor boy to leave his ship, nor the last. One of the
recent ones, whom I know well, arrived several years ago on a yacht in a
yacht race from the mainland. So brief was his permitted vacation from
his bank cashiership that he had planned to return by fast steamer. He
is still here. The outlook is that his children and his grand-children
after him will be here.
Another erstwhile bank cashier is Louis von Tempsky, the son of the last
British officer killed in the Maori War. His New Zealand bank gave him a
year’s vacation. The one place he wanted to see above all others was
California. He departed. His ship stopped at Hawaii. It was the same old
story. The ship sailed on without him. His New Zealand bank never saw
him again, and many years passed ere ever he saw California. But she had
no charms for him. And to-day, his sons and daughters about him, he
looks down on half a world and all of Maui from the rolling grasslands
of the Haleakala Ranch.
There were the Gays and Robinsons. Scotch pioneers over the world in the
good old days when families were large and patriarchial, they had
settled in New Zealand. After a time they decided to migrate to British
Columbia. Among their possessions was a full-rigged ship, of which one
of their sons was master. Like my poet friend from California, they
packed all their property on board. But in place of his garden hose and
rake and hoe, they took their plows and harrows and all their
agricultural machinery. Also, they took their horses and their cattle
and their sheep. When they arrived in British Columbia they would be in
shape to settle immediately, break the soil, and not miss a harvest. But
the ship, as was the custom in the sailing-ship days, stopped at Hawaii
for water and fruit and vegetables. The Gays and Robinsons are still
here, or, rather, their venerable children, and younger grandchildren
and great grandchildren; for Hawaii, like the Princess Likelike, put her
arms around them, and it was love at first sight. They took up land on
Kauai and Niihau, the ninety-seven square miles of the latter remaining
intact in their possession to this day.
I doubt that not even the missionaries, wind jamming around the Horn
from New England a century ago, had the remotest thought of living out
all their days in Hawaii. This is not the way of missionaries over the
world. They have always gone forth to far places with the resolve to
devote their lives to the glory of God and the redemption of the
heathen, but with the determination, at the end of it all, to return to
spend their declining years in their own country. But Hawaii can seduce
missionaries just as readily as she can seduce sailor boys and bank
cashiers, and this particular lot of missionaries was so enamored of her
charms that they did not return when old age came upon them. Their bones
lie here in the land they came to love better than their own; and they,
and their sons and daughters after them, have been, and are, powerful
forces in the development of Hawaii.
In missionary annals, such unanimous and eager adoption of a new land is
unique. Yet another thing, equally unique in missionary history, must be
noted in passing. Never did missionaries, the very first, go out to
rescue a heathen land from its idols, and on arrival find it already
rescued, self-rescued, while they were on the journey. In 1819, all
Hawaii was groaning under the harsh rule of the ancient idols, whose
mouthpieces were the priests and whose utterances were the frightfully
cruel and unjust taboos. In 1819, the first missionaries assembled in
Boston and sailed away on the long voyage around the Horn. In 1819, the
Hawaiians, of themselves, without counsel or suggestion, over-threw
their idols and abolished the taboos. In 1820, the missionaries
completed their long voyage and landed in Hawaii to find a country and a
people without gods and without religion, ready and ripe for
instruction.
But to return. Hawaii is the home of shanghaied men and women, who were
induced to remain, not by a blow with a club over the head or a doped
bottle of whisky, but by love. Hawaii and the Hawaiians are a land and a
people loving and lovable. By their language may ye know them, and in
what other land save this one is the commonest form of greeting, not
“Good day,” nor “How d’ye do,” but “Love?” That greeting is
_Aloha_—love, I love you, my love to you. Good day—what is it more
than an impersonal remark about the weather? How do you do—it is
personal in a merely casual interrogative sort of a way. But _Aloha_! It
is a positive affirmation of the warmth of one’s own heart-giving. My
love to you! I love you! Aloha!
Well, then, try to imagine a land that is as lovely and loving as such a
people. Hawaii is all of this. Not strictly tropical, but sub-tropical,
rather, in the heel of the Northeast Trades (which is a very wine of
wind), with altitudes rising from palm-fronded coral beaches to
snow-capped summits fourteen thousand feet in the air; there was never
so much climate gathered together in one place on earth. The custom of
the dwellers is as it was of old time, only better, namely: to have a
town house, a seaside house, and a mountain house. All three homes, by
automobile, can be within half an hour’s run of one another; yet, in
difference of climate and scenery, they are the equivalent of a house on
Fifth Avenue or the Riverside Drive, of an Adirondack camp, and of a
Florida winter bungalow, plus a twelve-months’ cycle of seasons crammed
into each and every day.
Let me try to make this clearer. The New York dweller must wait till
summer for the Adirondacks, till winter for the Florida beach. But in
Hawaii, say on the island of Oahu, the Honolulu dweller can decide each
day what climate and what season he desires to spend the day in. It is
his to pick and choose. Yes, and further: he may awake in his
Adirondacks, lunch and shop and go to the club in his city, spend his
afternoon and dine at his Palm Beach, and return to sleep in the shrewd
coolness of his Adirondack camp.
And what is true of Oahu, is true of all the other large islands of the
group. Climate and season are to be had for the picking and choosing,
with countless surprising variations thrown in for good measure. Suppose
one be an invalid, seeking an invalid’s climate. A night’s run from
Honolulu on a steamer will land him on the leeward coast of the big
Island of Hawaii. There, amongst the coffee on the slopes of Kona, a
thousand feet above Kailua and the wrinkled sea, he will find the
perfect invalid-climate. It is the land of the morning calm, the
afternoon shower, and the evening tranquility. Harsh winds never blow.
Once in a year or two a stiff wind of twenty-four to forty-eight hours
will blow from the south. This is the Kona wind. Otherwise there is no
wind, at least no air-draughts of sufficient force to be so dignified.
They are not even breezes. They are air-fans, alternating by day and by
night between the sea and the land. Under the sun, the land warms and
draws to it the mild sea air. In the night, the land radiating its heat
more quickly, the sea remains the warmer and draws to it the mountain
air faintly drenched with the perfume of flowers.
Such is the climate of Kona, where nobody ever dreams of looking at a
thermometer, where each afternoon there falls a refreshing spring
shower, and where neither frost nor sunstroke has ever been known. All
of which is made possible by the towering bulks of Mauna Kea and Mauna
Loa. Beyond them, on the windward slopes of the Big Island, along the
Hamakua Coast, the trade wind will as often as not be blustering at
forty miles an hour. Should an Oregon web-foot become homesick for the
habitual wet of his native clime, he will find easement and a soaking on
the windward coasts of Hawaii and Maui, from Hilo in the south with its
average annual rainfall of one hundred and fifty inches to the Nahiku
country to the north beyond Hana which has known a downpour of four
hundred and twenty inches in a single twelve-month. In the matter of
rain it is again pick and choose—from two hundred inches to twenty, or
five, or one. Nay, further, forty miles away from the Nahiku, on the
leeward slopes of the House of the Sun, which is the mightiest extinct
volcano in the world, rain may not fall once in a dozen years, cattle
live their lives without ever seeing a puddle and horses brought from
that region shy at running water or try to eat it with their teeth.
One can multiply the foregoing examples indefinitely, and to the
proposition that never was so much climate gathered together in one
place, can be added that never was so much landscape gathered together
in one place. The diversification is endless, from the lava shores of
South Puna to the barking sands of Kauai. On every island break-neck
mountain climbing abounds. One can shiver above timber-line on the
snow-caps of Mauna Kea or Mauna Loa, swelter under the banyan at sleepy
old Lahaina, swim in clear ocean water that effervesces like champagne
on ten thousand beaches, or sleep under blankets every night in the
upland pastures of the great cattle ranges and awaken each morning to
the song of sky-larks and the crisp, snappy air of spring. But never,
never, go where he will in Hawaii Nei, will he experience a hurricane, a
tornado, a blizzard, a fog, or ninety degrees in the shade. Such
discomforts are meteorologically impossible, so the meteorologists
affirm. When Hawaii was named the Paradise of the Pacific, it was
inadequately named. The rest of the Seven Seas and the islands in the
midst thereof should have been included along with the Pacific. “See
Naples and die”—they spell it differently here: _see Hawaii and live._
Nor is Hawaii niggardly toward the sportsman. Good hunting abounds. As I
write these lines on Puuwaawaa Ranch, from every side arises the
love-call of the quail, which are breaking up their coveys as the mating
proceeds. They are California quail, yet never in California have I seen
quail as thick as here. Yesterday I saw more doves—variously called
turtle doves and mourning doves—than I ever saw before in any single
day of my life. Day before yesterday I was out with the cowboys roping
wild pig in the pastures.
Of birds, in addition to quail and doves, in place and season may be
hunted wild duck, wild turkey, rice birds, Chinese and Japanese
pheasants, pea fowl, guinea fowl, wild chicken (which is a mongrel cross
of the indigenous _moa_ and the haole chicken), and, not least, the
delicious golden plover fat and recuperated after its long flight from
Alaska and the arctic shores. Then there are the spotted deer of
Molokai. Increasing from several introduced pair, they so flourished in
their new habitat that they threatened the pastures and forests, and
some years ago the government was compelled to employ professional
hunters to reduce their numbers. Of course there is pig-sticking, and
for real hunting few things can out-thrill the roping, after cowboy
fashion, of the wild bulls of the upper ranges. Also are there to be had
wild goats, wild sheep—yes, and wild dogs, running in packs and
dragging down calves and cows, that may even prove perilous to the
solitary hunter. And as for adventure and exploration, among many
things, one can tackle Rabbit Island, inaccessible to all but the most
intrepid and most fortunate, or seek for the secret and taboo burial
places of the ancient kings.
Indeed, Hawaii is a loving land. Just as it welcomed the spotted deer to
the near destruction of its forests, so has it welcomed many other
inimical aliens to its shores. In the United States, in greenhouses and
old fashioned gardens, grows a potted flowering shrub called lantana,
which originally came from South America; in India dwells a very noisy
and quarrelsome bird known as the mynah. Both were introduced into
Hawaii, the bird to feed upon the cutworm of a certain moth called
_spodoptera mauritia_; the flower to gladden with old associations the
heart of a flower-loving missionary. But the land loved the lantana.
From a small plant that grew in a pot with its small, velvet flowers of
richest tones of orange, yellow, and rose, the lantana took to itself
feet and walked out of the pot into the missionary’s garden. Here it
flourished and increased mightily in size and constitution. From over
the garden wall came the love-call of all Hawaii, and the lantana
responded to the call, climbed over the wall, and went a-roving and
a-loving in the wild woods.
And just as the lantana had taken to itself feet, by the seduction of
the seeds in its aromatic blue-black berries, it added to itself the
wings of the mynah, who distributed its seed over every island in the
group. Like the creatures Mr. Wells writes of who ate of the food of the
gods and became giants, so the lantana. From a delicate, hand-manicured,
potted plant of the greenhouse, it shot up into a tough and belligerent
swashbuckler from one to three fathoms tall, that marched in serried
ranks over the landscape, crushing beneath it and choking to death all
the sweet native grasses, shrubs, and flowers. In the lower forests it
became jungle. In the open it became jungle, only more so. It was
practically impenetrable to man. It filled and blotted out the pastures
by tens of thousands of acres. The cattlemen wailed and vainly fought
with it. It grew faster and spread faster than they could grub it out.
Like the invading whites who dispossessed the native Hawaiians of their
land, so did the lantana to the native vegetation. Nay, it did worse. It
threatened to dispossess the whites of the land they had won. And battle
royal was on. Unable to cope directly with it, the whites called in the
aid of the hosts of mercenaries. They sent out their agents to recruit
armies from the insect world and from the world of micro-organisms. Of
these doughty warriors let the name of but one, as a sample, be
given—_crenastobombycia lantenella_. Prominent among these recruits
were the lantana seed-fly, the lantana plume-moth, the lantana
butterfly, the lantana leaf-miner, the lantana leaf-bug, the lantana
gall-fly. Quite by accident the Maui blight or scale was enlisted.
Some of these predacious enemies of the lantana ate and sucked and
sapped. Others made incubators out of the stems, tunneled and undermined
the flower clusters, hatched maggots in the hearts of the seeds, or
coated the leaves with suffocating fungoid growths. Thus simultaneously
attacked in front and rear and flank, above and below, inside and out,
the all-conquering swashbuckler recoiled. To-day the battle is almost
over, and what remains of the lantana is putting up a sickly and losing
fight. Unfortunately, one of the mercenaries has mutinied. This is the
accidentally introduced Maui blight, which is now waging unholy war upon
garden flowers and ornamental plants, and against which some other army
of mercenaries must be turned.
Hawaii has been most generous in her hospitality, most promiscuous in
her loving. Her welcome has been impartial. To her warm heart she has
enfolded all manner of hurtful, stinging things, including some humans.
Mosquitos, centipedes and rats made the long voyages, landed, and have
flourished ever since. There was none of these here before the haole
came. So, also, were introduced measles, smallpox, and many similar germ
afflictions of man. The elder generations lived and loved and fought and
went down into the pit with their war weapons and flower garlands laid
under their heads, unvexed by whooping cough, and mumps, and influenza.
Some alien good, and much of alien ill, has Hawaii embraced and loved.
Yet to this day no snake, poisonous or otherwise, exists in her forests
and jungles; while the centipede is not deadly, its bite being scarcely
more discomforting than the sting of a bee or wasp. Some snakes did
arrive, once. A showman brought them for exhibition. In passing
quarantine they had to be fumigated. By some mischance they were all
suffocated, and it is whispered that the quarantine officials might have
more to say of that mischance than appeared in their official report.
And, oh, there is the mongoose. Originally introduced from India via
Jamaica to wage war on that earlier introduction, the rat, which was
destroying the sugar cane plantations, the mongoose multiplied beyond
all guestly bounds and followed the lantana into the plains and forests.
And in the plains and forests it has well nigh destroyed many of the
indigenous species of ground-nesting birds, made serious inroads on the
ground-nesting imported birds, and compelled all raisers of domestic
fowls to build mongoose-proof chicken yards. In the meantime the rats
have changed their nesting habits and taken to the trees. Some of the
pessimistic farmers even aver that, like the haole chickens which went
wild in the woods and crossed with the moa, the mongoose has climbed the
trees, made friends with and mated with the rats, and has produced a
permanent hybrid of omnivorous appetite that eats sugar cane, birds’
eggs, and farmyard chickens indiscriminately and voraciously. But
further deponent sayeth not.
PART THREE
Hawaii is a great experimental laboratory, not merely in agriculture,
but in ethnology and sociology. Remote in the heart of the Pacific, more
hospitable to all forms of life than any other land, it has received an
immigration of alien vegetable, insect, animal and human life more
varied and giving rise to more complicated problems than any other land
has received. And right intelligently and whole-heartedly have the
people of Hawaii taken hold of these problems and striven to wrestle
them to solution.
A melting pot or a smelting pot is what Hawaii is. In a single school,
at one time I have observed scholars of as many as twenty-three
different nationalities and mixed nationalities. First of all is the
original Hawaiian stock of pure Polynesian. These were the people whom
Captain Cook discovered, the first pioneers who voyaged in double canoes
from the South Pacific and colonized Hawaii at what is estimated from
their traditions as some fifteen hundred years ago. Next, from Captain
Cook’s time to this day, has drifted in the haole, or Caucasian—Yankee,
Scotch, Irish, English, Welsh, French, German, Scandinavian—every
Caucasian country of Europe, and every Caucasian colony of the world has
contributed its quota. And not least to be reckoned with, are the
deliberate importations of unskilled labor for the purpose of working
the sugar plantations. First of these was a heavy wave of Chinese
coolies. But the Chinese Exclusion Act put a stop to their coming. In
the same way, King Sugar has introduced definite migrations of Japanese,
Koreans, Russians, Portuguese, Spanish, Porto Ricans, and Filipinos.
With the exception of the Japanese, who are jealously exclusive in the
matter of race, all these other races insist and persist in
intermarrying, and the situation here should afford much valuable data
for the ethnologist.
Of the original Hawaiians one thing is certain. They are doomed to
extinction. Year by year the total number of the pure Hawaiians
decreases. Marrying with the other races as they do, they could persist
as hybrids, if—_if fresh effusions of them came in from outside sources
equivalent to such continued effusions as do come in of the other
races._ But no effusions of Polynesian come in nor have ever come in.
Steadily, since Captain Cook’s time, they have faded away. To-day, the
representatives of practically all the old chief-stocks and royal-stocks
are half-whites, three-quarter whites, and seven-eighths whites. And
they, and their children, continue to marry whites, or seven-eighths and
three-quarters whites like themselves, so that the Hawaiian strain grows
thinner and thinner against the day when it will vanish in thin air. All
of which is a pity, for the world can ill afford to lose so splendid and
lovable a race.
And yet, in this period of world war wherein the United States finds it
necessary to prepare against foes that may at any time launch against it
out of the heart of civilization, little Hawaii, with its hotch potch of
races, is making a better demonstration than the United States.
The National Guard has been so thoroughly reorganized, livened up, and
recruited that it makes a showing second to none on the Mainland, while,
in proportion to population, it has more of this volunteer soldiery than
any of the forty-eight states and territories in the United States. In
addition to the mixed companies, there are entire companies of
Hawaiians, Portuguese, Chinese (Hawaii-born), and Filipinos; and the
reviewing stand sits up and takes notice when it casts its eyes over
them and over the regulars.
[Illustration: (1) The Peninsula. (2) The Hobron Bungalow. (3) The
_Snark_, and the owner ashore.]
No better opportunity could be found for observing this medley of all
the human world than that afforded by the Mid-Pacific Carnival last
February when the population turned out and held festival for a week.
Nowhere within the territory of the United States could so exotic a
spectacle be witnessed. And unforgettable were the flower-garlanded
Hawaiians, the women _pa’u_ riders on their lively steeds with flowing
costumes that swept the ground, toddling Japanese boys and girls,
lantern processions straight out of old Japan, colossal dragons from the
Flowery Empire, and Chinese school girls, parading two by two in long
winding columns, bare-headed, their demure black braids down their
backs, slimly graceful in the white costumes of their foremothers. At
the same time, while the streets stormed with confetti and serpentines
tossed by the laughing races of all the world, in the throne room of the
old palace (now the Executive Building) was occurring an event as
bizarre in its own way and equally impressive. Here, side by side, the
two high representatives of the old order and the new held reception.
Seated, was the aged Queen Liliuokalani, the last reigning sovereign of
Hawaii; standing beside her was Lucius E. Pinkham, New England born, the
Governor of Hawaii. A quarter of a century before, his brothers had
dispossessed her of her kingdom; and quite a feather was it in his cap
for him to have her beside him that night, for it was the first time in
that quarter of a century that any one had succeeded in winning her from
her seclusion to enter the throne-room. And about them, among
brilliantly uniformed army and navy officers from generals and admirals
down, moved judges and senators, sugar kings and captains of industry,
the economic and political rulers of Hawaii, and many of them, they and
their women, intermingled descendants of the old chief stocks and of the
old missionary and merchant pioneers.
And what more meet than that in Hawaii, the true Aloha-land which has
welcomed and loved all wayfarers from all other lands, that the
Pan-Pacific movement should have originated. This had its inception in
the mind of Mr. Alexander Hume Ford—he of Outrigger Club fame who
resurrected the sports of surf-boarding and surf-canoeing at Waikiki.
Hands-Around-the-Pacific, he calls the movement; and already these
friendly hands are reaching out and clasping all the way from British
Columbia to Panama, from New Zealand to Australia and Oceanica, and on
to Java, the Philippines, China and Japan, and around and back again to
Hawaii, the Cross-Roads of the Pacific and the logical heart and home
and center of the movement.
Hawaii is a Paradise—and I can never cease proclaiming it; but I must
append one word of qualification: _Hawaii is a paradise for the
well-to-do._ It is not a paradise for the unskilled laborer from the
mainland, nor for the person without capital from the mainland. The one
great industry of the islands is sugar. The unskilled labor for the
plantations is already here. Also, the white unskilled laborer, with a
higher standard of living, cannot compete with coolie labor, and,
further, the white laborer cannot and will not work in the canefields.
For the person without capital, dreaming to start on a shoestring and
become a capitalist, Hawaii is the last place in the world. It must be
remembered that Hawaii is very old... comparatively. When California was
a huge cattle ranch for hides and tallow (the meat being left where it
was skinned), Hawaii was publishing newspapers and boasting schools of
higher learning. During the early years of the gold rush, before the
soil of California was scratched with a plow, Hawaii kept a fleet of
ships busy carrying her wheat, and flour, and potatoes to California,
while California was sending her children down to Hawaii to be educated.
The shoestring days are past. The land and industries of Hawaii are
owned by old families and large corporations, and Hawaii is only so
large.
But the homesteader may object, saying that he has read the reports of
the millions of acres of government land in Hawaii which are his for the
homesteading. But he must remember that the vastly larger portion of
this government land is naked lava rock and not worth ten cents a square
mile to a homesteader, and that much of the remaining land, while rich
in soil values, is worthless because it is without water. The small
portion of good government land is leased by the plantations. Of course,
when these leases expire, they may be homesteaded. It has been done in
the past. But such homesteaders, after making good their titles, almost
invariably sell out their holdings in fee simple to the plantations.
There is a reason for it. There are various reasons for it.
Even the skilled laborer is needed only in small, definite numbers.
Perhaps I cannot do better than quote the warning circulated by the
Hawaiian Promotion Committee: “No American is advised to come here in
search of employment unless he has some definite work in prospect, or
means enough to maintain himself for some months and to launch into some
enterprise. Clerical positions are well filled; common labor is largely
performed by Japanese or native Hawaiians, and the ranks of skilled
labor are also well supplied.”
For be it understood that Hawaii is patriarchal rather than democratic.
Economically it is owned and operated in a fashion that is a combination
of twentieth century, machine-civilization methods and of medieval
feudal methods. Its rich lands, devoted to sugar, are farmed not merely
as scientifically as any land is farmed anywhere in the world, but, if
anything, more scientifically. The last word in machinery is vocal here,
the last word in fertilizing and agronomy, and the last word in
scientific expertness. In the employ of the Planters’ Association is a
corps of scientific investigators who wage unceasing war on the insect
and vegetable pests and who are on the travel in the remotest parts of
the world recruiting and shipping to Hawaii insect and micro-organic
allies for the war.
The Sugar Planters’ Association and the several sugar factors or
financial agencies control sugar, and, since sugar is king, control the
destiny and welfare of the Islands. And they are able to do this, under
the peculiar conditions that obtain, far more efficiently than could it
be done by the population of Hawaii were it a democratic commonwealth,
which it essentially is not. Much of the stock in these corporations is
owned in small lots by members of the small business and professional
classes. The larger blocks are held by families who, earlier in the
game, ran their small plantations for themselves, but who learned that
they could not do it so well and so profitably as the corporations,
which, with centralized management, could hire far better brains for the
entire operation of the industry, from planting to marketing, than was
possessed by the heads of the families. As a result, absentee ownership
or landlordship has come about. Finding the work done better for them
than they could do it themselves, they prefer to live in their Honolulu
and seaside and mountain homes, to travel much, and to develop a
cosmopolitanism and culture that never misses shocking the traveler or
newcomer with surprise. All of which makes this class in Hawaii as
cosmopolitan as any class to be found the world over. Of course, there
are notable exceptions to this practice of absentee landlordism, and
such men run their own plantations and corporations and are active as
sugar factors and in the management of the Planters’ Association.
Yet will I dare to assert that no owning class on the mainland is so
conscious of its social responsibility as is this owning class of
Hawaii, and especially that portion of it which has descended out of the
old missionary stock. Its charities, missions, social settlements,
kindergartens, schools, hospitals, homes, and other philanthropic
enterprises are many; its activities are unceasing; and some of its
members contribute from twenty-five to fifty per cent of their incomes
to the work for the general good.
But all the foregoing, it must be remembered, is not democratic nor
communal, but is distinctly feudal. The coolie and peasant labor
possesses no vote, while Hawaii is after all only a territory, its
governor appointed by the President of the United States, its one
delegate sitting in Congress at Washington but denied the right to vote
in that body. Under such conditions, it is patent that the small class
of large land-owners finds it not too difficult to control the small
vote in local politics. Some of the large land-owners are Hawaiian or
part Hawaiian, as are practically all the smaller land-owners. And these
and the land-holding whites are knit together by a common interest, by
social equality, and, in many cases, by the closer bonds of affection
and blood relationship.
Interesting, even menacing, problems loom large for Hawaii in the not
distant future. Let but one of these be considered, namely, the Japanese
and citizenship. Granting that no Japanese immigrant can ever become
naturalized, nevertheless remains the irrefragable law and fact that
every male Japanese, Hawaii-born, by his birth is automatically a
citizen of the United States. Since practically every other person in
all Hawaii is Japanese, it is merely a matter of time when the
Hawaii-born Japanese vote will not only be larger than any other
Hawaiian vote, but will be practically equal to all other votes
combined. When such time comes, it looks as if the Japanese will have
the dominant say in local politics. If Hawaii should get statehood, a
Japanese governor of the State of Hawaii would be not merely probable
but very possible.
One feasible way out of the foregoing predicament would be never to
strive for statehood but to accept a commission government, said
commission to be appointed by the federal government. Yet would remain
the question of control in local politics. The Japanese do not fuse any
more than do they marry out of their race. The total vote other than
Japanese is split into the two old parties. The Japanese would
constitute a solid Japanese party capable of out-voting either the
Republican or Democratic parties. In the meantime the Hawaii-born
Japanese population grows and grows. In passing it may be significantly
noted that while the Chinese, Filipinos, and Portuguese flock
enthusiastically into the National Guard, the Japanese do not.
But a truce to far troubles. This is my Hawaiian aloha—my love for
Hawaii; and I cannot finish it without stating a dear hope for a degree
of honor that may some day be mine before I die. I have had several
degrees in the past of which I am well proud. When I had barely turned
sixteen I was named Prince of the Oyster Pirates by my fellow pirates.
Since they were all men-grown and a hard-bitten lot, and since the term
was applied in anything but derision, my lad’s pride in it was justly
great. Not long after, another mighty degree was given me by a shipping
commissioner in San Francisco, who signed me on the ship’s articles as
A.B. Think of it! Able-bodied! I was not a landlubber, nor an ordinary
seaman, but an A.B.! An able-bodied seaman before the mast! No higher
could one go—before the mast. And in those youthful days of romance and
adventure I would rather have been an able-bodied seaman before the mast
than a captain aft of it.
When I went over Chilcoot Pass in the first Klondike Rush, I was called
a _chechaquo_. That was equivalent to new-comer, greenhorn, tenderfoot,
short horn, or new chum, and as such I looked reverently up to the men
who were sour-doughs. It was a custom of the country to call an
old-timer a sour-dough. A sourdough was a man who had seen the Yukon
freeze and break, traveled under the midnight sun, and been in the
country long enough to get over the frivolities of baking powder and
yeast in the making of bread and to content himself with bread raised
from sour-dough.
I am very proud of my sour-dough degree. A few years ago I received
another degree. It was in the West South Pacific. A kinky-headed,
asymmetrical, apelike, head-hunting cannibal climbed out of his canoe
and over the rail and gave it to me. He wore no clothes—positively no
covering whatever. On his chest, from around his neck, was suspended a
broken, white China plate. Through a hole in one ear was thrust a short
clap pipe. Through divers holes in the other ear were thrust a freshly
severed pig’s tail and several rifle cartridges. A bone bodkin four
inches long was shoved through the dividing wall of his nose. And he
addressed me as “Skipper.” Owner and master I was, the only navigator on
board, without even a man I could trust to stand a mate’s watch; but it
was the first time I had been called Skipper, and I was mighty proud of
it.
I’d rather possess these several degrees of able seaman, sour-dough, and
skipper than all university degrees from Bachelor of Arts to Doctor of
Philosophy. They mean more to me, and I am prouder of them. But there is
yet one degree I should like to receive, than which there is no other in
the wide world for which I have so great a desire. It is _Kamaaina_.
Kamaaina is Hawaiian. It contains five vowels, which, with the three
consonants, compose five syllables. No syllable is accented, all
syllables are pronounced, the vowels having precisely the same values as
the Italian vowels. Kamaaina means not exactly old-timer or pioneer. Its
original meaning is “a child of the soil,” “one who is indigenous.” But
its meaning has changed, so that it stands to-day for “one who
belongs”—to Hawaii, of course. It is not merely a degree of time or
length of residence. It applies to the heart and the spirit. A man may
live in Hawaii for twenty years and yet not be recognized as a kamaaina.
He has remained alien in heart warmth and spirit understanding.
Nor can one assume this degree for oneself. Any man who has seen the
seasons around in Alaska automatically becomes a sour-dough and can be
the first so to designate himself. But here in Hawaii kamaaina must be
given to one. He must be so named by the ones who do belong and who are
best fitted to judge whether or not he belongs. Kamaaina is the proudest
accolade I know that any people can lay with the love-warm steel of its
approval on an alien’s back.
Pshaw! Were it a matter of time, I could almost be reckoned a kamaaina
myself. Nearly a quarter of a century ago—to be precise, twenty-four
years ago—I first saw these fair islands rise out of the sea. I have
been back here numerous times. As the years pass, I return with
increasing frequency and for longer stays. Of the past eighteen months I
have spent twelve here.
Some day, some one of Hawaii may slap me on the shoulder and say,
“Hello, old kamaaina.” And some other day I may chance to overhear some
one else of Hawaii speaking of me and saying, “Oh, he’s a kamaaina.” And
this may grow and grow until I am generally so spoken of and until I may
at last say of myself: “I am a kamaaina. I belong.” And this is my
Hawaiian Aloha:
Aloha nui oe, Hawaii Nei!
Jack London.
Puuwaawaa Ranch, Hawaii,
April 19, 1916.
* * * * *
Pearl Harbor, Oahu,
Territory of Hawaii,
Tuesday, May 21.
Come tread with me a little space of Paradise. Many pleasant acres have
I trod hitherto, but never an acre like this. It is so beautiful and
restful and green. Green upon green. With blue-depthed shadows imposed
from green-depthed foliage of great trees upon thick deep lawn that
cushions underfoot. Bare foot. For one somehow dissociates the idea of
footwear with an acre of Elysium. It is one of the paradisal blessings
of this new Sweet Home of ours that we may blissfully pace it unshod,
and for the most part unobserved.
The street is a mere white, meandering, coral-powdered by-way; no thing
less inquisitive than the birds abides in the adjoining garden, where a
rustic dwelling shows but vaguely amidst a riot of foliage; and on our
southern boundary is a tropic tangle of uninhabited wildwood, fronting
upon a native fishpond—an elongated bit of bay inclosed by a low wall
of masonry of such antiquity that no tradition of Hawaii can place its
origin.
Bayward the outlook is a shadowy coral reef, swept by tepid pea-green
tides; and to its outer rim extends a slender wooden jetty, at the end
of which our ship’s boat can lie even at low tide.
An eighth of a mile beyond in the rippling chrysoprase flood of Pearl
Harbor, “Dream Harbor” Jack loves to call it, swings our Boat of Dreams,
our little _Snark_, anchored in the first port of call on her mission of
pure golden adventure—a gallant foolishness, perhaps, but if we be
fools, let us be gallant ones. Whenever my eyes come to rest on her
shining shape, I feel them growing big with visions of the coming years
on her deck; and then, remembering vivid incidents of the voyage, drift
back to the present with a pleased sense of several laps of adventure
already run. Not the least of these is mere living in a shady nook of
Paradise where one’s eyes must quest twice in the green gloom among the
big trees to discover, near the waterside, the habitation—a very small,
very rustic, very simple brown bungalow of three rooms.
Already, in swimming suits, we have ventured the reef at high tide, with
unbounded delight in the sun-washed liquid silk. Our goal for to-morrow
is the yacht, as there is scant danger from man-eating sharks in this
sheltered harbor.
Beyond the _Snark_, across this arm of the sea, over low green volcanic
hills lying southeast between Pearl Lochs and Honolulu, one is just able
to glimpse the rosy bulk of Diamond Head, trembling in the fervent
sunlight. To the north, over vast rice fields and upland plantations,
shrug the rugged, riven Koolau Mountains, their heads lost in heavy
cloud masses that everlastingly roll and shift above these tropic
ranges.
Pearl Harbor embraces some twelve square miles, divided naturally into
three lochs, or arms, by two peninsulas, on the eastern of which lies
the village dignified by the suggestive name of Pearl City. Trust me for
having already gleaned the information that the locality has been these
many years filched of its jewels.
On the southeastern extremity of our particular “neck of the woods,”
stray a few suburban homes of Honolulans, of which ours is one. Tochigi,
Nipponese and poet-browed cabin boy of the _Snark_, is to live ashore
with us and resume his erstwhile household service, while the rest of
the yacht’s complement will retain their accommodations aboard. In these
protected waters, the boat lies at least as steady as a house on wheels,
as she swings to ebb and flow.
Strangely content are we in the unwonted tranquillity of motion and
sound, lacking wish to venture afield, even to Honolulu, about twelve
miles distant by the railroad. Enough just to rest and rest, and gaze
around upon the beautiful, long-desired world of island. Scarcely can we
glance athwart the apple-green water but there curves a span of rainbow
between our eyes and the far hills, and like as not a double-span, with
promise of a triple-bow; while frequent warm showers delicately veil the
land’s vivid emerald with all melting tints of opal.
Very florid, all this, you will smile—a bit overdone, perhaps? Gird at
my word-storms if you will. Then consider ... and take ship for this
“fleet of islands” in the western ocean. It isn’t real; it can’t be—too
sweet it is, the round twenty-four hours. Here but the one night and
day, already we grope for new forms of expression, as will you an you
follow the sinking sun.
The heat is not oppressive, even though the season is close to summer.
But one must realize that Hawaii is only subtropical. To be precise, the
group of eight inhabited islands occupies a central position in the
North Pacific, and lies just within the northern tropic. For the benefit
of any sailor who may run and read, Jack says I might as well be still
more explicit, and record that the _Snark_, now anchored about 2000 sea
miles southwest of her native shore, lies between 18° 54′ and 22° 15′
north latitude, and between 154° 50′ and 160° 30′ of longitude west of
Greenwich. These islands are blessed with a lower temperature than any
other country in the same latitude. The reasons are simple enough—the
prevailing “orderly trades” that blow over a large extent of the ocean,
and the ocean itself that is cooled by the return current from the
region of Bering Straits. Pleasantly warm though we found the waters of
Pearl Harbor this bright morning, yet are they less warm by ten degrees
than the waters of other regions in similar latitudes.
And now, to go back a little and recount how we came to rest in this
fair haven—Fair Haven, in passing, was the name bestowed upon Honolulu
Harbor by one of her discoverers, Captain Brown, when, in 1794, in his
schooner _Jackal_, accompanied by Captain Gordon in the sloop _Prince
Lee Boo_, he entered the bay, and mixed in local affairs by selling arms
and ammunition to King Kalanikupule of Oahu, who was resisting an
invasion from the sovereign of the island of Maui, Kaeo. Right near us
here, at Kalauao on the way to Honolulu, a red battle was waged, in
which Kalanikupule, assisted by Captain Brown and his men, overthrew the
powerful enemy. Poor Captain Brown was born unlucky, it would seem.
Firing a salute the next day from the _Jackal_, in honor of the victory,
a wad from his guns went wild and killed Captain Kendrick, who was
quietly dining aboard his own vessel, the _Lady Washington_. The
blameless skipper’s funeral, being of a different sort from the native
ceremony, was looked upon by the Hawaiians as an act of sorcery to
induce the death of Captain Brown. Kalanikupule paid the latter four
hundred hogs for his assistance in the struggle with the vanquished
Kaeo, and Brown, after the sailing of the _Lady Washington_ for China,
put his men to salting down the valuable pork at Kaihikapu, an ancient
salt pond between Pearl Harbor and Honolulu.
One day while the _Jackal’s_ mate, Mr. Lamport, and the sailors were
gathering salt, Kamohomoho, uncle of Oahu’s king, boarded the _Prince
Lee Boo_ and the _Jackal_, and more than made good the “act of sorcery”
by dispatching poor Brown as well as Gordon, imprisoning those of the
crews not employed ashore. Lamport and his men were captured, but their
lives spared. The gratitude of the royal family for favors rendered had
been outbalanced by ambition for a modern navy with which to attack
Kamehameha the Great on the “Big Island,” Hawaii. On the voyage,
however, the white seamen regained possession of the vessels, sent the
natives ashore in their own canoes which were being towed, and lost no
time following the _Lady Washington_ to the Orient.
I become lost in the history of the men who blazed our trail to these
romantic isles, forgetting that this is the chronicle of a more modern
adventure, and return to this idyllic resting spot after the tumult of
our first traverse on the bit of boat yonder.
And yet, casting back over those twenty-six days of ceaseless tossing,
we are aware only of pleasure in the memory of every happening,
disagreeable and agreeable alike. In fact the last week aboard was so
cozy and homelike that more than often we caught ourselves regretting
the imminent termination of the cruise. Even at this moment of writing,
despite blissful surroundings, did I not know that the _Snark’s_ dear
adventure were but just begun, I should be robbed indeed, so in love am
I with sea and _Snark_:
“For the wind and waterways have stamped me with their seal.”
We picked up a good slant of wind to make Honolulu yesterday morning—an
immeasurable relief after the worrisome calm of the night before, during
which we had taken our turns at the idle wheel and scanned the contrary
compass with all emotions of anxiety; while the helpless yacht swung on
every arc of the circle, with no slightest fan of air to fill her limp
sails that flapped ponderously in the glassy offshore heave. Never shall
I forget my own tense double-watch of four hours, straining eye and ear
toward the all-too-nigh coral reefs off Koko Head, with Makapuu Point
light blinking to the northeast. But when a dart of sun through a
decklight woke me from brief sleep, we were spanking along smartly in a
cobalt sea threshed white on every rushing wave, with the green and gold
island of Oahu shifting its scenery like a sliding screen as we swept
past tawny Diamond Head and palm-dotted Waikiki toward Honolulu Harbor.
After an oddly fishless voyage of four weeks from San Francisco (called
by the natives Kapalakiko—pronounced Kah-pah-lah-ke-ko), we were
joyously excited over a school of big porpoises, “puffing-pigs,” intent
as any flock of barnyard fowl to cross our fleeing forefoot. Undignified
haste was their only resemblance to domestic poultry, for in general
movement they were more like sportive colts hurdling in pasture with
snort and puff—sleek sides glistening blue black in the brilliant
sunlight.
To our land-eager eyes, the beautiful old city was the surpassing
picture of her pictures, when, still outside, we came abreast of her
wharves—the water front with ships and steamers moored beside the long
sheds, and behind, the Pompeian-red Punch Bowl, so often described by
early voyagers; the suburban heights of Tantalus; the purple-deep rifts
of valleys and gorges; and the green-and-violet needled peaks
upthrusting through dense dark cloud rack.
Barely had we finished Martin’s eggless breakfast, when a government
launch frothed alongside, and the engineer’s cheery “Want a line,
Jack—eh?” sounded classic assurance of Hawaii’s far-famed grace of
hospitality. Despite my sanguine temperament, I had been conscious of a
premonition that something unfortunate would happen upon our arrival,
probably due to the impression left by the hasty ship chandler of San
Francisco, who unjustly libeled the _Snark_ in Oak land and delayed our
sailing; so this gracious “Want a line, Jack?” was music to my ears. You
see, Jack London is not infrequently arrested, or nearly arrested, for
one reason or another, whenever he sets his merry foot upon foreign soil
(I have disquieting memories of Cuba, Japan, and Korea); and Hawaii
_seems_ like foreign soil, albeit annexed by the Stars and Stripes.
The morning paper, the _Pacific Commercial Advertiser_, preceded
Immigration Inspector and Customs Inspector over the rail, and they
laughingly pointed to a conspicuously leaded item that the _Snark_ was
supposed to be lost with all on board—bright tidings already cabled to
California and read by our horrified families and friends! We cannot
help wishing we were early enough here to be handed the very first
English newspaper published at Honolulu, in 1836—the _Sandwich Islands
Gazette_. And two years before that, the Hawaiian sheets, _Kumu Hawaii_
and _Lama Hawaii_, were the initial newspapers in the Pacific Ocean.
Speed is not the object of our junketing in the Seven Seas; but if we of
the _Snark_ had known any hurt vanity about the length of our passage,
it would have been amply offset by a report the inspectors made of the
big bark _Edward May_, arriving six days before, which beat our tardy
record but forty-eight hours, after an equally uneventful voyage.
Meanwhile the pilot had come aboard, a line was passed for’ard to the
launch, and we now ripped and zipped over a billowy swell to meet the
port physician, whose snowy launch could be seen putting out from a
wharf. That dignitary, once on deck, scanned our clean bill of health,
asked a few routine questions—one of which was whether we carried any
rats or snakes; and all three officials pronounced us free to enter the
port of Honolulu. Whereupon Jack stated that we were bound for Pearl
Lochs, to take possession of a cottage lent us by a friend. We were then
told that the wharves of Honolulu were lined with her citizens, waiting
to garland us in welcome; but too impelling behind our eyes was the
fancied picture of the promised retreat by the still waters of Pearl
Lochs, so we thanked our kind visitors, secured a launch, and towed
resolutely past the hospitable city.
“It does seem a darned shame,” Jack mused regretfully. “But what can we
do with all our plans made for Pearl Harbor?” “And anyway,” he added, “I
don’t want the general public to see a boat of mine sail, looking as if
she’s been half-built and then half-wrecked, the way this one does....
I’ve got _some_ pride.”
Then all attention was claimed by the beauty of our westward way to the
harbor entrance, as we skirted a broad shoreward reef where green
breakers burst into fountains of tourmaline and turquoise, shot through
with javelins of sun gold, and the air was filled with rainbow mist. Our
boat slipped along in a world compounded of the very ravishment of
suffused colors—land and sea, it was all of a piece; while off to the
southeastern horizon ocean and sky merged in silvery azure, softly
gloomed by shadowy shapes of other Promised Islands.
Turning almost due north into the narrow reef entrance to the Lochs, we
could easily have sailed unassisted, even with the light breeze then
remaining, so well marked is the channel which has been dredged, full
thirty feet deep, to admit passage of the largest vessels into this
land-locked harbor, invaluable acquisition to the American
government—the finest naval station in the Pacific, if not in the
world. Its low banks show both lava and coral formation, and vast cane
plantations and gently terraced rice fields slope their green leagues
back to the foothills of the Waianae Mountains. Scattered over the rice
areas are picturesquely tattered Mongolians, who utter long resonant
calls to frighten the marauding ricebirds, which, swarming up in black,
disturbed clouds, are brought down with shotguns.
We two, with oneness in love of our watery roaming, were happy and
vociferous as a pair of children, entering this our first port. Had we
given it a thought, we could have wished for a less civilized landfall,
with conscious missing of a native face or two. But I am sure this never
entered our busy heads—not mine, at any rate; and my memory of Jack’s
alert and beaming face precludes doubt of his contentment with things as
they were.
Presently, as we wound along between the western peninsula and a little
green islet, he called attention to the snowy bore of a tiny craft
racing toward us. In short order a smart white launch was rounding up
with dash and style befitting the commodore of the Hawaiian Yacht Club,
Mr. Clarence Macfarlane, who, with Mr. Albert Waterhouse, had learned by
telephone from Honolulu of our arrival, and hurried out to make us
welcome. Both of these “dandy fellows,” as Jack promptly rated them,
sent a warm glow through us by the unassuming good will of their
greeting eyes and hand-grasp, while the first word on their lips was the
beautiful Hawaiian “_Aloha!_” (ah-lo-hah) that is epitome of hearty
welcome, broad hospitality, and unquestioning friendship. No noise nor
flurry was theirs, as they set foot on the deck of the much-bruited
_Snark_; only the kindest, quietest, make-yourself-at-home manner, as if
we had all been acquainted for years, or else that it was the most usual
thing in the world to receive a wild man and woman who had essayed to
circumnavigate the globe in an absurd shallop of outlandish rig. But
those keen sailor eyes missed jot nor tittle of the vessel’s lines and
visible equipment, for to the mind of the world at large this boat, “the
strongest of her size ever built,” to quote her owner, with convenient
English dogger bank sail plan, is a somewhat questionable experiment. I
intercepted Albert Waterhouse’s roving glance on its return from
examining the stepping of the stout mizzenmast, which stepping
constitutes the main difference between this imported ketch-rig and the
more familiar yawl. The comprehending laugh in my own eyes called out a
roguish, half-embarrassed twinkle in his. But “She’s some boat!” he
appreciated, taking in the sturdy sticks and teak deck fittings.
Then he related how he had been commissioned to turn over the bungalow
and do what he could to make us at home. His first neighborly service
was to see the _Snark_ properly anchored, the while I strained eyes
across the eighth mile of gray green water to glimpse our home amongst
the plumy foliage.
Leaving the crew aboard to make everything snug, Jack and I were carried
by launch farther up the Loch to a long foot pier that leads over the
shallow shore reef to a spacious suburban home.
And here occurreth a teapotful of mischance. Let none question that
negotiating several hundred feet of narrow, stationary, unrailed bridge
above shifting water, by legs that for over three weeks have known only
a pitching surface of forty-five by fifteen, is little short of tragedy
for one who would make seemly entry into an hospitable strange land. I
know how Jack looked; I can only tell how I felt. And he was distinctly
unkind. He made no secret of his amusement at my gyrations, although to
my jaundiced eye his own progress was open to criticism.
Repeatedly I had to apologize for the frantic dabs made at our friends
to prevent myself from going headlong into the water. That interminable
board walk would rise straight up until I felt obliged to lean acutely
forward to the ascent, in terror of bumping a sunburnt nose—only to
find that it had abruptly slanted downward, whereupon I must angle as
giddily backward to preserve balance. From the rear, Jack, in
difficulties of his own, tittered something about his wife’s “sad walk,”
and I remember retorting with asperity that it was a pity he had never
noticed it before. Then we all fell to laughing and, very much better
acquainted, somehow gained the coral-graveled pathway that led into a
garden of lawns, hedged by scarlet-blooming shrubbery, and shaded by
great gnarled trees that would have delighted Doré’s tortured fancy.
In response to her husband’s shout of “Here they are, Gretchen!” Mrs.
Waterhouse moved towards us on bare sandaled feet across the broad
veranda of the big cool house, a cool and unruffled vision of woman,
stately in long unbroken lines of sheer muslin and lace.
“You poor child,” was her greeting to me, with arm-around hovering me
into a white bathroom sweet-scented and piled with fluffy towels. “You
must be nearly tired to death. Just come right in here and rest your
bones in a good hot bath before lunch.”
Rightly she guessed our tired bones; and rightly she prescribed the
beneficence of steaming water. But the ache was from violent stresses of
accommodating our precious skeletons to a stable environment, rather
than from any hardships of sea-buffeting. Fifteen minutes’ relaxation in
that shining tub made me all new; and once more in my blue silk
bloomer-suit, I joined the happy captain of my boat and heart. Likewise
bathed and refreshed, his wet hair futilely brushed to snub the curling
ends, sprawling in cool white ducks upon a very wide couch spread deep
with fine-woven native mats, he was immersed in a magazine of later date
than our sailing from California. No one was about for the moment, and
we lay and looked around with wordless content in this, our first
household of Hawaii. Everything was restfully shaded by vines, yet
nothing dark, what of the light polished floors, light walls and
handsome rattan furniture from Orient and Philippines. Roomy window
seats, banked with cushions, lovely pictures, and a grand piano,
furnished an air of city elegance to the equally refined summer
rusticity.
Jack, watching under his long lashes, smiled indulgently.
“Funny way to make a living, Mate-Woman!” Often he thinks aloud about
his selection of a means of livelihood, and ever grows more convinced
that he chose the best of all ways for him—and me. “I carry my office
in my head, and see the world while I earn the money to see it with.”
Entered Gretchen with her lovely babe, breathing beauty and comfort and
cleanliness, followed by her husband who announced luncheon with a
jolly: “Come on, you famished seafarers, and see what there is to eat!”
But first we must be crowned, I with a wreath of small pink rosebuds,
dainty as a string of coral, while around Jack’s neck was laid a wide
circlet of limp green vine, glossy and fragrant. Commodore Macfarlane
was decorated in the same charming way that the white dwellers of the
Islands have adopted from the native custom.
The meal was furnished forth on a wide veranda, or _lanai_
(lah-nah’-e—quickly lahn-I), screened with flowering vines, and our
host and hostess were on tiptoe to see whether or not we would try the
native dishes which form part of their daily menu. As Jack said
afterward, they “let us down easy,” because, instead of experimenting on
our _malihini_ (newcomer) palates with straight _poi_, some of the
smooth pinkish gray paste was diluted with cold water and milk, and a
pinch of salt was added. Served in a long thin glass, it was called a
poi cocktail. I scarcely see how one could dislike it. The plain thick
poi, unseasoned, would be debatable to those unfortunates who dread
sampling anything “odd”; but we took to it instanter. It must have
excellent food value, being as it is the staple of all Pacific native
peoples who are lucky enough to have right conditions for its raising.
They showed us how to combine the unseasoned poi with accessories—a
spoonful of the cool gray mush with a bite of meat or salt dried fish.
Eaten by itself, poi is somewhat flat in taste, like slightly fermented
starch. I do not know whether they were joking, but our friends told us
that it is used successfully for wall-paper paste! In these days it is
manufactured by machinery in nice sanitary factories. Originally it was
made by first roasting the tuber of the plant known throughout the South
Seas as _taro_, _Arum esculentum_ (_kalo_ in the old Hawaiian), wrapped
in leaves, among heated rocks in the ground, then pounding the malleable
mass with stone pounders and manipulating it with the hands. It would be
noteworthy if foot work had not also been utilized, as by the Italians
in macaroni making.
Also we were regaled with the tuber itself fresh boiled—a very good
vegetable, prepared like a potato, with butter, salt, and pepper. It
would be hard to give an idea of the flavor, and so many writers have
failed to describe foreign tastes that as yet I am not going to try,
save to state that I feel sure taro would prove a palatable substitute
for both bread and potatoes, if one were deprived of the old standbys.
Jack was interviewed by several perspiring newspaper men who had taken
the first train to Pearl City after the elusive _Snark_ had passed out
of sight; and in the mid-afternoon we were guided to our new dwelling,
distant about ten minutes’ walk. We met the entire crew bound for the
village to see what they could see. Tochigi, cabin-boy, alas, failed to
return until evening, so that I was obliged to do the unpacking. For
Jack had developed a vicious headache, due to smoking cigarettes after
abstaining during the voyage, and I hastened to reduce all confusion and
establish a serene home atmosphere; but I must confess that the really
happy task was an uphill one, when it wasn’t downhill, due to the sad
walk that led me devious ways and many extra steps, with frequent halts
to orient a revolving brain.
By seven, with still no Tochigi, and not a scrap to eat, came a tap on
the door. As if in answer to a wish, there stood a smiling woman bearing
a tray of enormous tomatoes and cucumbers, a napkined loaf of newly
baked bread, and a generous pat of homemade butter. She is our nearest
neighbor, Miss Frances Johnson, descendant of an old missionary family,
with whom we have made arrangements to board.
No sooner had she gone, than another neighbor brought an offering of
_papaias_ (pah-py’-ahs)—wonderful green-and-yellow melon things that
grow on trees—and asked what further he could do for us. The
combination of old-world and new-world neighborliness was quite
overwhelming, and I was more than grateful, for by now poor Jack had
taken to the big white bed, although he weakly admitted that he might
eat a tomato if urged.
At length, he fell sound asleep under the well-tucked cloud of fine
bobinet that graces all Hawaiian beds and I breathed a sigh of relief.
My troubles had only begun.
When the crew passed through on their return to the yacht, I softly
called Martin to look at the kitchen-sink faucet, which was not working
properly. No sooner had he turned on the water, than up wriggled a truly
appalling centipede all of five inches in length, the only thing
comparable to a serpent in this Eden. The leathery toughness of the
monstrous insect, which was as thick as my finger, made the slaying of
it an eminently lively and disgusting tussle. Martin finally vanquished
the leggy foe, but we kept a wary eye for its possible mate. Fate left
it to me, alone in the bathroom—for I would not disturb Jack’s healing
slumbers,—to deal with the bereft one. After scissoring off its ugly
fanged head, I fled to bed, fervently trusting to dream of things with
wings—birds, butterflies, angels. No remembered assurances of the very
mild venomousness of this transplanted little dragon can ever lessen its
hideous offensiveness. In my mind there is filed away a word of protest
for its every leg, of which, despite its name, I counted but
seventy-four. The people here pay scant attention to this insect’s bite.
In the morning I summoned Tochigi to remove the mutilated remains. Oh,
of course, before cremation they must be displayed to an admiring
audience of husband. For even more fussy is he than I, about crawly
things, and he could see, by involuntary reminiscent tremors, that my
overworn nerves had been somewhat shaken by the encounter. Not having
laughed at me, we could laugh in company later in the morning when,
hair-brush in hand, he went right into the air with a “Great Scott!”
before an ill-looking hairy gray spider, some four or five inches
across, that dropped from the ceiling and clattered upon the bureau top.
Was it Mark Twain who, disturbed at his writing by one of these, put the
cuspidor upon it, claiming that a fringe of legs showed all around the
vessel? Somewhere I have read that these spiders are descendants of the
tarantula; but they have descended a long way, for tarantulas are meaty
monsters compared with these paper-and-fuzz household gods of Hawaii,
which harm nothing but mosquitoes and other dispensable vermin.
Jack had slept off the headache, and was able to enjoy his first
luncheon at Miss Johnson’s. She served a most appetizing table for us
seaworn pilgrims—a capital steak, done rare to a nicety, accompanied by
taro which had been boiled and then sliced and fried lightly in fresh
butter; cool platefuls of raw tomatoes and cucumbers, in oil and lemon;
poi, with dried salt _aku_ (ah-koo—bonita), papaias, and avocados—the
almost prohibitively expensive alligator pears that we know in
California, where they are sent by steamer and in shipping deteriorate;
and bananas so luscious that we declared we had never before tasted
bananas. These and sweet seedling oranges, as well as papaias, thrive in
the fragrant garden of roses and hibiscus and palms, seen through
Venetian blinds from where we sat at table, eating hothouse viands in
the hothouse air.
We came away congratulating ourselves and each other upon such a
feasting place within two minutes’ walk of our own little red gate; and
the trio of ladies granted indulgence to drop over in any garmenture
that pleases our mood, and also offered the piano for my use. Although
even on this warm leeward side of Oahu the temperature is said to range
only from 60° to 85°, with a mean of 74°, the humid quality of the
atmosphere invites loose lines of apparel, of duck and summer lawn. In
the dreamy green privacy of our lovely acre, it is kimono and kimono,
with not much else to mention. And I am already planning certain flowing
gowns of muslin and lace, on the pattern of Gretchen Waterhouse’s home
attire, which flouncy robe is called a _holoku_ (ho-lo-koo). It is a
worthy development from the first clothing introduced by the
missionaries, the simplest known design—like that cut by our childhood
scissors for paper dolls, and called _muumuu_ (moo-oo-moo-oo smoothly)
by the Hawaiians. In time this evolved into the full-gathered Mother
Hubbard atrocity; but in this year of grace it is a sumptuous, swinging,
trailing model of its own, just escaping the curse of the Mother Hubbard
and somehow eliding the significance of wrapper. Not all women would
look as well in the holoku as does Mrs. Albert, who is straight and tall
and walks as if with pride in her fine height and proportion, as large
women should walk. A great measure of the holoku’s good looks depends
upon its being carried well. The muumuu, in its pristine simplicity, is
still used by native women for an under-garment, and, in all colors of
calico, for swimming, although I have yet to learn how it could permit
freedom of movement in the water.
Jack smiled to me just now, after I had read him the above: “I hope you
will get some of those loose white things. I like them.”
Paucity of coast mail would indicate that relatives and friends have
been chary of wasting energy on letters that might never be received by
such reckless rovers. O ye of scant faith in the _Snark’s_ oaken ribs
and her owner’s canny judgment!
The mail is brought by a tiny bobtail dummy and coach run by one, Tony,
from Pearl City, a mile away, to a station near the end of the
peninsula. Tony is a handsome little swarthy fellow, regarded by me with
much interest, as my first Hawaiian on his native heath. Certain
misgivings at sight of him rendered my surprise less to learn that he is
full-blooded Portuguese. Alack, my first Hawaiian is a Portuguese—and
of course Jack is hilarious.
Another caller crossed the springy turf of our garden—one who, having
been told we were looking for saddle animals, came to suggest that we
bring up our saddles the first of next week, and ride two of his horses
back to the peninsula, where we are welcome to them as long as we
please. Truly, the face of Hawaii hospitality is fair to see. What a
place to live, with the gift of a roof from the rain, tree tops from the
noonday sun, a peaceful space in which to work, strange pleasant foods
irreproachably set forth, a warm vast bowl of jade for swimming, and
fleet steeds for less than the asking! As this latest gift bringer
departed, Jack, touched to huskiness, said:
“A sweet land, Mate, a sweet land.”
And now our green gloom purples into twilight where we have lain upon
the sward the long afternoon; and twice my companion has hinted at a dip
before dinner.
[Illustration: (1) Damon Gardens, Honolulu. (2) Rice Fields on Kaunai.]
May 22.
Too bright and warm the morning to stay asleep even in this arboreal
spot, we rose at six. Another and earlier riser played his part, that
disturber of peace—the saucy mynah bird, whose matin racket is full as
soothing as that of our cheerfully impudent blue jay in the Valley of
the Moon. “False” mynah though he is said to be, there is nothing false
about either his voice or his manners, both of which are blatantly real
and sincere in their abandon. Imported from India, to feed on the
cutworm of a certain moth, he has made himself more at home than any
other introduced bird, and has been known to pronounce words. He is a
sagacious and interesting rowdy; but could one have choice in feathered
alarm clocks, the silver-throated skylark, another importation to
Hawaii, would come first.
But who should complain? We had not stirred for nine solid, dreamless
hours—speaking for myself, for Jack always dreams, and vividly.
In search for an ideal work-room, he pounced upon a shaded, wafty space
out of doors, mountainward of the bungalow. Tochigi found a small table
and box-stool for that left foot which always seeks for a rest when Jack
settles to writing. A larger box serves to hold extra “tools of trade,”
such as books and notes. Each morning, at home or abroad, Tochigi
sharpens a half dozen or more long yellow pencils with rubber tips, and
dusts the table, but never must he disturb the orderly litter of
note-pads, scribbled and otherwise.
Within a couple of brisk hours, under my direction, the boy finished the
work of settling, not the least item being the installing of our big
Victor and some three hundred disks; then nothing would do but Jack
would have me whirring off Wagnerian overtures and other orchestral
“numbers” while I pattered about in Japanese sandals.
By nine, with a big palm fan I was joining him in the hammock where he
hung between two huge algarobas, surrounded by a batch of periodicals
forwarded from the Coast, and we felicitated ourselves upon having risen
in the comparative cool of the morning and done the more active part of
the day’s work. Owing to a stoppage of the blessed Trades the air was
enervatingly heavy. For the past month Hawaii has known the same unusual
atmospheric conditions that marked our passage. Only a mild south wind
blows—the Kona, “the sick wind,” and it does seem to draw the life out
of one. We are warned that when a Kona really takes charge, all things
that float must look lively. Because this is not the regular season for
Konas, old sea-dogs are wagging their heads.
“Do you know what you are?” I quizzed Jack, having outrun him by a word
or two in the race for knowledge.
“No, I don’t. And I don’t care. But do _you_ know _where_ you are?” he
countered.
“No, _I_ don’t. _You_ are a _malihini_—did you know that?”
“No, and I don’t know it now. What is it?”
“It’s a newcomer, a tenderfoot, a wayfarer on the shores of chance, a—”
“I like it—it’s a beautiful word,” Jack curbed my literary output. “And
I can’t help being it, anyway. But what shall I be if I stay here?”
Recourse to a scratch-pad in my pocket divulged the fascinating
sobriquet that even an outlander, be he the right kind of outlander,
might come in time—a long time—to deserve. It is _kamaaina_, and its
significance is that of old-timer, and more, much more. It means one who
_belongs_, who has come to belong in the heart and life and soil of
Hawaii; as one might say, a subtropical “sour-dough.”
“How should it be pronounced, since you know so much?”
“Kah-mah-ah-ee-nah,” I struggled with careful notes and tongue. “But
when Miss Frances says it quickly, it seems to run into
‘Kah-mah-I’-nah.’—And you mustn’t say ‘Kammy-hammy-hah’ for
‘Kam-may-hah-may’-hah,’” I got back at him, for Kamehameha the Great’s
name had tripped us both in the books read aloud at sea.
“I’d rather be called _‘Kamaaina’_ than any name in the world, I think,”
Jack ignored my efforts at his education. “I love the land and I love
the people.”
For be it known this is not his first sight of these islands. Eleven or
twelve years ago, on the way to the sealing grounds off the Japan coast
in the _Sophie Sutherland_, he first saw the loom of the southernmost of
the group, Hawaii, on its side Kilauea’s pillar of smoke by day and
fiery glow by night. Again, in 1904, bound for Korea as correspondent to
the Japanese-Russian War, he was in Honolulu for the short stop-over of
the _Manchuria_, and spent as brief a time there on his return aboard
the _Korea_ six months later. And ever since, despite the scantiness of
acquaintance, he has been drawn to return—so irresistibly as now to
make a very roundabout voyage to the Marquesas in the South Pacific, in
order that Hawaii might be first port of call.
“Here’s something I didn’t show you in the mail,” he said presently,
picking up a thick envelope addressed in his California agent’s hand. It
contained a sheaf of rejections of his novel “The Iron Heel” which has
proved too radical for the editors, or at least for their owners’
policies. “I had hoped it was _timely_,” he went on, “and would prove a
ten-strike; but it seems I was wrong.
“They’re all afraid of it, Mate-Woman. They see their subscriptions
dropping off if they run it; but they give hell to us poor devils of
writers if they catch us writing for the mere sake of money instead of
pure literature. What’s a fellow to do? We’ve got to eat, and our
families have got to eat. And we’ve got to buy _holo_—what do you call
those flowy white things? for small wives;—and sail boats, and gather
fresh material for more stories that will and won’t sell...” he trailed
off lugubriously.
Thus Jack on his unsuccessful and very expensive novel. Whereupon he
shrugs his wide shoulders under the blue kimono, girds the fringed white
obi a little more snugly, picks up a note-pad and long sharp pencil, and
makes swift, sprawling notes for a Klondike yarn on which he has been
working, “To Build a Fire.” I catch myself holding back tears of
disappointment in his disappointment, and hoping he knows the half of
how sorry I am. When I turn to look at him again, he is shaking
uncontrollably in a fit of giggles over a cartoon in _Life_.
Perspiring this afternoon even in the thick shade of the gnarled
algarobas, we watched the “dear old tub” swirl on her chain cable in
stiff little squalls, and noted with satisfaction that her anchors seem
to have taken firm hold despite the reputed “skaty” bottom of this part
of the harbor.
After the exertion of a vociferous rubber of cribbage, the crisp
sage-green wavelets on the reef invited us to come out and play. So fine
was the water that, once at the outer edge of the coral, I decided to
venture as far as the yacht.
Martin, who vanished Honolulu-ward yesterday, returned this morning
laden with an assortment of produce—all he could carry. His ambition
was to be photographed rampant in the midst of tropical plenty for the
wonder and envy of his Kansan acquaintance. The fruity properties for
the tender scene cost him all of five dollars. A mainlander might
naturally conjecture Hawaii to be a land of almost automatic abundance;
but the price Martin paid is illustration of the not economical cost of
living. Meat is very high, and even fish, as this morning when Tochigi
had to pay twenty-five cents for three small mullet, Hawaii’s best “meat
that swims” (that is Jack’s) peddled by a Chinese fisherman. And
everything else is in proportion.
Unfortunately the papaia on our trees is not yet ripe. Jack is wild
about this fruit, and has it for every breakfast. I like it, too, but
the larger part of my pleasure is in looking at it, especially on its
tree, which is too artificially beautiful to seem a live plant. Never
have we read nor heard any adequate description of a papaia tree; but it
is the most remarkable we have ever seen. The trunks of our papaias are
six or seven inches in diameter, rise perfectly straight without a
branch nearly to the top, where the fruit clusters thick and close
around the carven hole, for so the ash-colored wood appears with its
indented markings. Among the “melons” and above them are very soft large
palmated leaves, some close to the trunk and some on slender stems. And
then there are the blossoms, on the axils of the leaves, twisting and
twining where the fruit comes later, little flowerlets not unlike orange
blossoms in appearance and odor. The trunk is said to be hollow; and
there are male and female trees, which should be planted in company to
insure a good yield—for both share in bearing. The young trees are not
so tall but one can easily reach the fruit; but the trees at Miss
Johnson’s call for a stepladder, or stout hands and knees for climbing.
Papaia faintly resembles cantaloupe and muskmelon, although more evenly
surfaced; and it tastes—how does it taste? We have about decided upon
“sublimated pumpkin, very sublimated, but sweeter.” For the table, it is
cut in half, lengthwise, its large canary-yellow interior scraped of a
fibrous lining and a handful of slippery black seeds coated with a sort
of mucus, that look like caviar, and is then set in the ice box before
serving with lemon. In conjunction with beauty and flavor, the fruit has
strong peptonic virtues, and some one told us it would disintegrate a
raw beefsteak overnight.
So Martin had us “snap” him, properly alert amidst his Pacific
plentitude, banked under an algaroba at the waterside—cocoanuts,
watermelons, pineapples, oranges, lemons, mangoes (real mangoes but
tastelessly unripe), guavas, and bananas; not to mention papaias and
taro, and a homely cabbage or two for charm against nostalgia. After
which nothing would do for him but he must pose Jack and myself. Martin
can now be heard developing films in our bathroom, his principal noise a
protest at the warmth of the “cold” water.
May 23.
Beginning to wonder why Tochigi was so late laying breakfast on the end
of the long table that holds the phonograph and the typewriter, our
surprise was sweet when with a flush on his olive cheeks he led us out
to where he had set a little table under the still trees. It was strewn
with single red hibiscus and glossy coral peppers from a low hedge that
trims the base of the cottage. He served a faultless meal of papaia,
shirred eggs, a curled shaving of bacon, and fresh-buttered toast, with
perfect coffee brewed in the _Snark’s_ percolator.
Breakfast over, for an hour we lingered at table reading aloud snatches
of books on Hawaii, and laughing over some of the freaks of her
mythology, which are not in the main so dissimilar from those of other
races, including the Caucasian, as entirely to justify our superior
mirth.
All the time I am conscious of a wish that is almost a passion to share,
with any who may read this diary, the loveliness of this smiling garden
so green and so sweet-scented when little winds wake the acacia laces of
the umbrageous algarobas; where nothing really exists beyond our red
wicket, but dreams may be dreamed of mirage-like mountains shimmering in
the tropic airs across the fairy lagoon.
Strolling to the bank, we sit in long grass with our feet over the
seaweed-bearded coral, and lazily watch three native women—the first we
have seen—in water to their ample waists, with holokus tucked high,
wading slowly in the reef-shallows. One carries a small box with glass
bottom, and now and again she bobs under with the box, and then comes up
laughing and flinging back her dark hair that waves and ringlets in the
sun. They are hunting crabs and other toothsome sea food, which they
snare in small hooped nets with handles; and their mellow contralto
voices strike the heavy air like full-throated bells, as they gossip and
gurgle or break into barbaric measures of melody. Whether it be hymn or
native song, the voices are musically barbaric. Upon discovery of us, a
truly feminine flurry of bashfulness overcomes them, but they smile like
children when we call “Aloha!” and repeat the sweet greeting softly. The
mirage effect of the scene is furthered by a motionless reflection of
the white yacht in the glassy water, as well as of the far shore and
billowy reaches of snowy cloud. The very thought of work is shocking in
such drowsy unreality of air and water and earth. Poor Jack groans over
self-discipline and there is a lag in his light and merry foot when he
finally makes for the little work table, brushes off a brown pod and
leafy lace pattern from the algaroba, and dives into the completion of
“To Build a Fire.”
May 25.
Observing those native women (_wahines_—wah-he-nays) harvest crabs gave
me an idea. Stirring betimes, virtuously I gathered a novel breakfast
for my good man. In other words, I set baited lines along the jetty, and
was soon netting the diminutive shellfish that hurried to the raw meat.
No hooks are used; the crab furnishes these, and, being a creature of
one idea, forgets to let go his juicy prize when the string begins to
pull, so that by the time he does relinquish hold, the net is ready for
his squirming fall. Although small, these yellowish gray, red-spotted
crabs are spicily worth the trouble of picking to pieces.
Here is a peculiar thing: the fish of Pearl Lochs seldom bite, and must
be either netted or speared native fashion. To be sure, there are the
ancient fishponds, where it would be easy to use a seine; but these
ponds are closely protected by their owners, and no uncertain penalties
are exacted for poaching. There are no privileges connected with the
long pond that flanks our boundary to the north, so we must depend upon
the unromantic peddler for our sea fruit.
No lingering could we allow ourselves at table this morning, for we were
bound Honolulu-ward on the forenoon train, to bring back the horses.
“Wish I had a million dollars, so I could really enjoy life here,”
yawned Jack, arms above head and bare feet in the warm, wet grass (it
had rained heavily overnight), as he moved toward his work, with a
longing eye hammockward.
Always have I remembered, from my days at Mills College, where I met and
loved my first Hawaiian girls, the enthusiasm of Mrs. Susan L. Mills
over the cross-saddle horse craft of women in Honolulu, where she and
her husband founded a school in early days. So I do not hesitate to ride
my Australian saddle here.
And so, trousered, divided-skirted, booted and spurred, both of us
coatless, as the day promised to be sultry, we walked to Tony’s little
dummy-train, on which, with fellow passengers of every yellow and brown
nationality except the Hawaiian, we traveled to the very
Japanesque-Americanesque village of Pearl City, to join the
through-train. During the half-hour ride, we enjoyed the shining
landscape of cane and terraced rice, long rolling hills, and the
alluring purple gorges and blue valleys of the mountains. The volcanic
red of the turned fields is like ours in Sonoma County, with here and
there splashes of more violent madder than any at home.
I had expected Oahu to be more tropical, palmy and jungly. But I
woefully lacked information, and the disappointment is nobody’s fault
but my own. Even the cocoanut palms of Hawaii are not indigenous, nor
yet the bananas, breadfruit, taro, oranges, sugar cane, mangoes—indeed,
this group does not lie in the path of seed-carrying birds, and it
remained for early native geniuses navigating their great canoes by the
stars, and white discoverers like Cook and Vancouver, to introduce a
large proportion of the trees and plants that took like weeds to the
fertile soil.
Of all imported trees, the algaroba _Prosopis juliflora_ (Hawaiian,
_kiawe_—ke-ah’-vay) has been the best “vegetable missionary” to the
waiting territory, and flourishes better here than in its own countries,
which seem to include the West Indies, the southern United States, and
portions of South America. One writer fares farther, and claims that it
is the Al-Korab, the husks of which the Prodigal Son fed to the swine he
tended. The first seed of the algaroba is supposed to have been brought
to Hawaii from Mexico by Father Bachelot, founder of the Catholic
Mission, and was planted by him in Honolulu, on Fort Street, near
Beretania, the inscription giving the date as 1837. But an old journal
of Brother Melchoir places the date as early as 1828. This tree is still
alive and responsible for above 60,000 acres of algaroba growth in
Hawaii. Left to itself, the algaroba seems to prefer an arid and stony
bed, judging from the manner in which it has reclaimed and forested the
reefy coast about Honolulu, making beautiful what was formerly a bare
waste. On this island as well as on Molokai, Maui, and Hawaii, it has
changed large tracts of rocky desert into abundantly wooded lands. The
algaroba shades the ground with a dense brush, and attains all heights
up to fifty and sixty feet—as these in our garden, where the boles have
been kept trimmed and show their massive twisted trunks and limbs in
contrast to their light and feathery foliage. The wood is of splendid
quality, the pods are a most useful stock feed, while bees love the
sweet of the blossoms and distill excellent honey. One of the two kinds
of gum exuded is used like gum arabic. Containing no tannin, it has been
used, dissolved in water, in laundries in other countries than Hawaii,
where for some reason it is not appreciated.
Speeding along, we noticed a number of the exotic monkey-pod trees. The
tropical-American name is _samang_, though sometimes it is called the
rain-tree, from its custom of blossoming at the beginning of the rainy
season. Broad-spreading, flat-topped, with enormous trunk, like the
algaroba it is a member of the acacia family, folding its feathery
leaves at night. It is wonderfully ornamental for large spaces, but
cannot be used to shade streets, as its quick growth plays ludicrous
havoc with sidewalks and gutters. I have read that a common sight in the
Islands is a noonday monkey-pod shade of a hundred and fifty feet
diameter.
“The Japanese city of Honolulu!” burst from my astonished lips, once we
were out of the station and walking toward the famous fish market. For
the Japanese are in possession of block after block of tenements, stores
and eating places, that fairly overlap one another, while both men and
women go about their business in the national garb of kimono and
sandals.
The market was more or less depleted of the beautiful colored fish Jack
had been so desirous for me to see, and we plan to come back some time
in the early morning, when both the fish and the quaint crowd are at
their best.
Not until in the business center of the city proper were our eyes
gladdened by the sight of our own kind and of the native Hawaiians,
though the latter have become so intermixed with foreign strains that
comparatively few in Honolulu can be vouched for as pure bred. According
to the latest census, there are less than 30,000 all-Hawaiians in Hawaii
Nei, with nearly 8000 hapa-haoles (hap-pah-hah-o-lays—quickly
hah-pah-how-lees), which means half-whites. The total population of
Honolulu is around the 40,000 mark, and of these roughly 10,000 only are
white.
I had pictured Honolulu differently; and the abrupt evidence of my eyes
was a trifle saddening. The name Honolulu is said to mean “the
sheltered,” and it would not inaptly refer to the population of
far-drifted nationalities that shelters in its hospitable confines.
Soon, however, all temporary dash to my hopes became absorbed in the
types that had given rise to disappointment, and in the unfolding of the
town itself, with its bright shop windows, and sidewalks where real,
unmistakably real, Hawaiian wahines sat banked in a riot of flowers,
themselves crowned with _leis_ (lay’ees—wreaths), and offering others
for sale.
Many of the Japanese are of a totally different breed from those in the
cities of California—the refined, student house-boys like our Tochigi
of the gentle voice and unfailing courtesy. The coolies in Hawaii are of
bigger, sturdier frame and coarser features, with a masculine,
aggressive expression in their darker-skinned faces. Jack’s practiced
eye leads him to think that a large proportion of them is from the rank
and file that served in the Japanese-Russian War three years ago.
We lunched in the Alexander Young Hotel, a modest skyscraper of gray
stone. It is altogether too continental looking for this sub-tropic
zone, but has a delightful café in the top story, affording a view of
the city. Here we learned two new dishes of the island. One was an
“alligator-pear cocktail,” sliced avocado in a peppery tomato-sauce; and
guava ice-cream, the deliciously flavored crushed fruit staining the
cream a salmon pink.
We could not help noting how many men go about in woollen business suits
of the cooler mainland. Jack remarked:
“I leave it to any one if it isn’t silly that in a tropic city the
conventions of altogether different climates should make slaves of men!”
I am glad we are not obliged to follow their example, but may happily be
counted with the “white-robed ones” who compose the fitting majority.
Pasadena with all its riot of roses is not more beautiful than lovely
Honolulu glowing with gorgeous flowering vines as well as large trees
that vie in abandon of bloom. And Honolulu has her roses as well.
Inside a garden gate, I sat me down, breathless with the astounding
mantle of color that lay over house and barns and fence. I had heard of
the poinciana regia, and bougainvillea, and golden shower, and was
already familiar with the single red and pink hibiscus in the West
Indies. And again we must register complaint that either the globe
trotters we have met have short memories or little care for these
things, for we were quite unprepared for the splendor.
“There can’t be any such tree,” Jack broke our silence before the
poinciana regia, the “flame tree,” and _flamboyante_ of the French. It
was named in honor of Poinci, Governor General of the West Indies about
the middle of the seventeenth century, who wrote upon their natural
history. I have never seen anything so spectacular growing out of the
ground. It might have been manufactured in Japan—like the fretted
papaia—for stage property. The smooth trunk expands at the base into a
buttress-like formation that corresponds to the principal roots, with an
effect on the eye of an artificial base broad enough to support the gray
pillar without underpinning. The tree grows flat topped, not unlike the
monkey-pod; and the foliage of fine pinnate leaves, superimposed
horizontally layer upon layer, carries out the “made in the Orient”
fantasy. But the wonder of wonders is the burst of flame that covers all
the green with palpitating scarlet. Clearly red in the flowering mass,
it is another marvel to examine the separate blossoms, one of which
covered the palm of my hand. In form it was suggestive of an orchid, and
there were one or two small, salmon-yellow petals. The petals were soft
and crinkly as those of a Shirley poppy, delicate fairy crêpe.
Under this colorful shelter, Mr. Rowell raises orchids for the market,
and I thought I never could tear myself from the floral butterflies. I
was sorry I could not carry on horseback the ones freely proffered.
In the rambling garden, we could but turn from one bursting wonder to
another. The most ramshackle building, chicken coop, fence, or outhouse
is glorified by the bougainvillea vine, named after the early French
navigator. In color a bright yet soft brick-red, or terra cotta, like
old Spanish tiling, it flows over everything it touches, sending out
showers and rockets that softly pile in masses on roof and arbor. I
discovered they were not exactly flowers, these painted petals, but more
on the order of leaves, or half-formed petals. It is the bracts
themselves, which surround the inconspicuous blossoms, that hold the
color—as with the poinsettia. We had already noticed, in other gardens,
great masses of magenta vine, which is also bougainvillea, and sports
two varieties, one a steady bloomer, season upon season. There are other
colors, too—salmon-pink, orange, and scarlet. And speaking of the
poinsettia, which, even in California, we cherish in pots, here in
magical Hawaii it thrives out of doors, sometimes to a height of fifteen
or twenty feet—as do begonias on some of the islands; but I, for one,
want to see to believe.
We are willing to accept anything about the guava, be it tree or shrub,
and it is both in this sunset land, for to-day we feasted on its yellow
globes—dozens of them. Ripe, they were better far than the ice cream, a
soft edible rind inclosing a heart of pulpy seeds crushed-strawberry in
tint, which, oddly enough, taste not unlike strawberries—stewed
strawberries with a dash of lemon. Before I realize it, I am breaking my
vow not to try describing flavors.
At length we must tear rudely from this Edenic inclosure, and saddle the
little bay mares. It was good to feel the creaking leather and the eager
pull on bits, though in the case of Jack’s mount, Koali (Morning Glory),
that eager pull was all in a retrograde direction when we attempted to
leave town. City limits were good enough for the Morning Glory, and her
rider had a perilous time on the slippery quadruped, who had evidently
been not too well trained. My heart was in my mouth at her narrow
escapes from electric cars, and from sliding sprawls on wet tracks.
Finally she capitulated, and all went smoothly once we struck the fine
stretch of road to the peninsula, which leads through the Damon
gardens—an enchanted wood. This is the way to travel, intimately in
touch with land and sea and sky, without having to crane our necks out
of car windows or after vanishing views on the wrong side of the coach.
We went leisurely, and found it very warm, with that heavy, moist,
perfumed air that more than all the scenery makes one feel the
strangeness of a new country. Tall sugar cane rustled in the late fan of
wind, and a sudden shower, warm as milk, wet our coatless shoulders.
Little fear of catching cold from a drenching in this climate where it
is always summer.
The owner of the mares assures us that all they need be fed is the
sorghum that grows outside our inclosure along the roadway, balanced by
a measure of grain twice daily. We are also at liberty to pasture them
in a handy vacant lot, and Tochigi will feed the grain which he has
stored in the tiny servant house.
“They’re used to outdoors day and night, so the sky is sufficient stable
roof,” their owner praised the climate.
May 28.
One old-time sojourner on this coral strand fitly wrote: “When all days
are alike, there is no reason for doing a thing to-day rather than
to-morrow.” Whether or not he lived up to his wise conclusion I do not
know; but the average hustling white-skin, filled with unreasonable
ambition to visit other shores, does not live up, or down, to any such
maxim. Maybe it is a mistake; maybe we should pay more heed to the lure
of _dolce far niente_. Even so, for us it is not expedient and we may as
well put it by. Jack does not regard it seriously, anyway. His
deep-chested vitality and personal optimism, together with his gift of
the gods, sleep under any and all conditions, if he but will to sleep,
quite naturally make him intolerant of coddling himself in any climate
under the sun, no matter how inimical to his supersensitive white skin.
And I decline to worry. It is so easy to acquire the habit of worrying
about one’s nearest and dearest, to the ruin of all balance of true
values. Nothing annoys and antagonizes Jack so much as inquiries about
his feelings when he himself has not given them a thought. Time enough
when the thing happens, is his practice, if not his theory; but in
justice I must say that he applies this unpreparedness only to himself,
and has ever a shrewd and scientific eye for the welfare of those
dependent upon him, though never will he permit himself to “nag.” “I’m
telling you, my dear,” once, twice, possibly thrice—and there’s an end
on’t.
Everything is freshening in the cool trade wind that is commencing to
wave the live-palm-leaf fans, and on the slate-blue horizon masses of
low trade wind clouds pile and puff and promise
refreshment—“wool-packs,” sailors call them. The past few days of
variable weather have roasted us one minute, and steamed us the next
when the un-cooling rains descended. But it is all in the tropic
pattern, and it is nice never to require anything heavier than summer
garments.
“Hello, Twin Brother!” Jack greeted me yesterday, when, booted and
trousered, I was bridling Lehua. “I wish you didn’t have to put on the
skirt, you look so eminently trim and appropriate!”
“Be patient,” I told him. “We’ll all be riding this way in a few years,
see if we aren’t. You wait.”
But the cheery prophecy of public good sense could not stifle a sigh as
I blotted out the natty boyish togs with the long, hot black skirt. What
a silliness to put the “weaker sex” to such disadvantages—as if we did
not manifest our bonny brawn by surviving to fight them!
To the village we cantered to have Koali and Lehua shod at the
blacksmith’s, and odd enough it was to see a Japanese working on their
hoofs. But for a succession of violent downpours, we should have taken a
long ride. There is inexpressible glory in this broken weather; one
minute you move in a blue gloom under a low-hanging sky and the next all
brilliance of heaven shines through, gilding and be jeweling the
vivid-green world.
This date marks a vital readjustment in ship matters. Two of the
_Snark’s_ complement are to return to the mainland, and Jack has cabled
a man to come down by first steamer and take hold of the engines. Not to
mention many other details of incomprehensible neglect aboard by the
undisciplinary sailing master, the costly sails have been left to mildew
in their tight canvas covers on the booms in all this damp weather, with
deck awnings stretched _under_ the booms instead of protectingly above.
And no bucket of water has been sluiced over the deck since our arrival
eight days ago, necessitating the not inconsiderable expense of
recalking thus early in the voyage. The appearance of the deck can be
guessed; and otherwise no effort has been put forth to bring the yacht
into presentable order, nor any interest nor head-work displayed in
forwarding repairs. If a salaried master will let his valuable charge
lapse, there is no cure but to get one who will not.
Last Sunday we lunched with the Waterhouses and their rollicking
week-end crowd from town, who showed what _they_ thought of conventional
restrictions in tropic cities, by spending the day in light raiment and
bare feet, resting or romping over house and grounds. Mrs. Gretchen’s
father, who is superintendent of the Honolulu Iron Works, was also
there, and came back with us to take a personal look-see at our wrecked
engine. To-day he made a special trip from the city, bringing an
engineer, and the upshot was a more encouraging report than he had
deemed possible from his first inspection. “Anyway,” he cheered our
dubiousness, “you’re a whole lot better off than the little yacht that
piled ashore on the reef outside yonder this morning.”
So Jack’s face, that had been fairly downcast for two or three days,
cleared like an Oahu sky after a thunder-shower; and later he said to
me, with a familiar little apologetic smile:
“Mate Woman, you mustn’t mind my getting a little blue sometimes. I
can’t help it. When a fellow does his damndest to be square with
everybody, buys everything of the best in the market and makes no kick
about paying for it, and then gets thrown down the way I’ve been thrown
down with the whole building and running of this boat, from start to
finish—why, it’s enough to make him bite his veins and howl. A man
picks out a clean wholesome way of making and spending his money, and
every goldarned soul jumps him. If I went in for race horses and chorus
girls and big red automobiles, there’d be no end of indulgent comment.
But here I take my own wife and start out on good clean adventure....
Oh, Lord! Lord! What’s a fellow to think!... Only, don’t you mind if I
get the blues _once_ in a while. I don’t very often.—And don’t think
I’m not appreciating your own cheerfulness. I don’t miss a bit of
it.—And you and I are what count; and we’ll live our life in spite of
them!”
Again referring to that beloved scrap heap, the _Snark_, there’s a
comedian in our own small tragedy, although he doesn’t know it. His
sweet and liquid name is Schwank, assumably Teutonic, and, with hands
eloquent of by-gone belaying pins, “every finger a fishhook, every hair
a rope yarn,” he tinkers about the boat in the capacity of carpenter.
With his large family, he lives on the other side of the peninsula, and
bids fair to be a great diversion to us all. Belike he has of old been a
sad swashbuckler for he hints at dark deeds on the high seas, of
castaways and stowaways, of smuggled opium and other forbidden treasure;
and he gloats over memories of gleaming handfuls of pearls exchanged for
handfuls of sugar in the goodly yesteryears. Why did he not make it
pailfuls of pearls while he was on the subject? In my own dreams of
pearl-gathering in the Paumotus and Torres Straits far to the southwest,
I never allow myself to think in less measure than a lapful. But
pondering upon this theatrical old pirate’s vaunted exchange, I cannot
help wishing I had been a sugar planter, for I care more for pearls than
for sugar.
Late this afternoon we took out the horses for a few red miles over the
roads of Honolulu Plantation. The rich, rolling country recalled rides
in Iowa, its high green cane, over our heads, rustling and waving like
corn of the Middle West. And everywhere we turned were the stout and
gnarly Japanese laborers, women as well as men. Female field laborers
may be picturesque in some lands; but I am blest if these tiny Japanese
women, with their squat, misshapen bodies, awful bandy legs, and blank,
sexless faces, look well in ours. Their heads are bound in white cloth,
while atop, fitting as well as Happy Hooligan’s crown, sit small
sun-hats of coarse straw. From under bent backs men and women alike
lowered at us with their slant, inscrutable eyes. Tony, who claims a
smattering of their language, tells us: “I think Americans no lika-da
talk those Japanese I hear on my train and Pearl City.” And there are
56,000[2] of them by now in this covetable Territory.
Sunday night we went up by train to Honolulu, to fulfill a dinner
engagement with Mr. and Mrs. Charles L. Rhodes. Mr. Rhodes is editor of
the evening paper, _The Star_, and Mr. Walter Gifford Smith, editor of
the _Pacific Commercial Advertiser_, whom Jack had met here in 1904, was
also a guest. The others were Brigadier-General John H. Soper and his
family. General Soper is the first officer ever honored by the Hawaiian
Government—by any one of the successive Hawaiian Governments—with the
rank and commission of General. He had been in charge of the police
during the unsettled days of the Revolution, and later on was made
Marshal of the Republic of Hawaii, in effect previous to her annexation
by the United States.
Mr. and Mrs. Rhodes live in a roomy, vine-clambered cottage, set in a
rosy lane tucked away behind an avenue clanking with open electric cars;
such a pretty lane, a garden in itself, closed at one end, where a
magnificent bougainvillea flaunts magenta banners, and a slanting
coconut palm traces its deep green frondage against the sky.
This was a most pleasant glimpse into a Honolulu home, and our new
friends further invited us to go with them to a reception Wednesday
evening. Now, be it known that neither of us is overfond of public
receptions; but this one is irresistible, for Prince Jonah Kuhio
Kalanianaole and his royal wife are to receive in state, in their own
home, with the Congressional party, now visiting the Islands from
Washington, on the Reception Committee. Also, there is a possibility
that Her Majesty, Liliuokalani, the last crowned head of the fallen
monarchy, may be there. In these territorial times of Hawaii, such a
gathering may not occur again, and it is none too early for us to grasp
a chance to glimpse something of what remains of the incomparably
romantic monarchy.
May 29.
Heigh-O, palm-trees and grasses! This is a lovely world altogether, and
we are most glad to be in it. But it has its small drawbacks, say when
the honored Chief Executive of one’s own United States of America makes
an error quite out of keeping with his august superiority. This placid
gray-and-gold morning, arriving by first train from town, and before we
had risen from our post-breakfast feast of books at the jolly little
outdoor table, an affable young man, whose unsettled fortune—or
misfortune—it is to be a newspaper reporter, invaded our vernal
privacy. In his hand no scrip he bore, but a copy of _Everybody’s
Magazine_, portly with advertising matter, his finger inserted at an
article by Theodore Roosevelt on the subject of “nature-fakers.” In this
more or less just diatribe, poor Jack London is haled forth and flayed
before a deceived reading public as one of several pernicious writers
who should be restrained from misleading the adolescent of America with
incorrect representation of animal life and psychology. An incident in
Jack’s “White Fang,” published last fall, companion novel to “The Call
of the Wild,” is selected for damning evidence of the author’s
infidelity to nature. Our Teddy, oracle and idol of adventurous youth,
declares with characteristic emphasis that no lynx could whip a wolf-dog
as Jack’s lynx whipped Kiche, the wolf-dog. But the joke is on the
President this time, as any one can see who will take the trouble to
look up the description in “White Fang.” And lest you have no copy
convenient, let me explain that Jack never said the lynx whipped the
wolf-dog. Quite to the contrary—
“Why, look here,” he laughed, running his eye rapidly down the magazine
column, “he says that the lynx in my story killed the wolf-dog. It did
nothing of the kind. That doesn’t show that Mr. Roosevelt is as careful
an observer as _Everybody’s_ would have us believe. My story is about
the wolf-dog killing the lynx—and eating it!”
“I hope he’ll get it straight,” he mused after the departing form of the
reporter with a “good story.” “I can see myself writing an answer to Mr.
Roosevelt later on, in some magazine.”
Jack’s hope that his response to the charge of “nature-faking” would be
honestly reported, was a reflex to the relentless treatment he has
suffered from the press of the Pacific Coast. This is undoubtedly due to
the menace of his socialistic utterances; but what a distorted
civilization it is that makes a man who has unaided fought his way up
from nether levels of circumstance, pay so bitterly for his stark
humanitarian politics.
The newspapers of Honolulu, this Farthest West of his own country, have
shown toward him no influence of the unkindness of his natal State, but
have been all that is hospitable, and this in face of the rebuff put
upon their city when we sailed calmly by to the suburbs. From various
sources again we hear of the welcomes that were waiting along the
wharves, the garlands that were woven for our necks.
It must be forgiven that I jump from theme to theme in more or less
distracted manner; for if the way of my life is one of swift
adjustments, so must be the honest way of my chronicle. And so, from
Presidents, and reporters, wolf-dogs, and politics, lynxes, and ethics,
and histories of author-husbands, I shift to fripperies, and gala
gardens, and Polynesian princes.
My party-gown hangs on a line across a corner of the big room,
faultlessly pressed by the æsthetic Tochigi, with yards of Spanish lace,
souvenir of Santiago de Cuba, about the shoulders, arranged with
unerring taste by fair Gretchen. It is always a pleasure to hear her
benevolent “How are you people?” and Albert’s cheery “Zing!” at the red
gate. Often he and the Madonna stroll over in the dusk, in their hands
slender red-glowing punks to ward off mosquitoes—the “undesirable
immigrants” that have infested Hawaii’s balmy nights these eighty years,
ever since the ship _Wellington_, last from San Bias, Mexico,
unwittingly discharged them in her otherwise empty water barrels at
Lahaina, on Maui. It was a sad exchange for unpolluted drinking water.
Fortunately the days are free of the pests; but woe to the malihini who
kens not deftly how to tuck his bobinet under the edges of his mattress.
The enchantment of our lovely acre and the novel way of living, it would
seem, are being challenged by the varying temptations of the Capital.
To-night we attend the reception, and to-morrow ride to Waikiki to spend
a few days on the Beach.
Pearl Harbor, May 30.
We took the five o’clock train to Honolulu, and drove in a funny
one-horse carriage to the Royal Hawaiian Hotel for dinner. Ever since
Jack’s letters to me from Hawaii three years ago, I have longed to see
this noted tropic hostelry with its white tiers of balconies and its
Hawaiian orchestra, and the red and green lights which its foreign
visitors execrate and adore. Last evening, however, the hotel was
quiet—no music, no colored lights, and few guests. But the gardens were
there, and the fairy balconies, on the lowest of which we dined most
excellently, with an unforeseen guest. Before the “American-plan” dinner
hour, we were sitting in a cool corner, when a bearded young man stepped
briskly up:
“You’re Jack London, aren’t you?—My name is Ford.”
[Illustration: (1) Working Garb in Elysium. (2) Duke Kahanamoku, 1915.]
“Oh, yes,” Jack returned, quickly on his feet. “—Alexander Hume Ford. I
heard you were in Honolulu, and have wanted to see you. I’ve read lots
of your stuff—and all of your dandy articles in _The Century_.”
Mr. Ford could hardly spare time to look his pleasure, nor to be
introduced to me, before rushing on, in a breathless way that made one
wonder what was the hurry:
“Now look here, London,” in a confidential undertone. “I’ve got a lot of
whacking good material—for stories, you understand. _I_ can’t write
stories—there’s no use my trying. My fiction is rot—rot, I tell you. I
can write travel stuff of sorts, but it takes no artist to do that. You
_can_ write stories—the greatest stories in the world—and I’ll tell
you what: I’ll jot down some of the things I’ve got hold of here and
everywhere, and you’re welcome to them.... What d’you say?”
Jack suggested that he make three at our table, and he talked a steady
stream all through—of information about everything under the sky, it
would seem, for he has traveled widely. At present he is interested in
reviving the old Hawaiian sport of surf-riding, and promised to see us
at Waikiki, and show us how to use a board.
On the electric car bound for Waikiki, we found ourselves part of a
holiday crowd that sat and stood, or hung on the running-boards—a crowd
that convinced me Honolulu was Honolulu after all. The passengers on the
running boards made merry way for the haole wahine, while a beaming
Hawaiian, a gentleman if ever was one, gave me his seat, raising a
garlanded hat. The people made a kaleidoscope of color—white women in
evening gowns and fluffy wraps, laughing Hawaiian and hapahaole girls in
gaudy holokus and woolly crocheted “fascinators,” the native men
sporting brilliant leis of fresh flowers, the most characteristic being
the _ilima_, which, strung on thread, forms an orange-hued inch-rope
greatly affected for neck garlands and hat bands. Like ourselves, all
were making for the gardens of their Prince.
Some three miles from the center of town, we alighted at the big Moana
Hotel, where, in a lofty seaward lanai overlooking a palmy carriage
court, was spent our first hour at Waikiki, sipping from cool glasses
while we rested in large rattan chairs; for none but a malihini moves
quickly here in hours of relaxation, though the haoles of Hawaii work at
least as hard as on the mainland, and no shorter hours. Lovely indeed
was this my first glimpse of Hawaii’s celebrated watering place, as we
lounged in the liquid night-breeze from over rolling star-tipped waters
that broke in long white lines on the dim crescent beach.
Strolling across broad Kalakaua Avenue, we entered a park where great
looming trees were festooned high and low with colored lights—Prince
Cupid’s private gardens thrown wide to his own people as well as to
foreign guests. A prodigious buzz and hum came from a lighted building,
and we stepped over the lawns to a fanfare of martial music from
Berger’s Royal Hawaiian Band. From an immense open tent where many were
sitting at little tables, the lilting of a Hawaiian orchestra of guitars
and _ukuleles_ (oo-koo-lay’lees) blended into the festive din; and then,
threading purely the medley of sound, was heard a woman’s voice that was
like a violin, rising high and higher, dominating the throng until it
lapsed into absolute silence. It was the sweetest of Hawaiian singers,
Madame Alapai; and when she had finished a prodigious gale of applause
went up from all over the grounds, ceasing instantly at the first
crystal tone of her encore.
Like a child at a fair, I had no attention for the way of my feet in the
grass, and Jack laughed paternally at my absorption as he piloted me by
the elbow, with a “Dear Kid—it’s a pleasure to take you anywhere, you
do have such a good time!”
A pretty Hawaiian maid at the dressing-tent greeted us haole wahines
with a smiling “Aloha,” and led to where we women could shed wraps, and
dust noses and pat coiffures; after which the four of us picked a way
through the company, the women lovely in their trailing gowns, and men
in black and white evening attire or glittering army and navy uniforms.
All around under the trees in the back-ground hundreds of Hawaiians
looked on, their dusky faces and eyes eloquent with curiosity and
interest. Up a green terrace we paced, to the broad encircling lanai of
what looked to be an immense grass house. And grass house it proved, in
which the royal owners dwelt before the building of the more modern
mansion.
This entertainment, including as it did the Congressional party, was
unique in its significance. To the right of the receiving line stood the
delegate, Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalanianaole, affectionately known as
Prince Cupid, a well-known figure in Washington, D. C., a dark,
well-featured, medium-sized man in evening dress, handsome, but in my
eyes quite eclipsed by the gorgeous creature at his side, pure Hawaiian
like himself, his wife, the Princess Elizabeth. The bigness of her was a
trifle overwhelming to one new to the physical aristocracy of island
peoples. You would hesitate to call her fat—she is just big, sumptuous,
bearing her splendid proportions with the remarkable poise I had already
noticed in Hawaiian women, only more magnificently. Her bare shoulders
were beautiful, the pose of her head majestic, piled with heavy, fine,
dark hair that showed bronze lights in its wavy mass. She was superbly
gowned in silk that had a touch of purple or lilac about it, the perfect
tone for her full, black, calm eyes and warm, tawny skin. For
Polynesians of chiefly blood are often many shades fairer than the
commoners.
Under our breath, Jack and I agreed that we could not expect ever to
behold a more queenly woman. My descriptive powers are exasperatingly
inept to picture the manner in which this Princess stood, touching with
hers the hands of all who passed, with a brief, graceful droop of her
patrician head, and a fleeting, perfunctory, yet gracious flash of
little teeth under her small fine mouth. Glorious she was, the Princess
Kalanianaole, a princess in the very tropical essence of her. Always
shall I remember her as a resplendent exotic flower, swaying and bending
its head with unaffected, innate grace.
One and all, they filed by, those of her own race, proud and humble
alike, kissing the small, jeweled brown hand, while the white Americans
merely touched it with their own. And what came most sharply to me, out
of the conventionality, out of the scene so wrapped about with state and
pomp, was a fleeting, shifting glint of the wild in her full black eyes,
shining through the garmenture of her almost incredible culture and
refinement—a fitful spark of the passing savage soul of her, one of a
people but lately clothed in modern manners.
To the left of the deposed Princess, in a deep armchair, sat an even
more interesting, if not so beautiful, personage—no less than Queen
Lydia Kamakaeha Liliuokalani, last sovereign of the Kingdom of Hawaii,
sister and successor to the much-traveled King Kalakaua. The Queen is
rarely on view to foreigners, especially Americans, for she loves us
not, albeit her consort, Governor John Owen Dominis, dead these sixteen
years, was the son of a Massachusetts captain. I was glad to be well
down the line, as I had more time to watch her, for the vigor of her hot
fight of but yesterday to preserve the Crown of Hawaii is to me one of
the most interesting dramas in history—bleeding tragedy to her.
Photographs and paintings do not flatter Queen Liliuokalani. All I have
seen depict a coarseness and heaviness that is entirely absent. I was
therefore surprised, brought face to face with Her Majesty, to find that
face rather thin, strong, and pervaded with an elusive refinement that
might be considered her most striking characteristic, if anything
elusive can be striking. But this evasive effect, in a countenance
fairly European in feature, was due, I think, to the expression of the
narrow black eyes, rather close-set, which gave the impression of being
implacably savage in their cold hatred of everything American. However
the seeming, I have been assured that by this time the Queen has come
amiably to accept the U. S. A. in Hawaii, and to rise above all vengeful
feelings. Indeed during this very reception she greeted an erstwhile
arch-enemy: “I am glad to see you Mr—!” As near as I can figure it, she
was tricked and trapped by brains for which her brain, remarkable though
it be, was no match. Imagine her emotions, she who received special
favor from Queen Victoria at the Jubilee in London; she who then had the
present Kaiser for right-hand courtier at royal banquets, and the royal
escort of Duke This and Earl That upon public occasions, now sitting
uncrowned, receiving her conquerors.[3]
It is easier for the younger ones; but the Queen’s pretense looks very
thin, and my sympathy, for one, is warm toward her. There is no
gainsaying that truism, “the survival of the fittest,” in the far drift
of the human, and the white indubitably has proved the fittest; but our
hearts are all for this poor old Queen-woman; although I could not help
wondering if she would have liked us any better had she known. Most
certainly, when our eyes met in the short contact of glances there was
nothing of the tender suavity of the Hawaiian, only abysmal dislike.
Taking my cue from those preceding, I offered a dubious paw, which she
touched gingerly, as if she would much prefer to slap it. It was a
distinct relief to meet the prankish eye of Acting Governor “Jack”
Atkinson, my Jack’s old friend (who stood next the Queen’s chair,
murmuring in her ear the names of strangers), and surrender my timorous
hand to his hearty clasp.
Thence on, down one side of the long lanai, and off to the lawn, we ran
the gantlet of a bowing, embarrassed, amused string of Congressmen with
their wives and daughters, all smiling uncomfortably in the absence of
introductions, since they formed the Reception Committee in this
stranger city. We undoubtedly looked quite as foolish, when the tension
was immeasurably let down by a jolly young Congressman who blurted out:
“_That_ Jack London! Why didn’t somebody tell us? Great Scott!”
A subdued titter went up, and I said to the grinning Jack:
“That’s how you pay for your ‘Dream Harbor’ seclusion!”
Now we were free to mingle with the charming throng, and it was “Aloha”
here and “Aloha” there, that all-loving salutation, employed alike by
white and native. We happened upon old acquaintances from the States,
and were introduced to many Honolulans. Some of these were Hawaiian or
part-Hawaiian, who met us with a half-bashful, affectionate
child-sweetness that was altogether irresistible. There is that in their
beautiful eyes which is a golden trumpet call for a like honesty and
good will.
Every one shakes hands—men, women, children—at every friendly excuse
of meeting and parting. Smiles are one with the language, and there is a
pretty custom of ending a remark, or even a direction, or command, with
a pleasant “eh!”—the _e_ pronounced _a_, with an upward inflection.
Jack is especially taken with this gentle snapper, and goes about
practicing on it with great glee.
You might have thought yourself at a social fair at home, what of the
canopies, refreshments, and faces of countrymen—but for the
interspersing of brown Hawaiians, so soft and so velvet in face and
body, voice and movement, “the friendliest and kindest people in the
world.” A learned New Englander over forty years ago eulogized: “When
the instinct of hospitality which is native to these islands gets
informed and enriched and graced by foreign wealth, intelligence, and
culture, it certainly furnishes the perfection of social entertainment.
Of course there are in other lands special circles of choice spirits who
secure a brilliant intercourse all to themselves of a rare and high
kind, but I question if anywhere in the whole world general society is
more attractive than in Honolulu. Certainly nowhere else do so many
nationalities blend in harmonious social intercourse. Natives of every
well-known country reside there, and trading vessels or warships from
America and the leading countries of Europe are frequently in port. A
remarkable trait of these foreign-born or naturalized Hawaiians is that
interest in their native land seems only intensified by their distant
residence. The better Hawaiians they are, the better Americans, English,
French, or Germans they are. And thus it happens that you meet people
fully alive to the great questions and issues of the day all the world
over. Their distance from the scene of these conflicts seems to clear
their view, and I have heard some of the wisest possible comments upon
American affairs, methods, and policies from residents of the islands.
Besides, they have in small the same problems to solve in their little
kingdom which engage us. All the projected reforms social, moral, civil,
or religious, have their place and agitators here.”
The residence of the Prince was open to the public, and through a
labyrinth of handsome apartments we roamed, now up a step into a big
drawing-room furnished in magnificent native woods and enormous pots of
showering ferns, the walls hung with old portraits of the rulers of
Hawaii; now down three steps into a pillared recess where, in a huge
iron safe, unlocked for the evening, we were shown trophies of the
monarchies. Near by were several priceless old royal capes woven of tiny
bird-feathers, some red, some of a rich deep yellow, and others of the
two colors combined in a glowing orange. Farther on, a glass-front
cabinet displayed shelf above shelf of medals and trinkets pertaining to
the past regime, including the endless decorations received by King
David Kalakaua in the lands visited in his progress around the world in
the early ’80s. Some one remarked that he had possessed more of these
royal decorations than any known monarch. But this is not so surprising
as the fact that he was the only known reigning monarch who ever
circumnavigated the globe.
A space in the cabinet was devoted to the Crown of the Realm, a piece of
workmanship at once formal and barbaric, with its big bright gems, most
conspicuous of which, to me, were the huge pearls. One diamond had been
stolen, and the large gaping socket was a pathetic reminder of the empty
throne in the old Palace now used as the Executive Building.
Many and barbaric were the objects in this modern home, mere “curios”
should the uncaring gaze upon them in a museum; but here in Hawaii they
breathed of the vanishing race whose very hands we were pressing and
whose singers’ voices caressed the heavy, fragrant air; the while across
a lawn that had been carpet for Hawaii Nei festivities of many years sat
the deprived sovereign under the eaves of a grass house.
When, we wonder, in our westward traverse, shall we see another queen,
or a prince, or a princess—even shadows of such as are these of Hawaii?
Not soon enough, I swear, to fade the memory of this remarkable trio;
for nothing can ever dim the picture that is ours. And the Princess
Elizabeth Kalanianole has set an example, a pattern, that will make us
full critical of royal women of any blood.
Seaside Hotel, Waikiki Beach, Honolulu, May 31.
“Waikiki! there is something in the very name that smacks of the sea!”
caroled a visitor in the late ’70s. Waikiki—the seaside resort of the
world, for there is nothing comparable to it, not only in the
temperature of its effervescent water, which averages 78° the year
round, but in the surroundings, as well as the unusual variety of sports
connected with it, surf-canoeing in the impressively savage
black-and-yellow dug-outs; surf-boarding, the ancient game of kings;
fishing, sailing; and all on a variously shallow reef, where one may
swim and romp forgetful hours without necessarily going out of depth on
the sandy bottom. The cream-white curve of beach is for miles plumed
with coconut palms, and Diamond Head, “Leahi,” which rounds in the
southeastern end of the graceful crescent, is painted by every shifting
color, light, and shade, the day long, on its rose-tawny, serrated
steeps. And many’s the sail comes whitening around the point, yacht or
schooner or full-rigged ship, a human mote that catches the eye and sets
one a-dreaming of lately hailed home harbors and beckoning foreign ports
with enchanting names.
And one must not forget the earlier mariners who fixed these island
havens in the eye of the world. There was Captain Broughton, who
anchored off Waikiki in the British discovery-ship _Providence_,
bristling with her sixteen guns. In lazy, inviting mood, floating upon
the rocking swell, I like to picture Kamehameha the Great, gorgeous in
his orange and crimson feather-cape, stepping aboard from his hardly
less gorgeous black and yellow canoe of state, manned by warriors; his
mission to request arms and ammunition. But it seems that Broughton was
more peacefully bent than his predecessors of two years before, Brown
and Gordon; for he firmly declined to lend any part of his armament.
When he went ashore, it was for the purpose of making the first survey
of Honolulu harbor, and his men were kept at this work for three days.
Broughton was much concerned over the poor estate of the common people,
and noted a rapid decline in their numbers since his former visit with
Vancouver. Both on Oahu and later on Kauai, he did his best to dissuade
those in power from their internecine warfare. Nor did he relax his
refusal to allow any part of his sea-arsenal to leave the _Providence_.
_Waikiki! Waikiki!_ We keep repeating the word; for already it spells a
new phase of existence. Here but a scant twenty-four hours, the rest of
the world slips into a mild and pleasant, not imperative memory, for the
spirit of storied Waikiki has entered ours. The air seems full of wings.
I am so happy making home, this time a tent. We two can pitch home
anywhere we happen to alight: a handful of clothes-hangers, a supply of
writing materials—and other details are mere incidentals. The art of
living, greatest of arts, may be partially summed up in this wise:
“... to inhabit the earth is to love that which is; to catch the
savor of things.”
This brown canvas domicile, comprising three rooms separated by thin
portieres, with an accessory bath-house and servant room, also of
tenting, is the last of a scattered row of detached accommodations
belonging to the Seaside Hotel, some of them weathered old cottages of
the palmy days when Hawaiian royalty spent most of its time on the
beach. A short distance _mauka_ (mountainward) or away from _makai_
(toward the sea), on a lawn pillared with sky-brushing coconut palms,
still stands a true old grass house of romantic association. It was
created for the seaside retreat of King Lot, Kamehameha V, during his
reign in the decade commencing 1863, and each Wednesday was devoted to
the fashioning of it, from _Lama_ wood inside and pandanus (screw-pine)
leaves outside. It was named Lama House, for the wood was sacred to the
construction of temples and idols in the older days. The King left no
issue, and upon his death the estate went to the Princess Ruta (Ruth)
Keelikolani, and at her demise to Mrs. Bernice Pauahi Bishop, the last
known descendant of Kamehameha the Great.
To the south we are separated from the big Moana Hotel with its tiers of
green roofs, by a sand-banked stream fed from the mountains, with,
beyond, a lavender field of lilies. Kalakaua Avenue is so far away
across the hotel gardens that the only sound from that quarter is an
occasional rumble of electric trams over a bridge that spans the stream,
fitting into our bright solitude like distant thunder from the black
range that is visible through a grove of palms and algaroba.
Not twenty feet in front, where grass grows to the water’s edge at
highest tide, the sands, sparkling under blazing sunrays, are frilled by
the lazy edges of the surf; and the flawed tourmaline of the
reef-waters, pale green, or dull pink from underlying coral patches,
stretches to the low white line of breakers on the barrier reef some
half-mile seaward, while farthest beyond lies the peacock-blue ribbon of
the deep-sea horizon.
In the cool of morning, we skipped across the prickly grasses for a dip,
accompanied by a frisking collie neighbor. The water was even more
wonderful than at the Lochs, invigorating enough at this early hour,
full of life and movement. Jack gave me lessons in diving through the
mild breakers, and it was hard to tear ourselves away, even for the
tempting breakfast tray that a white-suited Filipino was bearing to the
tent-house.
Besides our cottage row, the Seaside Hotel includes one large frame
house of many rooms, half over the water, reached by a winding driveway
from the main avenue through a grove of lofty coconut palms, under which
stray large cottages belonging to the hotel. In a rambling one-storied
building are the kitchen, the bar, an oriental private dining room, and
a reception hall, also furnished in Chinese carved woods and splendid
fittings, that belong to the estate. This hall opens into a circular
lanai with frescoed ceiling—a round dining and ballroom open half its
disk. Beyond the curving steps, on the lawn toward the sea, grow two
huge gnarled _hau_ trees, each in the center of a round platform where
drinks are served. The hau is a native of the Islands, and is related to
the hibiscus. The limbs snarl into an impenetrable shape, and are hung
with light yellow bells formed of five to ten lobes, which turn to mauve
and then to ruddy brown when they fall.
Mr. and Mrs. Fred Church (he is manager, and an old Klondike
acquaintance of Jack) gave us a dinner before the “Transport Night
Dance.” While the first word is appropriate for the bewitchment of
dancing in a Hawaiian night to the music of Hawaii, it is here used to
designate the entertainment on arrival of a United States Army
transport, when the officers and their ladies come ashore midway in the
long passage to or from the Coast and the Philippines.
The immense half-open circle of the lanai was cleared of dining
equipment, and the shining floor dusted with shavings of wax. Many-hued
Chinese lanterns were the only lighting here and out among the trees,
where dancers rested in the pauses of the music.
And the music. It was made entirely by an Hawaiian orchestra of guitars
and ukuleles, with a piano for accent, and all I had heard and dreamed
of the glamour of “steamer night in Honolulu” came to pass. It seemed
hardly more real than the dream, gliding over the glassy floor to lilt
of hulas played and sung by these brown musicians whose mellow, slurring
voices sang to the ukuleles and guitars because they could not refrain
from singing.
Between two dances I found Jack talking with Princess David Kawananakoa
and her husband, who is brother to Prince Cupid, and whom he resembles.
Both Princes are nephews of King Kalakaua’s queen, Kapiolani. Princess
David, Abigail, was a Campbell, and is only about an eighth Hawaiian.
She is a beauty; no more splendid in carriage than her sister-in-law,
but much more European in coloring and feature. Doubtless she could be
quite as regal upon occasion; but this evening she was charmingly
vivacious, and I caught myself looking with affection born of the
instant into her beautiful eyes that smiled irresistibly with her
beautiful mouth—“a smile of pearls.”
The lovely ball closed with “Aloha Oe,” Love to You, in waltz measure,
while the dancers joined in singing. The last, dying cadence left one
with a reposeful sense of fulfillment, and none broke this dreamy repose
by clapping for an encore.
Waikiki, June 1.
Yesterday, after a luncheon that included our first _yam_ (little
different from a fried potato-patty), we rode to Diamond Head, where at
last I gazed into a real crater. The way led through Kapiolani Park,
where the little sleeping volcano formed a painted background for the
scattered trees and blossoming lotus ponds. Once out of the shady
driveways, we sweltered in a windless glare upon the rising white road.
It was a mud volcano, this Leahi, and upon its oblong steep sides remain
the gutterings of age-ago eruptions. While less than eight hundred feet
high, at a distance it appears much higher. We had had a
never-to-be-forgotten view of it on our first ride to Honolulu, when,
through a gap, we looked across the tree-embowered city, and the low red
crater of Punchbowl—Puowaina; and far Diamond Head rose too ethereal in
the shimmering atmosphere to be of solid earth thrown up by ancient
convulsions.
Skirting the south side of the Head, we tethered our dripping horses,
and on foot climbed the limy wall, seething hot under the midday sun. I
arrived at the edge of the crater sans heart and lungs, muscles
quivering, and eyes dim. But what I there saw brought me back in short
order to my normal state of joy at being alive. Compared with other
wonders of Hawaii Nei, probably this small hollow mountain should be
sung without trumpets. But I have not seen Haleakala and Kilauea, Mauna
Kea or Hualalai, and lacked no thrills over my first volcano, albeit a
dead one. The bowl is a symmetrical oval, and may be half a mile
long—we could not judge, for the eye measures all awry these incurving
walls of tender green, cradling, far beneath, the still, green oval
mirror of a lakelet.
We rested our burned eyes on the soft green shell of earth before
retracing the scorching way to the horses, and decided that small-boat
travel is ill training for mountain scaling anywhere near the Southern
Cross. Around Diamond Head we continued, gazing off across blue bays and
white beaches to Koko Head, very innocent seen from the land by light of
day, but full of omen by night when winds blow hot and small _Snarks_
drift near wicked reefs. To-day the road led close by Diamond Head
lighthouse and the signal station that telephoned our approach to
Honolulu; and we learned that it was wirelessed from the city to the
island of Maui, where the Congressional party hung 10,000 feet, on the
lip of Haleakala’s twenty-three-mile crater. How different from times
when the only way of messages was by the watery miles separating the
islands, in sloops and schooners or outrigger canoes, and telephones had
never been dreamed of.
On the way to return the mares, Jack took me aside to the transport
wharf that I might see the departure of a vessel from Honolulu, for
never, since his own experiences, has he spoken without emotion of this
beautiful ceremonial. There is nothing like it anywhere else in the
world.
The steamer decks were bowers of fragrant color, as was the wharf, for
the shoulders of the departing congressmen and their womenfolk were
high-piled with wreaths, of ilima, of roses, of heliotrope, carnations,
lilies, and scented green things; while the dense throng ashore was
hardly less garlanded, and streams of flowers flowed back and forth on
the gangways. A great humming of voices blent with the quivering strains
of an Hawaiian orchestra on the upper deck, and now and again all
tuneful din drowned in a patriotic burst from Berger’s Royal Hawaiian
Band ashore. An impressive scene it was, not alone for beauty, but in a
human way, for the myriad faces of the concourse shaded from white
through all the browns to yellow skins, mingling in good fellowship and
oneness of spirit in this hour of farewell to the lawmakers of their
common cause. And none of these wishing godspeed were more imposing nor
charming than the Hawaiians, from the two Princes and their splendid
consorts to the humblest commoners of their people. _Humblest_ is
wrong—there is no humility in the breed. Their eyes look only an
innocent equality of sweet frankness, and their feet step without fear
the soil they can but still regard as their dearest own.
Prince Cupid, the delegate, received round after round of cheers from
the passengers when a deep-mouthed siren called the parting moment; and
at the last, the native orchestra, descending the gangway, joined with
the wind instruments in Queen Liliuokalani’s own song, tenderest of
farewells and hopes for a returning, “Aloha Oe.” The human being did not
live whose heart was not conscious of a nameless longing for he knew not
what. One ached with burden of all the good-bys that ever were and ever
will be, of all the sailings of all the ships of all the world.
“O warp her out with garlands from the quays,”
went through my mind when the vessel glided slowly past the wharf, and
the ropes of living blossoms and network of wild-hued serpentine parted
and fell into the water. Flowers filled the air as they were tossed to
and from the gay decks of the ship, many falling into the stream, until
she moved upon a gorgeous tapestry that clung to her forefoot.
As the huge black transport cleared, suddenly her surface seemed flying
to pieces. A perfect fusillade of small dark objects in human form
sprang from her sides, rails, rigging, from every height of ringbolt and
sill, and disappeared in almost unrippling dives through the swirling
blossomy carpet of the harbor.
“Look—look at them!” Jack cried, incoherent with the excitement of his
joy in the kanaka imps who entered the water so perfectly and came up
shaking petals from their curly heads, white teeth flashing, their child
faces eloquent with expectation of a lucrative shower from the
passengers. A bountiful hour it was for them, and little their bright
eyes and brown hands lost of the copper and silver disks that slowly
angled through the bubbling flood. We wished we were down there with
them, for it is great fun to pick a coin from the deep as it filters
down with a short, tipping motion.
“Do you wish you were aboard, going back?” Jack asked, as we turned for
the last time to look at the diminishing bulk of the ship, bannered with
scarves and handkerchiefs and serpentine. I did not. I want to go home
only from east to west.
Such content is ours here at Waikiki, that it is a shame to press it all
into one life, for it could be spread over several incarnations. We
sleep like babies, in the salt night airs wafting through mosquito
canopies. Before breakfast, it is into the blissful warm tide, diving
through bubbling combers, coming up eyes level with tiny sails of
fishermen beyond the barrier reef. All hours one hears the steady,
gentle boom and splash of the surf—not the disturbing, ominous gnashing
and roaring of the Pacific Coast rollers, nor the carnivorous growlings
off the rock-jagged line of New England. And under sun or moon, it is
all a piece of beauty. Toward Diamond Head, when the south wind drives,
swift breakers, like endless charges of white cavalry, leap and surge
shoreward, flinging back long silver manes. The thrill of these landward
races never palls at Waikiki. One seems to vision Pharaoh’s Horses in
mighty contest with backwashing waters, arriving nowhere, dying and
melting impotent upon the sand.
Jack, to whom beauty is never marred by knowledge of its why and
wherefore, has explained to me the physics of a breaking wave.
“A wave is a communicated agitation,” he says. “The water that composes
a wave really does not move. If it moved, when you drop a stone in a
pool and the ripples widen in an increasing circle, there should be at
the center an increasing hole. So the water in the body of a wave is
stationary. If you observe a portion of the ocean’s surface, you will
see that the same water rises and falls endlessly to the agitation
communicated by endless successive waves. Then picture this communicated
agitation moving toward shore. As the land shoals, the bottom of the
wave hits first and is stopped. Water is fluid, and the upper part of
the wave not having been stopped, it keeps on communicating its
agitation, and moves on shoreward. Ergo,” says he, “something is bound
to be doing when the top of a wave keeps on after the bottom has
stopped, dropped out from under. Of course, the wave-top starts to fall,
forward, down, cresting, overcurling, and crashing. So, don’t you see?
don’t you see?” he warms to his illustration, “it is actually the bottom
of the wave striking against the rising land that causes the surf! And
where the land shoals gradually, as inside this barrier reef at Waikiki,
the rising of the undulating water is as gradual, and a ride of a
quarter of a mile or more can be made shoreward on the cascading face of
a wave.”
Alexander Hume Ford, true to promise, appeared to-day with an enormous
surf-board, made fun of the small ones that had been lent us, and we
went down to the sea to learn something of _hee-nalu_, sport of Hawaiian
kings. The only endeavor of fish, flesh, and fowl, which Mr. Ford seems
not to have partially compassed, is that of the feathered
tribe—undoubtedly from lack of time, for his energy and ambition seem
tireless enough even to grow feathers. Jack, who seldom stops short of
what he wants to accomplish, finds this man most stimulating in an
unselfish enthusiasm to revive neglected customs of elder islands days,
for the benefit of Hawaii and her advertisement to the world. Although
we have seen a number of natives riding the breakers, face downward, and
even standing upright, almost no white men appear to be expert. Mr.
Ford, born genius of pioneering and promoting, swears he is going to
make this islands pastime one of the most popular on earth, and judging
by his personal valor, he cannot fail.
The thick board, somewhat coffin-shaped, with rounded ends, should be
over six feet long. This plank is floated out to the breaking water,
which can be done either wading alongside or lying face-downward
paddling; and there you wait for the right wave. When you see it coming,
stand ready to launch the board on the gathering slope, spring upon it,
and—keep on going if you can. Lie flat on your chest, hands grasping
the sides of the large end of the heavy timber, and steer with your
feet. The expert, having gauged the right speed, rises cautiously to his
knees, to full stature, and then, erect with feet in the churning foam,
makes straight for the beach, rides up the sparkling incline, and steps
easily from his grounded sea-car.
A brisk breeze this afternoon, with a rising surf, brought out the best
men, and we saw some splendid natives at close range, who took our
breath away with their reckless, beautiful performance. One, George
Freeth, who is only one quarter Hawaiian, is accounted the best
surf-board rider and swimmer in Honolulu.
When a gloriously bodied Hawaiian, naked but for a loin-cloth carved
against his shining bronze, takes form like a miracle in the
down-rushing smother of a breaking wave, arms outstretched and heels
winged with backward-streaming spray, you watch, stricken of speech. It
is not the sheer physical splendor of the thing that so moves one, for,
lighting and informing this, is an all dominating spirit of joyful
fearlessness and freedom that manifests an almost visible soul, and
lends a slow thrilling of awe to one’s contemplation of the beauty and
wonder of the human. What was it an old Attic philosopher exclaimed?
“Things marvelous there are many, but among all naught moves more truly
marvelous than man.”
And our journalist friend, malihini, white-skinned, slim, duplicated the
act, and Jack murmured, “Gee! What a sport he is—and what a sport this
is for white men too!” His glowing eyes, and a well-known firm
expression about the jaw, told me he would be satisfied with nothing
less than hours a day in the deep-water smokers. As it was, in the small
surf, he came safely in several times. I accomplished one successful
landing, slipping up the beach precisely to the feet of some stranger
hotel guests, who were not half so surprised as myself. It took some
while to learn to mount the board without help, for it is a cumbrous and
unruly affair in the heaving water.
The rising tide was populous with Saturday afternoon bathers, but
comparatively few women, except close inshore. A fleet of young
surf-boarders hovered around Ford and his haole pupils, for he loves
children and is a great favorite with these. Often, timing our
propelling wave, we would find a brown and smiling cherub of ten or so,
all eyes and teeth, timing the same wave, watching with anxiety lest we
fail and tangle up with the pitching slice of hardwood. Not a word would
he utter—but in every gesture was “See! See! This way! It is easy!”
Several times, on my own vociferous way, I was spilled diagonally down
the face of a combing wave, the board whirling as it overturned, and
slithering up-ended, while I swam to bottom for very life, in fear of a
smash on the cranium. And once I got it, coming up wildly, stars
shooting through my brain. And once Jack’s board, on which he had lain
too far forward, dived, struck bottom, and flung him head over heels in
the most ludicrous somersault. His own head was struck in the ensuing
mix-up and we were able to compare size and number of stars. Of course,
his stars were the bigger—because my power of speech was not equal to
his. It seems to us both that never were we so _wet_ in all our lives,
as during those laughing, strenuous, half-drowned hours in the milk warm
surf.
Sometimes, just sometimes, when I want to play the game beyond my known
vitality, I almost wish I were a boy. I do my best, as to-day; but when
it comes to piloting an enormous weighty plank out where the high surf
smokes, above a depth of twelve to fifteen feet, I fear that no vigor of
spirit can lend my scant five-feet-two, short hundred-and-eleven, the
needful endurance. Mr. Ford pooh-poohs: “Yes, you can. It’s easier than
you think—but better let your husband try it out first.”
[Illustration: (1) Old Hawaiian. (2) The Sudden Vision. (3) The Mirrored
Mountains. (Painting by Hitchcock.)]
Waikiki, June 2.
An eventful day, this, especially for Jack, who is in bed thinking it
over between groans, eyes puffed shut with a strange malady, and
agonizing in a severe case of sunburn. I can sympathize to some extent,
for, in addition to a considerable roasting, my whole body is racked
with muscular quirkings and lameness from the natatorial gymnastics of
the past forty-eight hours. Our program to-day began at ten, with a
delirious hour of canoe riding in a pounding sea. While less individual
boldness is called upon, this game is even more exciting than
surf-boarding, for more can take part in the shoreward rush.
The great canoes are the very embodiment of royal barbaric sea
spirit—dubbed out of hard koa logs, long, narrow, over two feet deep,
with slightly curved perpendicular sides and rounded bottoms; furnished
with steadying outriggers on the left, known as the “i-á-ku”—two curved
timbers, of the light tough hardwood, their outer ends fastened to the
heavy horizontal spar, or float, of wili-wili, called the “a-ma,” nearly
the canoe’s length. The hulls are painted lusterless, dead black, and
trimmed by a slightly in-set, royal-yellow inch-rail, broadening upward
at each end of the boat, with a sharp tip. There is an elegance of
savage warlikeness about these long sable shapes; but the sole warfare
in this day and age is with Neptune, when, manned by shining bronze
crews, they breast or fight through the oncoming legions of rearing,
trampling, neighing sea cavalry.
It required several men on a side to launch our forty-foot canoe, and
altogether eight embarked, vaulting aboard as she took the water, each
into a seat only just wide enough. Jack wielded a paddle, but I was
placed in the very bow, where, both outward and back, the sharpest
thrills are to be had. As we worked reefward in the high breaking flood,
more than once breath was knocked out of me when the bow lunged straight
into a stiff wall of green water just beginning to crest. Again, the
canoe poised horizontally on the springing knife-edge of a tall wave on
the imminence of overcurling, and then, forward-half in midair, plunged
head-into the oily abyss, with a prodigious slap that bounced us into
space, deafened with the grind of the shore-going leviathan at our
backs. I could hear Jack laughing in the abating tumult of sound, as he
watched me trimming my lines so as to present the least possible surface
to the next deluge. He knew, despite my desperate clutches at the canary
streak on either hand, that I was having the time of my life, as, from
his own past experience, he had told me I would have.
It was more than usually rough, so that our brown crew would not venture
out as far as we had hoped, shaking their curly heads like serious
children at the big white water on the barrier reef. Then they selected
a likely wave for the slide home, shouting strange cries to one another
that brought about the turning of the stern seaward to a low green
mounting hill that looked half a mile long and ridged higher and higher
to the burst.
“‘A hill, a gentle hill, Green and of mild declivity,’... It is not!”
some one quoted and commented on his Byron and the threatening young
mountain, with firm hands grasping his paddle, when, at exactly the
right instant, he joined the frantic shrill “_Hoe! Hoe!_” (_Paddle!
paddle like—everything!_) that sent all the blades madly flying to
maintain equal speed with the abrupt, emerald slope. Almost on end,
_wiki-wiki, faster—faster, and yet faster_, we shot, ever the curl of
white water behind, above, overhanging, menacing any laggard crew. Once
I dared to look back. Head above head I marked them all; but never can
fade the picture of the last of all, a magnificent Hawaiian sitting
stark in the stern, hardly breathing, curls straight back in the wind,
his biceps bulging to the weight of canoe and water against the steering
paddle, his wide brown eyes reflecting all the responsibility of
bringing right-side-up to shore his haole freight.
And then the stern settles a little at a time, as the seething bulk of
water dissipates upon the gentle up-slope of the land before the Moana,
while dripping crew and passengers swing around in the backwash and work
out to repeat the maneuver.
Few other canoes were tempted out to-day, but we saw one capsize by
coasting crookedly down a wave. The yellow outrigger rose in air, then
disappeared in white chaos. Everything emerged on the sleek back of the
comber, but the men were unable in the ensuing rough water to right the
swamped boat. We lost sight of them as the next breaker set us zipping
inshore, but later saw them swimming slowly in, towing the canoe
bottom-upward, like a black dead sea monster, and making a picnic of
their plight.
An hour of this tense and tingling recreation left us surprisingly
tired, as well as chilled from the strong breeze on wet suits. Mr. Ford,
with a paternal “I-told-you-so” smile at our enthusiasm over the
canoeing, was prompt for the next event on our program, a further lesson
in surf-boarding. After assisting me for a time I noticed he and Jack
were sending desireful glances toward the leaping backs of Pharaoh’s
Horses, and I knew they wanted to be quit of the pony breakers
inshore—the _wahine_ (woman) surf, as the native swimmers have it, and
manfulwise ride the big water. Our friend had a thorough pupil in Jack,
who with characteristic abandon never touched foot to sand in four
broiling hours.
Nursing my own reddened skin in the cool tent-house, I saw a weary
figure dragging its feet across the lawns, which it was hard to
recognize for Jack until he came quite near. Face and body, he was
covered with large swollen blotches, like hives, and his mouth and
throat were closing painfully. Rather against his wish, I sent Tochigi
to summon a doctor. He had not given a thought during those four hours,
face-downward on the board, to the fact that under the vertical rays of
a tropic sun a part of him never before so exposed was being cooked
through and through. Shoulders and back of neck were cruelly grilled;
but the really frightful damage was to the backs of his legs, especially
the tender hind-side of the knee joints, which were actually warping so
rapidly that in a few moments he could not stand erect because the limbs
refused to straighten. Between us we managed to get him into bed, and
later on, restless with the intolerable pain of his ruined surfaces, and
thinking my room might be cooler, he could progress there only on _heels
and palms, face upward_. “Don’t let me laugh—it hurts too much,” he
moaned through swollen lips, realizing the preposterous spectacle.
Little aid could be rendered, either of diagnosis or practice, by the
physician, Dr. Charles B. Cooper. From his six-foot-odd of height he
bent wide, black eyes upon the piteous mass on my bed, that indisputably
required all known sun-burn remedies; but the swollen blotches were
plainly beyond him. He had observed cases of mouth and throat swelling
from fruit poisoning in the tropics; but this patient had eaten nothing
that he had not been living on for weeks. And also there was the
blotched body.
“Just my luck!” this from the sufferer. “I’m always running into
something no one ever saw or heard of! Although this is something like
the shingles I had on the _Sophie Sutherland_.”
Dr. Cooper left some medicine, and later his filled prescription came
from a druggist, to relieve the torturing burn. Meantime I kept up a
steady changing of cool, wet cloths on the warped legs, while Jack’s “It
can’t last forever!” was the best cheer under the circumstances, until
the blotches began to subside and the throat could swallow grateful
drafts of cold water, and a supper of long, iced poi-cocktail—“Such
beneficent stuff,” he dwelt upon it.
You! All whiteskins who would learn Ford’s rejuvenescent royal sport,
take warning that the “particular star” which illumes our world, despite
its insidiousness, is particularly ardent in Hawaiian skies.
Pearl Lochs, June 6.
Home in our Dream Harbor, after a full week away. The burning hours at
Waikiki were beguiled with cool cloths and reading aloud, Jack taking
his turn when I grew nervous with my own distressed cuticle and an
aching ear from diving. Out of his grip of varied reading matter, he had
selected Lilian Bell’s “The Under Side of Things”—I wonder if with
reference to his fried-and-turned-over condition! A Bulletin reporter
lightened a half hour in an interview upon our unplotted future around
the globe, and told us that our erstwhile sailing master, leaving
yesterday for the Coast on the _Sierra_, had given the impression that
he considered the _Snark_ unsafe.
“He built her!” was Jack’s only comment.
“And sailed over two thousand miles in her,” the newspaper man grinned.
On Tuesday, waiving all discussion, Jack got into his clothing, the
operation (not an unappropriate word) accompanied by running commentary
on things as they were, which would be both interesting and instructive
in a biographical sense, did one dare the editorial censor. Neither of
us was this day “admirin’ how the world was made,” and my widest
sympathy was with his fevered sentiments concerning astronomy, geology,
the starry hereafter, mid-Pacific watering places—and
Alexander-Hume-Fords.
“But I warned you, and warned you!” fended poor Ford, suppressing a
snicker as the fervid cripple, now on his feet, essayed a step or two.
“And you’re luckier than I was the first time I got burned—worse than
you are—and by mistake used capsicum vaseline!—And anyway, I really
did think you had become toughened a bit on your month at sea.”
With stiff-crooked legs, for he could neither unbend nor further bend
the knees, and feet pitched some twenty inches apart, Jack’s action was
perforce unlike that of any known biped. So enamored did he become of
the wonder of it that he insisted upon employing it to progress to the
lanai for luncheon, where his most pitying acquaintances failed to keep
back their mirth. Be assured he enjoyed it all as much as they, for the
lessening hurt made him very happy. An hour face-downward on the beach
that fateful afternoon had not improved my own carriage, but I was not
unwilling to risk it on a short trip along Kalakaua Avenue to the
Aquarium, which Jack, from his memories, had pronounced a world-wonder.
In the cool many-roomed grotto, built of quarried lava, we forgot all
earthly dole, spellbound before the incredible forms and colors of the
sentient rainbows.
It is impossible to communicate an adequate idea of these color
organisms. If an object could be laughably lovely, any one of these fish
would serve; Striped Roman scarf effects showed behind the glass as if
in a shop window display; polka-dot patterns in color schemes beyond
imagining; against the crystal lay figured designs that manufacturers
would make no mistake in copying. And all were possessed of an
iridescent quality that made one expect them to melt into the shifting
greens of their element, as they faded into the farther spaces of the
tanks. But presently they would intensify, coming on larger and brighter
like marine headlights in Elfland.
One fish was an aquatic bird-of-paradise for hues, with a long spine
like an aigrette springing from midway of a body almost as round as a
coin and not much larger, with golden-brown beak and bold black eye. His
name was the kihi-kihi. The hinaleanukuiwi was a turquoise-blue,
five-inch shuttle, terminating in a peacock-blue wisp of tail, with fins
like ruffles tipped with stripes of yellow and black, and a long blue
needle for beak. The fins back of and below its beaded eyes were tiny
azure butterflies striped two ways with purple and gold; and on each
side the turquoise body a splotch of opaque gold rested like a sunbeam.
Around this bright blue marvel slowly wove one of magenta as vivid, and
half as long, of familiar shape but with the bulging eye of a frog
shaded by a thick ruby lid, two pale-pink fins shaped like
center-boards, and a dorsal fin carrying five smartly raked masts.
The kikakapu did not look his bristly name, being a mere shapeless
handful of pigments—green as a parrot, with birdlike head of harlequin
opal and parrot eye of black and yellow. Half of the dorsal was a
black-velvet spot rimmed with gold, his tail two shades of gray with a
root of scarlet. I have not patience to spell the name of an almost
perfect oval of blue black, with a flaming autumn leaf on each side, a
narrow dorsal of shaded rose and salmon-yellow bearing a dotted line of
red, and a gray and red flag for tail, while two sapphire-blue feathers
trailed underneath. Next him flaunted a bright yellow fish that had
patently been scissored midlength and grown a stiff mauve tail in the
middle of its vertical rear, to match a mauve-velvet, long-beaked face.
A canary-wing formed this one’s dorsal fin, and two absurd back-slanted
spikes and a ribby trailer decorated its horizontal base.
The opule and the luahine were both meant to be normally formed,—the
first, speckled on top like a mountain trout, its frills red and black
and blue, jaw crimson spotted, with grass-green gills and tiny gilt
fins, and on its dark sides three parallel rows of larger dots, and one
dropped below, of startling blue, each with an electric light behind!
The second, all brown save for a scarlet headlight on the tall dorsal,
was similarly lit up, all over, fins as well, the head zigzagged with
lightning streaks of the same electric blue. The akilolo wore cold blue
jewels on plum satin, with electric-green stripes on its head, crimson
and green fins and sharply demarked rudder of yellow.
One lovely thing would have been a little heart of gold, if its
white-and-gilt tail had not transformed it into a prefect ace of spades.
Another, modestly fashioned, bore pink fins socketed in emerald like the
head and tail, a yellow stomach, seal-brown back, with three broad
downward bands of the emerald joining a wide lateral band of the same,
decorated in hollow squares of indigo! There were also dainty
mother-of-pearl forms, and gorgeous autumnal petals of the ocean
drifting among the jeweled swimming creatures, with little rainbow crabs
lying on the bottom of sand and shells, and other crannied creatures.
An imaginative child could spin unending day dreams about these living
pictures in the Honolulu Aquarium; and for nightmares, there be
excellent specimens of the octopus family. These squid we have on the
Pacific Coast, but there is no way of observing them. Mr. Potter, the
superintendent, said his were unusually active to-day, and we saw them
displaying all their paces—a very useful spectacle for those who may
venture among the more unfrequented coral hummocks at Waikiki. A wader
can be made very uncomfortable by their ugly ability to attach to a rock
and a victim at one and the same time. They showed their fighting colors
through the glass, coming straight at us, their little devil’s-heads set
with narrow serpent-eyes glinting maliciously, and sharp turtle-beaks;
all their tentacles—awful constricting arms covered with awful
suckers—cast behind in the lightning dart.
When attacked, the squid opens an “ink bag,” fouling the water to the
confusion of its enemy. A native in trouble with one bites its head, and
to such mortal wound the pediculate marine dragon gives up the ghost.
The only thing about the squid that is not unpleasant is its color—in
action a rosy tan; but when curled in the rock crevices, protective
tinting makes it hard to find. Mr. Potter dropped some tiny crabs into
the tank from behind the scenes which caused an exhibition not soon to
be forgotten. The almost invisible squid, watching with one bright eye,
unwreathed its eight flexile, trailing limbs, rose swiftly, swooped, and
enfolded the prey as with a swirl of grey net or veiling. When the
monster presently unwound, the mites of crabs had been absorbed.
“And the Creator sat up nights inventing that,” Jack observed with
sacrilegious gravity. The superintendent looked appropriately startled,
but not unappreciative.
This Honolulu Aquarium, though small, is said to surpass in the beauty
of its exhibit anything in the world, not excepting the Italian; and
fancy our surprise to learn that it is not maintained by the Territory,
nor yet by the city, existing solely by the enterprise of the electric
railway company. The “colored” fish are recruited from the chance catch
of fishermen and from adjacent reefs by the Aquarium attendants. It is
not easy to understand why Honolulu remains luke-warm with regard to
this, one of her greatest attractions. Mr. Ford should be spoken to
about it!
Hawaii is a paradise for the visiting fisherman, where can be hooked
anything from a shark to small fry of various sorts, whether “painted”
or otherwise. Among the many game fish may be named black sea bass,
barracuda in schools, albacore, dolphin, swordfish, yellow-tail, amber
fish, leaping tuna and several other kinds of tuna—these of unthinkable
weight and size. And flying fish may be picked off with rifle or
shotgun—or netted, as by the old Hawaiians.[4]
Ever keen on the trail of Why and Wherefore, Jack has left no stone of
research unturned as to the cause of the violent swelling that succeeded
his sunburning, and has finally diagnosed it as urticaria.
Glad are we to rest once more in our Sweet Home, in sight of that bright
reminder of the long voyage yet to be, the _Snark_ and her unwonted
clatter of active repairs. For a Captain Rosehill has accepted the
commission, and “dry bones are rattling,” as Jack chuckled a moment ago
from the hammock. The sad old sea-dog has taken hold with a vengeance,
but professes little respect for all the modern “fol-de-rol of gewgaws”
that he found lying around, costly labor-saving gear, unavailing only
because of the ruinous mishandling it received in the post-earthquake
days of building. But standing with huge, limp-hanging arms, he _almost_
half-smiled at our big sea anchor—an article he has always yearned to
possess. Clearly it is the one thing aboard with which he is satisfied.
Jack finds endless source of amusement in his skipper and the
irrepressible Schwank, who, it seems, once sailed together. The
experience evidently has not endeared one to the other, and all our
gravity is taxed when the pair display their divergent ways of showing
dislike and contempt. Rosehill is a man of few words; but words are not
needed when Schwank’s name is mentioned. The sound of that raucous
proper noun curdles the old sailor’s sober and asymmetrical features. On
the other hand, Schwank is voluble and expressive. Never in his wildest
tales of that ill-starred voyage with Rosehill has he hinted that he was
ship’s cook under Rosehill. When he recounts how the vessel was wrecked,
one would conclude that Schwank had been in command instead of the
other, and, in giving this intentional twist, he loses sight of the fact
that it looks much as if he, Schwank, must be responsible for the loss.
“I told Rosehill to brace up,” he will roar pompously, throwing a mighty
chest. He always appears about to rise triumphant from the solid earth.
Nor has he lost all of his piratical tendencies. From his acre of
fruitful soil, he sells produce at extortionate prices, and is clever
enough to vend the same through his most beautiful offspring. When
Maria-of-the-Seraph-Smile or Ysabel-of-the-Divine-Gaze stands before me
in the very artistry of colorful and revealing tatters, proffering a
scraggly pineapple or an abortive tomato, valued at Israelitic sums,
they are not to be gainsaid. The pleasure is mine to be robbed.
Pearl Lochs, June 7.
When you come to Hawaii, do not fail to visit one of the big sugar
plantations, to see the working of this foremost industry of the
Territory, for nowhere in the world has it been brought to such
perfection. Mr. Ford had arranged a trip to the Ewa Plantation, a short
distance by rail southwest of the Lochs. With him came a young South
African millionaire, who was much more bent upon discussing socialism
with Jack London than inspecting sugar mills—although in the varied
nationalities among the laborers he might find a rare mine of
sociological data.
The railroad traverses a level of country dotted with pretty villages
peopled by imported human breeds. In my mind’s eye lingers one wee
hamlet like a jewel in the sun—a cluster of little Portuguese shacks
covered with brilliant flowering vines and hedged with scarlet hibiscus,
all imaged in an unrippled stream that brimmed even with its green
banks. Not for nothing were these sunny-blooded children of Portugal
blessed with wide and beautiful eyes; for they can see no virtue in a
dwelling that is not surrounded and entwined with living color. No
matter how squalid their circumstance, they do not rest until growing
things begin to weave a covering of beauty. The tourist could not please
himself more than by hunting out these adoptive spots of color in
Hawaii.
Our station was in the center of the Plantation, which embraces about
5,000 acres. It was the far-sighted sire of Princess Kawananakoa, Mr.
Campbell, who only ten years ago bought this property for one dollar an
acre. Last year its output of sugar was over 29,000 tons. One alone of
the underground pumping plants which we wandered through, cost $180,000;
and every day 70,000,000 gallons of water are pumped on this Plantation.
The manager devoted his day to our party. It must be more or less of a
satisfaction, however, to a man of his patent capabilities, lord over
the complicated affairs of such a project and its horde of workers, to
display his achievement to men who can comprehend its enormousness and
possibilities.
In comfortable chairs on a flat car drawn by a small locomotive, over a
network of tracks that intersect the property, we rode from point to
point, meanwhile simmering gently in the moist hot air thick with odor
of growing cane, or, near the huge mill, of sugar in the making. The
land reminded us of Southern California in springtime, with tree-arbored
roads and flower-drifted banks and fine irrigating ditches. We want to
spend a day on horseback at Ewa, in the lanes and byways with their
lovely vistas. Judging from Mr. Renton’s own leisurely enjoyment of the
occasion and frequent halting of the car that we might gather
wildflowers and wild red tomatoes the size of cranberries, one would not
have dreamed how busy a man he is.
It is hard, in the peaceful heart of this agricultural prospect, to
realize that not long ago it was a place dark with pain and blood and
terror. For here, a hundred and eleven years ago, Kamehameha the Great
dedicated a temple, _heiau_, with human sacrifices, preparatory to
sailing for Kauai on conquest bent.
Sugar cane is classified as a “giant perennial grass,” but, unlike most
members of the grass family, has solid stems, and grows from eight to
twenty feet high. The origin of cane in these islands is unknown though
it is thought to have been introduced from the South Sea Islands by
early native navigators in their exploring canoes. It was used as an
article of diet at the time white men first set foot in Hawaii, but not
made into sugar until about 1828; and less than a decade afterward the
first exportation of sugar was shipped. Primitive stone or wooden
rollers pressed out the sweet juice, which was boiled in crude iron
vessels. Present-day processes have been brought to a high state of
scientific excellence, and probably no plant in the world has been so
exhaustively exploited. The red lava soil, decomposed through the ages,
has been found through experimentation to be the most productive, and
the irrigation scheme of one of these large plantations, with its
artesian wells and mountain reservoirs whence water is carried great
distances, is a colossal feat of engineering.
A man once wrote that agriculture in the tropics consisted of not
hindering the growth of things. But the raising and converting into
sugar of these vast areas of rustling sugar-in-the-stem is not such
smooth luck, for either employer or employed. He who would manufacture
sugar has many formidable if infinitesimal foes to success, among which
are named the nimble leaf hopper, the cane borer, the leaf roller, the
mole cricket, the mealy bug, the cypress girdler, and Fisher’s rose
beetle, known locally as the Olinda bug. To discover the natural enemies
of these pests requires an able corps of entomologists seeking over the
face of the globe, as well as working sedulously in the Experiment
Station in Honolulu.
The mill, with its enormous processes, I shall not attempt to describe
further than to assure that it is a place of breathless interest and
wonder. One sees and tastes the sugar in its successive phases of
manufacture, up to the point where it is shipped to the States for the
last stage of refining.
And more absorbing than these technicalities of the Plantation were the
human races represented among the workers who live and labor, are born,
married, and die within its confines. Through a bewilder of foreign
villages we wandered on foot—Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese, Norwegian,
Spanish, Swedish, Korean, Porto Rican; even the Russians were here but
lately. One cannot fail to note the scarcity of Hawaiian laborers—and
rejoice in it, for they are proud and free creatures, and it would seem
pity to bind them on their own soil. On the other hand, there is no
gainsaying that they are capable toilers when they will. Indeed, it is
said that they accomplish twice the work that a Japanese is willing to
do in a day; but following pay day the Hawaiian is likely not to appear
again until all his money is gloriously squandered. He is strong and
trustworthy, and makes an excellent overseer, or _luna_, as well as
teacher; for he is not merely imitative, but intelligent in applying
what he has learned.
We were led into schools and kindergartens maintained for the scores of
children, and presided over for the most part by white women. In one
room there was a Japanese-Hawaiian teacher—a sweet and maidenly young
thing, her Nipponese strain lending an elusive delicacy to the round
warm native features. In faultless English she explained the duties of
her schoolroom, showing great pride in a sewing class then in session,
and pointing through the window to where the boys of her class could be
seen putting the yard to rights.
I thought we could never leave the kindergartens, with their engaging
babies of endless colors and variety of lineaments, pure types and
crossbred. Most beautiful of all were the Portuguese, with only one
drawback to their childish charm—the grave maturity of their faces.
Bella, however, two-years-tiny, golden-eyed and gold-tawny of skin,
forgot her temperamental soberness and coquetted shamelessly from an
absurd chair in the circle on the bright floor, when she should have
been attending to Teacher. But even Bella came to grief. Like some other
coquettes she was winningly familiar at a distance; but when I tried to
cultivate a closer acquaintance with the young pomegranate blossom, and
take a picture of her loveliness, she fell victim to a panic of
embarrassment and terror that ended in violent weeping in Teacher’s lap.
Homeward bound, it seemed as if we had been transported to and from a
foreign land for the day, though what land was the problem, in view of
the manifold types we had walked among.
In the soft black evening, some of our neighbors drifted across the
yielding turf beneath the ancient trees, the women taking form in the
velvet dark like tall spirit vestals trailing dim draperies and swirling
incense. We lay in the cool grass, the lighted ends of our scented punks
flitting and darting like fireflies, and listened to Peer Gynt from the
Victor indoors, and Mascagni’s orchestral paradises of sound, Patti’s
rippling treble, and Emma Eames’s clear fluting of “Still as the Night,”
floating upward to the sighing obligato of a rising wind from across the
rustling reef-waters.
Sweet land of palms and peace, love and song—and yet, those who knew
her in days gone by would walk sadly now in remembered haunts. Old faces
are missing, and faces resembling them are few. The Hawaii of yesterday
passes, and it makes even the stranger pensive to see the changing. To
one who views her from the height of his heart, a bright commercial
future is cold compensation for the irreplaceable loss of the old
Hawaii.
Pearl Lochs, June 11.
A bit of real Hawaii was ours last night—Hawaii as she is, with more
than a trace of what she has been. It came about through an invitation
from one of our neighbors, who owns the cemetery near Pearl City, to
accompany his wife and himself to a native _luau_ (loo-ah-oo—quickly,
loo-ow), meaning feast. And a luau becomes a _hookupu_ when the guests
bring the food. We four were the only white guests, for in these latter
days the natives are chary of including foreigners in their more
intimate entertainments. But for our friend’s confidential and
sympathetic relation toward them, nothing would have induced them to
consent to our intrusion.
The feast was a sort of “benefit,” given at the christening of the baby
of one “Willie,” this being a familiar custom among the people. Mr.
Willie and his pretty, giggly wife were in a small frenzy of hospitality
and diffidence at receiving a man who writes books, and ran out to the
gate calling “Come in! Come in! Come in!” in rapid sweet staccato.
We should have preferred to remain in the garden of palms and flowers.
But we were ushered to the cottage, where one glance into the hot little
parlor, fainting with heavy-scented bouquets, every window sealed tight
as if in a New England winter, taught us that this was the pride of
their simple, generous lives, with its neat furniture and immaculate
“tidies” on chair, sofa, and exact center-table. Head and neck and
shoulders, we were garlanded with ropes of buff ginger blossoms twined
with mailé, and sat around straight-backed in delighted discomfort,
praying for fans. Admiring the handsome slumbering infant who was the
object and beneficiary of the festival, we strove the while to express
to our host and hostess how glad and honored we felt to be with them.
From the cool twilight lanai floated in the most bewitching, sleepy,
sensuous music, rippled through with gurgles of lazy laughter.
Presently, left to wander at will, whom should we discover in the happy
huddle of musicians but Madame Alapai herself, not at all the grand
prima of her Prince’s park, but a benevolent, smiling wahine, robed
simply like all the rest in spotless white holoku, and unaffectedly
ready, once her sudden, laughing bashfulness was conquered, to warble
anything and everything she knew.
The coyness of these winsome brown women is only skin deep, for to
smiles and sincerity they warm and unfold like their own tropic blossoms
to the morning sun. Deliciously they laugh at everything or nothing,
with an abandon that does not tire, but draws the becharmed malihini
fervently to wish he were one of them for the nonce—a product of
sunshine and dew and affection, without painful responsibility, with no
care but the living, loving present.
Madame Alapai accompanied the first American tour of the Royal Hawaiian
Band. The story runs that she was prepared to go on the second, but her
husband, jealous of her successes and advantages, decided he needed a
change of air and scene, and made the manager of his song-bird a
proposition the prompt rejection of which cost the band its prima donna.
His amiable suggestion was that he travel with the troupe and be paid a
salary for the honor of his mere company, since he possessed no
marketable talent. It seemed enough to his limited vision that he should
allow his wife to earn _her_ salary. Be it credited the lady that the
facts were made public without her assistance, for she remains guiltless
of shaming her life-companion by ridicule or criticism. When asked why
she did not go to the Coast the second time, she replies, with a
slightly lofty air that is without offense, what of its childlikeness:
“Oh, they wanted me to go, but I refused.”
She sang for us without reserve, out of her very good repertory. Her
voice is remarkable, and I never heard another of its kind, for it is
more like a stringed instrument than anything I can think of—metallic,
but sweetly so, pure and true as a lark’s, with falls and slurs that are
indescribably musical and human. The love-eyed men and women lounging
about her with their guitars and ukuleles, garlanded with drooping roses
and carnations and ginger, were commendably vain of showing off their
first singer in the land, and thrummed their loveliest to her every
song. None can waken strings as do these people. Their fingers bestow
caresses to which wood and steel and cord become sentient and
tremulously responsive.
The ukulele, with its petite guitar-shape, and four slender strings,
seems a part of the Hawaiian at every merrymaking. It hailed originally
from Portugal, but one seldom remembers this, so native has it become to
the Islands. Primitive Hawaiians played on a crude little affair that
was a mere stick from the wood of the _ulei_, a flowering indigenous
shrub. The tuneful stick was cut eighteen or twenty inches long and
three or four wide, strung across with gut, and was held in the teeth
like a Jew’s harp, while the strings were swept with a fine grass-straw.
Lovers thus whispered through their teeth an understood language of
longing and trysting, the light wood vibrating the voice to some
distance in the still night.
From temporary arbors broke the clatter of busy wahines making ready the
feast, and new guests laughed their way into the garden. Our nostrils
twitched to unknown but appetizing odors. We expected as a matter of
course that we should be invited to sit cross-legged on grass-mats, and
were disappointed to find a table prepared for the more distinguished of
the company.
At every place was a heap of food so attractive that one did not know
which mysterious packet to open first. Each diner had at least a quart
of poi, of the approved royal-pink tint, in a big shiny goblet carved
from a coconut thinned and polished and scalloped around the brim, and
this substance as usual formed the pièce de résistance. There are
varying consistencies of poi. The “one-finger” poi is thick enough to
admit of a mouthful being twirled at one twirl upon the forefinger;
two-fingered poi is thinner, requiring two digits to carry the required
portion. I do not know whether or not three-fingered poi is ever
exceeded; but if it is, I am sure no true Hawaiian or kamaaina would
hesitate to apply his whole fist to it.
It is etiquette to sample every delicacy forthwith, rather than to
finish any one or two until all have been tasted. And we depended solely
upon our fingers in place of forks and spoons. A twist of poi on the
forefinger is conveyed neatly to the lips, followed by a pinch of salt
salmon, for seasoning, or of hot roast fish or beef or fowl steaming in
freshly opened leaf-wrappings; for this is the incomparable way roast
foods are prepared, then laid in the ground among heated stones, and
covered with earth. Thus none of the essential flavor is liberated until
the clean hot leaves of the ti-plant, or the canna in absence of the ti,
are removed at table.
There was also chicken stewed in coconut milk, sweet and tasty; for
relishes, outlandish forms of sea-life, particularly the _opihis_
(o-pe-hees), salt and savory, which we may come to prefer to raw
oysters. Mullet is eaten raw, cut in tempting little gray cubes and
dusted with coarse red salt. Jack pronounced it one of his favorite
articles of diet henceforth. I may in time acquire a liking for
well-seasoned raw fish, which in all logic is less offensive than live
raw oysters and squirming razor-back clams; but fairly certain am I that
never shall I assimilate _ake_ (ah-kay)—which is raw liver and chile
peppers.
Small crabs, _alemihi_, were very good, and pinkish round tidbits from
squid tentacles; to say nothing of some little parboiled lobsters.
[Illustration: (1) Diamond Head. (2) A Pair of Jacks—Atkinson and
London. (3) Ahuimanu.]
One toothsome accompaniment to a Hawaiian meal is the _kukui_, or
candlenut (_Aleurites Moluccana_). Its meat is baked and crushed, then
mixed with native salt. Pinches of this relish, called _i-na-mo-na_, are
taken with poi and other viands, and it is sometimes stirred in to
season a mess of raw mullet. The kukui tree, a comparatively recent
introduction from the South Seas, has nearly as many uses as the coconut
palm, for aside from the gustatory excellence of its nut, a gum from the
bark is valuable, and a dye found in the nut shell was formerly used to
paint the intricate patterns of the tapa that served for clothing. This
dye also formed a waterproofing for tapa cloaks, and with it tattoo
artists drew fashionable designs into the flesh of their patrons, who
also rubbed their bodies with oil pressed from the nut, especially in
making them slippery for wrestling and fighting. The nuts strung on the
midrib of a coconut leaf formed the Hawaiians’ only torch. The oil of
the nut, expressed under pressure, is a valuable paint oil.
For the drinking we were given choice of a mild beer and “pop”
(soda-water of various colors), and coconut water in the shell; and for
dessert, the not unpleasant anti-climax of good old vanilla ice cream to
remind us that Hawaii has long been in the grasp of Jack’s “inevitable
white man.”
Next came the dancing. Mr. Moore had promised us a hula; but a hula,
except by professional dancers, is more easily promised than delivered.
The native must be in the precise right humor before any performance is
forthcoming for the malihini. Our pleasant task was to overcome the
shyness that whelmed both Kanakas and wahines when we coaxed them to
show their paces. Few, very likely, had ever danced before strangers.
Indeed, for the most part, the hula is frowned upon by haole residents.
And the majority of these were simple rural folk with a terror of
wrong-doing. I think the Hawaiians are quick to detect a meretricious
gayety or any patronizing, overdone familiarity; and to make them feel
one’s genuine interest in their customs is the only means by which to
establish a basis of confidence. Left to themselves, they will dance
anywhere at any time. Tochigi witnessed his first hula on Toby’s train!
He did not comment upon it; but after seeing Americans dance, each
couple following its own method, he had respectfully observed that he
thought we danced more for our own pleasure than for that of onlookers.
At length a bolder or more persuadable spirit, yearning to express the
real general desire to please, broke through the crust of reserve and
began a series of convolutions to the endless two-step measure of
guitars and ukuleles that during the luau had throbbed in a leafy corner
of the grass shelter.
Arch faces lighted, hands clapped and feet beat time, eyes and teeth
flashed in the dim light of lanterns and lamps, and flower-burdened
shoulders swung involuntarily to the rhythm. One after another added the
music of his throat to an old hula that has never seen printer’s ink,
while the violin threnody of the Alapai raised the plaintive, savage
lilt to something incommunicably high and haunting.
Jack seemed in a trance, his eyes like stars, while his broad shoulders
swayed to the measure. Discovering my regard, caught in his emotion of
delight in this pregnant folk dance and song, he did not smile, but
half-veiled his eyes as he laid a hand on mine in token of
acknowledgment of my comprehension of his deep mood. For in every
manifestation of human life, he goes down into the tie ribs of racial
development, as if in eternal quest to connect up the abysmal past with
the palpable present.
A pause, full of murmurs and low laughter, then a strapping young wahine
with the profile of Diana seized an old guitar. With a shout to another
girl to get on her feet, she leaned over and swept the strings
masterfully with the backs of her fingers, at the same time setting up a
wanton, thrilling hula song that was a love cry in the starlight, each
repeated phrase ending in a fainting, crooning, tremulous falsetto which
trailed into a vanishing wisp of sound. She could not sit quietly, but
swung her body and lissom limbs in rhythm like a wild thing possessed,
seeming to galvanize the dancers by sheer force of will, for one by one
they sprang to the bidding of her voice and magnetic fingers, into the
flickering light where they swayed and bent and undulated like mad sweet
nymphs and fauns. Now and again a brown sprite separated from the moving
group, and came to dance before the haole guests, the dance a
provocation to join the revelry. Sometimes the love appeal was
unmistakable, accompanied by singing words we wotted not of, but which
were the cause of good-natured merriment from the others. Then abruptly
the performer would become impersonal in face and gesture, and melt back
into the weaving group.
After a while the dancing lagged, and we sensed it was time to relieve
these kind people of our more or less restraining presence. They had
done so much, and to wear out such welcome would have been a crime
against good heart and manners.
Having neglected to ask the obliging Tony to wait his dummy, down the
track we footed, listening to small noises of the night, among which was
the sighing of water buffalo, those grotesque gray shapes that patiently
toil by day in the rice fields.
Pearl Lochs, June 14.
At luncheon to-day Miss Johnson introduced us to a girl from Maine, and
it was a unique experience to sit in the hot-house air, gazing out upon
the hot-house vegetation, the while we conversed in “down-east”
colloquialisms. “Did you see her jump at the sound of that falling
leaf!” Jack laughed on the way home, for the young stranger had been not
the only one startled when a twenty-foot frond let go its parent palm
and crashed to earth.
Our captain of the roseate name is painting the _Snark_, and she floats,
a boat of white enamel, in the still blue and silver of the morning
flood; while for frame to the fair picture a painted double-rainbow
overarches, flinging the misty fringes of its ends in our enraptured
faces. From the shell-pink dawn, through the green and golden day, to
sunset and purple twilight and starshine, we move in beauty. “What a lot
of people must have been shanghaied here by their own desire!” Jack
ruminates. And truly, Hawaii is sufficient excuse for never going home.
One of our pleasures, of a Sunday, is watching the yachts from Honolulu
sail into Pearl Harbor and slant about on the crisping water, for a look
at the _Snark_. Last Sunday came a corps of young engineers from the
Iron Works, who had offered to give their holiday for the fellow who
wrote “The Game” and “The Sea Wolf.” Jack was much touched; and
especially pleased at the tribute to “The Game,” which novel is a
favorite of his own.
Last evening we had opportunity again to come in contact with the
Hawaiians, receiving a party in our sylvan drawing- and music-room. Miss
Johnson had told us that Judge Hookano (Ho-o-kah-no), the native
district judge at Pearl City, wished to bring his wife to call. To our
prompt invitation they responded with the large immediate family as well
as more distant relatives. One of these, who dislikes Americans, during
a conversation with Miss Johnson concerning the Londons, remarked: “Oh,
yes, the English are always very nice.” “But the Londons are
American—very American!” Miss Johnson straightened her out. However,
the dusky lady was cordial enough when our meeting took place, as were
all the party. The Judge proved an intelligent and kindly soul, and Mrs.
Hookano whom we had long admired at a distance, is a magnificently
proportioned woman with the port of a queen, always attired in stately
lines of black lawn or silk.
None of our visitors had heard Hawaiian music on the phonograph and
clapped their shapely hands over the hulas like joyous children. But
those merry hands folded devoutly when the Trinity Choir voices rose on
the night air, and all joined in singing the harmonies of “Lead, Kindly
Light” and the several other beautiful hymns. The spirit of these folk
is so sweet, so guileless; I know I shall love them forever. Manners
among them are gentle and considerate, so courteous in every
conventional observance, prompted by their simple, affectionate hearts.
Hookano means _proud_, and these who bear the name demonstrate a
blending of pride and gentlehood that is altogether aristocratic.
While Jack manipulated the talking-machine, I lay happily with head in a
friendly lap, while satin-brown fingers caressed face and hair; looking
high through the lacy foliage to where big stars hung like bright fruit
in the branches. Jack ended the machine-made concert with the Hawaiian
National Anthem, and the Judge removed his hat and stood, the others
rising about him. Then we cajoled them into contributing their own
music, and after some hesitation, untinged by the faintest
unwillingness, they settled dreamily to singing their melodies—brown
velvet maids with laughing, shining eyes, who warbled in voices thin and
penetrating as sweet zither-strings, softly, as if afraid to vex the
calm night with greater volume.
At parting we walked to the gate, arms around the shoulders of our new
friends, their own Aloha nui on our lips. And every aloha spoken or sung
in Hawaii is the tender tone-fall of a dying bell, tolling for the olden
Hawaii Nei.
Then, arms-around, we two paced back across the grass, and stood for a
moment on the edge of our bewitching garden, looking at the slender
sliver of a new moon of good omen dipping low above the shadowy hills.
Waikiki, June 25.
Once more in the tent-cottage at Waikiki, as the hub for many spokes of
exploration in the Islands. I mistrust we shall never again pursue the
idyllic life of the peninsula. Unfortunately, no way has been devised to
live in two or more places simultaneously—except in the imagination,
and that we can richly do. Artemus Ward is responsible for the delicious
paradox: “No man can be in two places at once unless he is a bird.”
Many jaunts are in prospect: an automobile journey around Oahu; a yacht
race girdling the same island, on which “Wahine Kapu,” no woman, is writ
large upon the visages of the yachtsmen; a torchlight fishing expedition
fifty miles distant with Prince Cupid, under the same no-petticoat
mandate; a wonderful trip to Maui, to camp through the greatest extinct
crater in the world, Haleakala, said to surpass Ætna in extent and
elevation; and Jack has been deftly pulling wires to bring about a visit
for us both to the famous Leper Settlement on Molokai, which is said to
occupy one of the most beautiful sites in the Islands. Lucius E.
Pinkham, president of the Board of Health, has been our guest to dinner,
and not only has he put no obstacles in our way, but appears anxious for
us to see Molokai. There has been considerable misrepresentation of the
Settlement, and he evidently believes that Jack will paint a just
picture. Mr. Pinkham seems to have the welfare of the lepers close at
heart; and I have heard that when he fails to obtain from the Government
certain appropriations for improvements, he draws on his own funds.
Thus, the air is brimful of glamour and interest, which helps to offset
a tender regret for the lovely Lochs and for our neighbors who have been
so lavish in neighborliness. One night before we departed, the Hookano
young folk arranged a crabbing party, and sang the hours away under the
light of a half-moon; another time, at sunset, we fished off the lee
shore of the peninsula, where we landed a mess of “colored fish” like a
flock of wet butterflies.
Here at the Beach life is so gay there is hardly chance to sleep and
work, what with arrivals of transports and the ensuing frivolities in
the hotel lanai, varied by swimming and surf-boarding under sun and
moon. One fine day we essayed to ride the breakers in a Canadian canoe,
and capsized in a wild smoker exactly as we had been warned. I stayed
under water such a time that Jack, alarmed, came hunting for me; but I
was safe beneath the overturned canoe, which I was holding from bumping
my head. He was so relieved to find me unhurt and capable of staying
submerged so long that promptly he read me a lecture upon swimming as
fast as possible from a capsized boat, to avoid being struck in event of
succeeding rollers flinging it about.
One night we attended a moonlight swimming party at a seaside home and
became acquainted with more of the white Islands’ kamaainas. A lovely
custom prevails here among the owners, who, in absences abroad, allow
friends the use of their suburban places for occasions of this kind.
Across the hedges we peeped into the next garden where, in the smother
of scented foliage, there still lurks the house Robert Louis Stevenson
once occupied.
After a military dance at the hotel last evening, tables were carried
out on the lawn to the sands-edge, where supper was served by silent,
swift Japanese in white. It was like a dream, there among the trees hung
with soft rosy lights, our eyes sweeping the horizon touched by a low
gold disk of moon, and on across the effervescing foam of an ebbing tide
at our feet, and the white sea horses charging the crescent beach, to
Diamond Head purple black against the star-dusted southern sky. “Do you
know where you are?” And there was but one answer to Jack’s
whisper—“Just Waikiki,” which tells it all. The charm of Waikiki—it is
the charm of Hawaii Nei, “All Hawaii.”
June 28.
To Mr. Ford we owe a new debt of gratitude. And so does Hawaii, for such
another promoter never existed. All he does is for Hawaii, desiring
nothing for himself except the pleasure of sharing the attractions of
his adopted land. The past two days have been spent encircling Oahu, or
partly so, since only the railroad continues around the entire
shore-line, the automobile drive cutting across a tableland midway of
the island. Oahu comprises an area of 598 square miles, is trapezoidal
in shape, its coast the most regular of any in the group. Another
notable feature is that it possesses two distinct mountain chains,
Koolau and Waianae, whereas the other islands have isolated peaks and no
distinct ranges. Waianae is much the older of the two. The geology of
this volcanic isle is a continual temptation to diverge.
Two machines carried ten of us, including the drivers. The party was
composed of men whom Mr. Ford wanted Jack to know, representing the best
of Hawaii’s white citizenship. There was Mr. Joseph P. Cooke, dominating
figure of Alexander & Baldwin, which firm is the leading financial force
of the Islands (it was Mr. Cooke’s missionary grandparents, the Amos P.
Cookes, who founded and for many years conducted what was known as the
“Chiefs’ School,” afterward called the “Royal School,” which was
patronized by all of the higher chiefs and their families); Mr. Lorrin
A. Thurston, also descended from the first missionaries, and associated
conspicuously with the affairs of Hawaii, both monarchical and
republican—and incidentally owner of the morning paper; and Senor A. de
Souza Canavarro, Portuguese Consul, an able man who has lived here
twenty years and whose brain is shelved with Islands lore.
The world was all dewy cool and the air redolent with flowers when,
after an early dip in the surf, we glided down Kalakaua Avenue between
the awakening duck ponds with their lily pads and grassy partitions.
Leaving the center of town by way of Nuuanu Avenue, along which an
electric car runs for two miles, we headed for the storied heights of
the Pali (precipice), and presently began climbing between converging
mountains to the pass through the Koolau Range. This Nuuanu Valley is a
wondrous residence section, of old-fashioned white mansions of by-gone
styles of architecture, still wearing their stateliness like a page in
history. The dwellers therein are cooled by every breeze—not to mention
frequent rains. It is a humorous custom for a resident to say, “I live
at the first shower,” or the second shower, or even the third, according
to his distance from moister elevations in the city limits. The rainfall
in upper Nuuanu, and Manoa, the next valley to the southeast, is from
140 inches to 150 inches annually. In lower Nuuanu—only three or four
miles distant—it averages around 30-35 inches. Many of these old houses
stand amidst expansive lawns, the driveways columned with royal
palms—the first brought to the Islands. One white New England house was
pointed out as having been the country home of Queen Emma, bought with
its adjoining acres by the Government and turned into a public park. The
building contains some of the Queen’s furniture, and other antiques of
the period. “The Daughters of Hawaii,” an organization of Hawaii-born
women of all nationalities, has the care of the premises.
I promised myself an afternoon in the cemetery, where quaint tombs show
through beautiful trees and shrubbery, and where, in the Mausoleum, are
laid the bones of the Kamehameha and Kalakaua dynasties. King Lunalilo,
who was the last of the Kamehamehas and preceded Kalakaua, rests in a
mausoleum at Kawaiahao Church in town.
Up we swung on a smooth road graded along the hillsides, the flanks of
the valley drawing together, the violet-shadowed walls of the mountains
growing more sheer until they seemed almost to overtop with their
clouded heads breaking into morning gold—Lanihuli and Konahuanui rising
three thousand feet to left and right. From a keen curve, we looked back
and down the green miles we had come, to a fairy white city suffused in
blue mist beside a fairy blue sea.
Four miles from the end of the car-track, quite unexpectedly to me,
suddenly the car emerged from a narrow defile upon a platform hewn out
of the rocky earth, and my senses were momentarily stunned, for the high
island had broken off, fallen away beneath our feet to the east and
north. Alighting, we pressed against a wall of wind that eternally
drafts through the gap, and threading among a score of small pack-mules
resting on the way to Honolulu, gained the railed brink of the Pali. In
the center of a scene that had haunted me for years, since I beheld it
in a painting at the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo, I looked a
thousand feet into an emerald abyss. Over its awful pitch Kamehameha a
century ago forced the warriors of the King of Oahu, Kalanikupule—a
“legion of the lost ones” whose shining skulls became souvenirs for
strong climbers in succeeding generations. Some one pointed to a ferny,
bowery spot far below, where Prince Cupid once kept a hunting cabin; but
there was now neither trace of it nor of any trail penetrating the dense
jungle.
To the left, lying northwest, stretch the perpendicular, inaccessible
ramparts of the Koolau Range, which extends the length of the island,
bastioned by erosions, and based in rich green slopes of forest and
pasture that fall away to alluvial plains fertile with rice and cane,
and rippled with green hillocks. Where we stood, a spur of the range
bent in a right-angle to the eastward at our back; and off to the right,
the great valley is bounded by desultory low hills, amid which an
alluring red road winds to Kailua and Waimanalo by the sapphire sea,
where we are told the bathing beaches and surf are unsurpassed.
A reef-embraced bay on the white-fringed shore caused me to inquire why
Honolulu had not been builded upon this cool windward coast of Oahu,
with its opulent and ready-made soil. “Any navigator could tell you
that,” Jack chided. “Honolulu was begun when there was no steam, and the
lee side of the island was the only safe anchorage for sailing vessels.”
The sun was now burning up the moving mists below, and through
opalescent rents and thinning spaces we could trace the ruddy ribbon of
road we were to travel. If I had dreamed of the majestic grandeur of
these mountains, of the wondrous painted valley to the east, how feebly
I should have anticipated other islands until first exploring this one.
Jack keeps repeating that he cannot understand why it is not thronged
with tourists, and calls it the garden of the world. We have seen
nothing like it in America or Europe. And yet Oahu is not generally
spoken of as by any means the most beautiful of the Hawaiian Islands.
Instead, both residents and visitors rave over the “Garden Isle,” Kauai,
the Kona coast of Hawaii and that Big Island’s gulches, the wonders of
Maui with its Iao Valley and Haleakala, “The House of the Sun.” What
must they all be, say we, if these persons have not been stirred by
Windward Oahu!
After clinging spellbound to our windy vantage for half an hour
(meanwhile speculating how many times Kalanikupule’s unfortunate army
bumped in its headlong fall), we coasted the serpentine road that is
railed and reënforced with masonry, fairly hanging to a stark wall for
the best part of two miles. I noticed that Mr. Cooke preferred himself
to negotiate his car on this blood-tingling descent, until we rounded
into the undulating floor of the plain whence we stared abruptly up at
the astonishing way we had come, with its retaining walls of cement,
some of them four hundred feet in length.
One stands at the base of an uncompromising two-thousand-foot crag, an
outjut of the range, and it appears but a few hundred feet to its head.
For there is an elusiveness about the atmosphere that makes unreal the
sternest palisades, the ruggedest gorges. Everything is as if seen in a
mirror that has been dulled by a silver breath. That is it—it is all a
reflection—these are mirrored mountains and shall always remain to me
like something envisioned in a glass.
I for one was commencing to realize how early I had breakfasted, when
the machines turned aside from the road on which we had been running
through miles of the Kahuku sugar plantation into a private driveway
that led to Mrs. James B. Castle’s sea-rim retreat, The Dunes. Having
been called unexpectedly to Honolulu, she had left the manager of the
plantation to do the honors, together with a note of apology embodying
the wish that we make ourselves at home, and a request that we write in
her guest book. After luncheon the men insisted that I inscribe
something fitting for them to witness. Warm and tired, I wrote the
following uninspired if grateful sentiment:
“With appreciation of the perfect hospitality—and deep regret
that the giver was absent.”
The others followed with their signatures; and when Mr. Ford’s turn
came, his eye read what I had written, but his unresting mind must have
been wool-gathering, for he scribbled:
“Hoping that every passer-by may be as fortunate.”
A chorus of derision caused him to bend an alarmed eye upon the page,
which he carefully scanned, especially my latter phrase. And then out
came the page.
We were shown over the labor barracks, neat settlements of Japanese and
Portuguese, in which we saw swarms of beautiful children rolling in the
grass. The Portuguese flocked around the Consul, who was apparently an
old and loved friend.
Several miles farther, we came to the Reform School, where the erring
youth of Oahu, largely of native stock, are guided in the way they
should go. There was not a criminal face among them, and probably the
majority are detained for temperamental laxness of one sort or another.
Emotional they are, easily led, and inordinately fond of games of
chance—but dishonest never. A small sugar plantation is carried on in
connection with the school, which is worked by the boys.
Our last lap was from the Reform School to Haleiwa Hotel, at Waialua,
which lies at the sea edge of the Waialua Plantation. Haleiwa means
“House Beautiful,” and is pronounced Hah-lay-e-vah. There is so much
dissension as to how the “v” sound crept into the “w,” that I am going
to retire with the statement that Alexander, in his splendid “History of
the Hawaiian People,” remarks that “The letter ‘w’ generally sounds like
‘v’ between the penult and final syllable of a word.”
House and grounds are very attractive, broad lawns sloping to an estuary
just inside the beach; and in this river-like bit of water picturesque
fishing boats and canoes lie at anchor. A span of rustic Japanese bridge
leads to the bath-houses, and thither we went for a swim before dinner.
I would not advise beginners to choose this beach for their first
swimming lessons. It shelves with startling abruptness, while the
undertow is more noticeable than at Waikiki. But for those who can take
care of themselves, this lively water is good sport and more bracing
than on the leeward coast.
We strolled through the gardens and along green little dams between duck
ponds spotted with lily pads, and the men renewed their boyhood by
“chucking” rocks into a sumptuous mango tree, bringing down the
russet-gold, luscious fruit for an appetizer. I may some day be rash
enough to describe the flavor of a mango, or try to; but not yet—though
I seem to resent some author’s statement that it bears more than a trace
of turpentine.
Leaving Haleiwa next morning, we deserted the seashore for very
different country. The motor ascended steadily toward the southwest, on
a fine red road—so red that on ahead the very atmosphere was tinged.
Looking back as we climbed, many a lovely surf-picture rewarded the
quest of our eyes, white breakers ruffling the creamy beaches, with a
sea bluer than the deep blue sky.
At an elevation of about eight hundred feet one strikes the rolling
green prairieland of the “Plains,” where the ocean is visible northwest
and southeast, on two sides of the island. It is a wonderful plateau,
between mountain-walls, swept by the freshening northeast trade—miles
upon miles of rich grazing, and hill upon hill ruled with blue-green
lines of pineapple growth. At one plantation we stopped to look around
at the fabulously promising industry. Mr. Kellogg, the manager, gave an
interesting demonstration of how simple is the cultivation of the
luscious “pines,” and held stoutly that a woman, unaided, could earn a
good living out of a moderate patch. The first “pine” plantation in
Hawaii was established in Manoa valley, back of Honolulu, by a
Devonshire man, Captain John Kidwell. He started in the early ‘80’s with
native shoots from the Kona Coast, later importing old stumps from
Florida. In 1892 a hundred thousand plants were growing, and the
Hawaiian Fruit and Packing Company was established, the second canning
industry in Hawaii—fish-canning having been the only other.
Although like prairie seen from a distance, we discovered that this
section of Oahu is serrated by enormous gullies, in character resembling
our California barrancas, but of vastly greater proportions. A huge dam
has been constructed for the purpose of conserving the water for
irrigation.
Something went wrong with one of our machines and we were obliged to
telephone from Wahiawa to Honolulu for some parts. Think of this old
savage isle in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, where, from its high
interior, one may talk over a wire to a modern city, for modern parts of
a “horseless carriage,” to be sent by steam over a steel track! It is
stimulating once in a day to ponder the age in which we live.
And on one of these ridges near Wahiawa, not so long ago, there preyed a
regular ogre, a robber-chief whose habit it was to lie in wait in a
narrow pass, and pounce upon his victims, whom he slew on a large, flat
rock, and ate them—the only sure-enough cannibal in Hawaiian history.
June 29.
“Have you been in the Cleghorn Gardens?” is a frequent question to the
malihini, and only another way of asking if one has seen the gardens of
the late Princess Victoria Kaiulani, lovely hybrid flower of Scottish
and Polynesian parentage, daughter of a princess of Hawaii, Miriam
Likelike (sister of Liliuokalani and Kalakaua) and the Honorable
Archibald Scott Cleghorn. We are too late by twenty years to be welcomed
by Likelike, and eight years behind time to hear the merriment of
Kaiulani in her father’s house—Kaiulani, who would now be of the same
age as Jack London. King Kalakaua died at the Palace Hotel in San
Francisco on January 20, 1891, and when his remains arrived in Honolulu
from the U. S. S. _Charleston_ nine days later, and his sister
Liliuokalani was proclaimed his successor, the little Princess Kaiulani,
their niece, was appointed heir apparent.
The house, Ainahau, is not visible from the Avenue. Here the bereft
consort of Likelike lives in solitary state with his servants, amid the
relics of unforgotten days. He receives few visitors, and we felt as if
breaking his privacy were an intrusion, even though by invitation. But
the commandingly tall, courtly Scot, wide brown eyes smiling
benevolently under white hair and beetling brows, paced halfway down his
palm-pillared driveway in greeting, and led our little party about the
green-shady ways of the wonderland of flowers and vines, lily ponds and
arbors, “Where Kaiulani sat,” or sewed, or read, or entertained—all in
a forest of high interlacing trees of many varieties, both native and
foreign. I was most fascinated by a splendid banyan, a tree which from
childhood I had wanted to see. This pleased the owner, whose especial
pride it is—“Kaiulani’s banyan”; although he is obliged to trim it
unmercifully lest its predatory tentacles capture the entire park.
Into nurseries and vegetable gardens we followed him, and real grass
huts that have stood untouched for years. Another pride of Mr.
Cleghorn’s is his sixteen varieties of hibiscus, of sizes and shapes and
tints that we would hardly have believed possible—magic puffs of
exquisite color springing like miracles from slender green stems that
are often too slight, and snap under the full blossom-weight. Honolulu
holds an annual hibiscus exhibition, in which many leading citizens
compete.
The portion of the house once occupied by the vanished Princess is never
opened to strangers, nor used in any way. Only her father wanders there,
investing the pretty suite of rooms with recollection of her tuneful
young presence. For she was little over twenty when she died.
But we were made welcome in the great drawing-room, reached by three
broad descending steps, walled with rare books, and containing works of
art and curios from all the world: old furniture from European palaces
that would be the despair of a repulsed collector; tables of lustrous
Hawaiian woods fashioned to order in Germany half a century ago; rare
oriental vases set upon flare-topped pedestals ingeniously made from
inverted tree stumps of native brown _kou_ wood, polished like marble; a
quaint and stately concert grand piano; old portraits of royalty, white
and dusky; and, most fascinating of all, treasures of Hawaiian courts,
among them some of the marvelous feather work. In dim corners, _kahilis_
stand as if on guard—barbaric royal insignia, plumed staffs of state,
some of them twice the height of a man. The feathers are fastened at
right angles to the pole of shining hardwood, forming a barrel-shaped
decoration, somewhat like our hearse-plumes of a past generation. But
the kahili is only sometimes of funereal hue, more often flaming in
scarlet, or some grade of the rich yellows loved of the Islanders.
Originally a fly-brush in savage courts, the kahili progressed in
dignity through the dynasties to an indispensable adjunct to official
occasions, sometimes exceeding thirty feet in height. To me, it and the
outrigger canoe are the most significantly impressive of royal barbaric
forms.
Mr. Cleghorn suggested that he could arrange a private audience with
Queen Liliuokalani at her residence in town, if we desired. Which
reminds me that Jack holds a letter of introduction to her from Charles
Warren Stoddard, who knew her in the days of her tempestuous reign. He
and Jack have called each other Dad and Son for years, though acquainted
only by correspondence. But we have little wish to intrude upon the
Queen, for it can be scant pleasure to her to meet Americans, no matter
how sympathetic they may be with her changed state.
Upon a carven desk lay open a guest book, an old ledger, in which we
were asked to leave our hand. The first name written in this thick tome
is that of “Oskar, of Sweden and Norway,” and, running over the yellowed
pages, among other notable autographs we read that of Agassiz.
Here, there, and everywhere, in photograph, in oil portraiture, on wall
and upon easel, we met the lovely, pale face of Kaiulani, in whose
memory her father seems to exist in a mood of adoration. Every event
dates from her untimely passing. “When Kaiulani died,” he would begin;
or “Since Kaiulani went away,” and “Before Kaiulani left me—” was the
burden of his thought and conversation concerning the past of which we
loved to hear. Pictures show her to have been a woman compounded of the
beauty of her dual races, proud, loving, sensitive, spirituelle, with
the characteristic curling mouth and luminous brown eyes of the
Hawaiian, looking out wistfully upon a world of pleasure and opportunity
that could not detain her frail body. Flower of romance she was—romance
that nothing in the old books of South Sea adventuring can rival; her
sire, a handsome roving boy ashore from an English ship back in the
’50’s; her mother a dusky princess of the blood royal, who loved the
handsome fair-skinned youth and constituted him governor of Oahu under
the Crown, that she might with honor espouse him.
And now, the boy, grown old—his Caucasian vitality having survived the
gentle Polynesian blood of the wife who brought him laurels in her own
land,—having watched the changing administrations of that land for
nearly threescore years, abides alone with the shadow of her and of the
daughter with the poet brow who did honor to them both by coming into
being. To this beloved child-woman, previous to her voyage to England’s
Court, Robert Louis Stevenson, living where we peeped into the garden
but a few nights gone, sent the following:
[Written in April to Kaiulani in the April of her age; and at
Waikiki, within easy walk of Kaiulani’s banyan! When she comes
to my land and her father’s, and the rain beats upon the window
(as I fear it will), let her look at this page; it will be like
a weed gathered and pressed at home; and she will remember her
own islands, and the shadow of the mighty tree; and she will
hear the peacocks screaming in the dusk and the wind blowing in
the palms; and she will think of her father sitting there
alone.—R. L. S.]
“Forth from her land to mine she goes,
The island maid, the island rose,
Light of heart and bright of face:
The daughter of a double race.
“Her islands here, in Southern sun,
Shall mourn their Kaiulani gone;
And I in her dear banyan shade.
Look vainly for my little maid.
“But our Scots islands far away
Shall glitter with unwonted day,
And cast for once their tempests by
To smile in Kaiulani’s eye.”
Aboard the _Noeau_, bound for Molokai, Monday Evening, July 1.
_Noeau_ (No-a-ah-oo—quickly No-a-ow)—the very name has a mournful,
ominous sound; _Noeau_, ship of despair, ferry of human freight
condemned. We are not merry, Jack and I, for what we have witnessed
during the past two hours would wring emotion from a graven image. And
just when we would cheer a trifle, it not being our mutual temperament
long to remain downcast, our eyes are again compelled by the huddle of
doomed fellow-creatures amidst their pathetic bundles of belongings on
the open after-deck of the plunging interisland steamer bound for
Molokai.
None of it did we miss—the parting and the embarkation of the banished;
and never, should I live a thousand fair years, shall I forget the
memory of that strange, rending wailing, escaping bestiality by its very
deliberateness; for, no matter how deep and true may be the grief, this
wailing expression of it constitutes a ceremonial in this as in other
countries where it survives as a set form of lamentation. Shrill,
piercing, it curdled the primitive life-current in us, every tone in the
gamut of sorrow being played upon the plaintive word _auwe_
(ah-oo-way’—quickly ow-way’), _alas_, in recurrent chorusing when each
parting took place and the loved one stepped upon the gangplank,
untouched by officers and crew of the small steamer.
“Clean” passengers were taken aboard first, the vessel picking up at
another wharf those who bore no return ticket to the land of the clean.
As the _Noeau_ ranged alongside, the crowd ashore appeared like any
other dock-gathering of natives, even to the flowers; but suddenly Jack
at my elbow jerked out, “_Look_—look at that boy’s face!” It was a lad
of twelve or so, and one of his cheeks was so swollen that the bursting
eye seemed as if extended on a fleshy horn. Beside him a woman hovered,
her face dark with sorrow. We were soon quick to detect the marks and
roved from face to face, selecting more or less accurately those who
proved later to be passengers for the dark fifty-odd miles across Kaiwi
Channel and along the north coast of Molokai to the village of
Kalaupapa, is their final destination and home on this earth.
But one can only see what one can see, and there were men and women who
bore no apparent blemish; and yet these are now among the disfigured
company on the lurching after-deck.
The ultimate wrench of hearts and hands, the supreme acme of ruth, came
when, separated by the widening breach between steamer and dock, the
lost and the deserted gazed upon one another, and the last offerings of
leis fell short into the water. No normal malihini could stand by
unwrung; it was utterly, hopelessly sad—a funeral in which the dead
themselves walked.
Toward one white child, a blonde-haired little German maid, we felt
especial solicitude. Her bronze companions all had dear ones to wail for
them and for whom to “keen.” She stood quite apart, with dry eyes old
before their time, watching an alien race voice its woe in ways she had
not learned. Whose baby is she? To whom is she dear? Where is the mother
who bore her? And the answer was just now volunteered by the
Superintendent of the Leper colony, returning from a vacation, Mr. J. D.
McVeigh. The child’s mother is already in Kalaupapa, far gone with a
rapid form of leprosy; and this little daughter, who had been left with
a drunken father who treated her ill, has been found with the same
manifestation, and will live but a few years. So she is going to her
own, and her own is waiting for her, and it is well. But think of the
whole distorted face of the dream of life...
[Illustration: (1) Princess Likelike (Mrs. Cleghorn). (2) Princess
Victoria Kaiulani. (3) Kaiulani at Ainahau. (4) “Kaiulani’s Banyan.”]
...Now the white child has fallen asleep in a dull red sunset glow, her
flaxen head in the lap of a beautiful hapa haole girl who carries no
apparent spot of corrosion. She looks down right motherly upon the tired
face of the small Saxon maid. Hawaiian women eternally “rock cradles in
their hearts,” which are so expansive that it is said to matter little
whose child they cradle—bringing up one another’s offspring with
impartial loving-kindness. This practice extended even into highest
circles, as Liliuokalani attests in her entertaining book, “Hawaii’s
Story by Hawaii’s Queen.” She herself was “given away” at birth, wrapped
in the finest tapa cloth, to Konia, a granddaughter of Kamehameha the
Great, wedded to a high chief, Paki. Their own daughter, Bernice Pauahi.
Liliuokalani’s foster-sister, was afterward married to C. R. Bishop,
Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1893 under King Lunallio, Kalakaua’s
predecessor. The Queen writes that in using the term foster-sister she
merely adopts one customary in the English language, there being no such
modification recognized in her own tongue. As a matter of fact, in
childhood she knew no other parents than Paki and Konia, no other sister
than Pauahi. Her own father and mother were no more than interesting
acquaintances. For this custom she offers only the reason that the
alliance by adoption cemented ties of friendship between chiefs, which,
spreading to the common people, doubtless encouraged harmony—a harmony
that would have delighted King Solomon, to say nothing of white men’s
courts of law!
They forget quickly, these Hawaiians, one hears; and one must believe, I
suppose—and, believing, thank whatever gods may be; for this blissful
latitude never was created for the harboring of grief. But the ability
or tendency to forget pain has little to do with its momentary
poignancy. The passionate Hawaiian suffers with all the abandon of the
blood that keeps him always young. The sorrow is real, and the weeping.
If these people could not recover speedily from despair, they would die
off faster than they are already perishing from their arcadian isles.
On our deck, observing the dolorous scene aft, is a young native girl,
round and ripe and more lovely than any we have yet seen. Clean and
wholesome, unsullied by any blight, a happy body, she stands beside her
father, a stalwart gray-haired Hawaiian with lofty mien. One wonders
what are the young girl’s thoughts as she gazes upon these wrecks of her
kind. And yet, she herself might have to be sought in Molokai another
year. As well seek her under-ground, is the next thought. Poor human
flesh and blood!
Kalaupapa, Molokai, July 2.
We are trying to reconstruct whatever mind-picture we have hitherto
entertained of that grave of living death, Molokai. But it is no use,
and we would best give it up. Eye and brain are possessed of the
bewildering actuality, and having expected Heaven knows what lugubrious
prospect, we are all at sea. Certain it is that our preconceptions were
far removed from the joyous sunny scene now before us, as I rock in a
hammock on the Superintendent’s lanai, shaded from the late sunshine by
a starry screen of white jasmine. Jack stretches at length on a rattan
lounge, cigarette in one hand and long cool glass in the other; and what
we see is a serene pasture of many acres, a sort of bulging village
green, in the center a white bandstand breathing of festivity. Around
the verdant semi-hemisphere, widely straggling as if space and real
estate values were the least consideration of mankind, are dotted the
flower-bedecked homes of the leprous inhabitants. Breaking gaily into
this vision of repose, a cowboy on a black horse dashes across the field
and out of sight. A leper. Two comely wahines in ruffly white holokus,
starched to a nicety, stroll chatting by the house, looking up brightly
to smile Aloha with eyes and lips. Lepers. Jack looks at me. I look at
Jack. And this is Molokai the dread; Molokai, isle of despair, where
Father Damien spent his martyrdom.
The Settlement lies on a low triangle, a sort of wide-based peninsula,
selected by Dr. Hutchinson in 1865, shut effectively off as it is from
the rest of the island to the south by a formidable wall rising over two
thousand feet against the deep-blue sky—a wall of mystery, for it is
well-nigh unscalable except by the bands of wild goats that we can
discover only by aid of Mr. McVeigh’s telescope. Every little while, as
a sailor sweeps the horizon, he steps to the glass, hidden from the
community by the jasmine screen, and studies the land of his charge,
keeping track of the doings of the village.
The only trail out of or into this isolated lowland zigzags the bare
face of the pali near its northern end, at the seagirt extremity of the
Settlement reserve. A silvery-green cluster of kukui trees marks the
beginning of the trail not far up from the water’s edge. Thus far and no
farther may the residents of the peninsula stray; and the telescope is
most often trained to this point of the compass. That trail does not
look over-inviting; but we have set our hearts upon leaving Kalaupapa by
this route, albeit Mr. McVeigh, who knows what is in our thought, warns
that it is undergoing repairs and is unsafe. Indeed, he has gone so far
as to hint that it is out of the question for us to ascend now.
In view of the pleasant reality of the island, yesternight’s racking
experience seems a nightmare. Over and above pity for the stricken
exiles, we were none too comfortable ourselves. In the tiny stuffy
staterooms it was impossible to sleep, and except for coolness the
populous deck was scarcely less disturbing. Besides the Superintendent,
the other passengers were hapa haoles and a white Catholic father with
his Bishop, bound for the Settlement to inspect their institutions.
We turned in early on deck-mattresses, after listening to some thrilling
yarns from the captain and mate of the sorry little steamer, to say
nothing of those of Mr. McVeigh, who sparkles with Hibernian wit. As the
miles and time increased between the lepers and the harbor of farewells,
they searched out their ubiquitous ukeleles and guitars, and rendered us
happier for their presence. All would have been well, and the music and
murmuring voices soon have had us drowsing, but for a tipsy native
sailor who chipped in noisily with ribald song and speech that was
loudly profane.
At intervals the captain and mates issued from their unrestful cubbies
on to the short strip of plunging deck (these interisland channels have
a reputation equal to the passage between Dover and Calais), and
conversed at length in unmuffled accents. To cap my sleepless
discomfort, Jack, who had been fighting all night, he avers
unconsciously, to wrest away the soft pillow he had insisted upon my
using, finally appropriated the same with a determined “pounding of the
ear” in hobo parlance. And poor I, lacking the meanness to reclaim it at
price of rousing him from his troubled slumber, languished upon a
neck-wrenching bolster stuffed, I swear, with scrap-iron. It has since
occurred to us that it may have been a life-preserver.
At the chill hour of four, all passengers for Kalaupapa were landed in a
rough-and-ready life-boat through breakers which, to our regret, were
the reverse of boisterous. We had looked forward to making through a
breach of surf like that shown in photographs of Kalaupapa Landing. But
it was novel enough, this being let down the lurching black flank of the
ship where she rolled in the unseen swell, into an uncertain boat where
muscular arms eased us into invisible seats. The merest fitful whisper
of air was stirring, and there was something solemn in our progress,
deep-dipping oars sending the heavy boat in large, slow rhythm over a
broad swell and under the frown of a wall of darker darkness against the
jeweled southern sky.
The landing is a small concrete breakwater, into the crooked arm of
which we slipped, trusting in the lantern gleam to hands of natives that
reached to help. We wondered, entirely without alarm, if they were
leprous fingers we grasped, but rested upon fate and climbed our
spryest.
The wall was rimmed with sitting figures, and when our twenty-five leper
passengers set foot on the cement, some were greeted in low, hesitant
Hawaiian speech as if by acquaintances. In the flicker of the swinging
lanterns we saw a white woman’s anxious face and two pale hands
stretched out. And tears were in my eyes to see the German mother and
child united, even in their awful plight.
A silent Japanese took charge of me and my suitcase, and I was carried
in a cart up a gentle rise to this cottage smothered in trees, the door
of which is reached by way of a fragrant, vine-clasped arbor. The night
was almost grewsomely still, and I tried to pierce the gloom to judge
how near was that oppressive wall in the velvet black to the south.
The Japanese turned me over to his wife, a small motherly thing who
fluttered me into a bright white room with canopied bed, into which she
indicated I was to plump forthwith; that the bath was just across the
lanai; breakfast at eight; and could she do anything for me?
After breakfast the official “clean” members of the colony dropped in,
Doctors Goodhue and Hollmann, the pioneer resident surgeon and his
assistant, with their wives, as well as the German-Hawaiian parents of
Mrs. Goodhue, who had tramped down the pali the previous day from their
ranch in the highlands “beyond the pale,” to visit their daughter. Jack
and I promptly registered the thought that if they could negotiate that
trail, why not we?
Never have we spent a day of such strange interest. Before luncheon, Mr.
McVeigh drove us to within two or three hundred yards of the foot of the
pali, to see the Kalaupapa Rifle Club at practice. Quite as a matter of
course we sat on benches side by side with the lepers, and when our
turns came, stood in their shooting boxes, and with rifles warm from
their hands hit the target at two hundred yards. Oh, I did not quite
make the bull’s-eye, but there were certain drawbacks to my best
marksmanship—the heavy and unfamiliar gun that I had not the strength
to hold perfectly steady, and the audience of curious men whose personal
characteristics were far from quieting to malihini wahine nerves. We
were duly decorated with the proud red badge of the Club, bearing
“Kalaupapa Rifle Club, 1907,” in gilt letters.
But fancy watching these blasted remnants of humanity, lost in the
delight of scoring, their knotted hands holding the guns, on the
triggers the stumps of what had once been fingers, while their poor
ruined eyes strove to run along the sights...
It took all our steel, at first, to avoid shrinking from their
hideousness; but, assured as we were of the safety of mingling, our
concern was to let them know we were unafraid. And it made such a
touching difference. From out their watchful silence and bashful
loneliness they emerged into their natural care-free Hawaiian spirits.
For, you must know, all leprosy is not painful. There is what is termed
the anæsthetic variety, which twists and deforms but which ceases from
twinging as the disease progresses or is arrested, and the nerves go to
sleep. Another and loathsome form manifests itself in running sores; but
Dr. Goodhue now takes prompt action with such cases, his brave, deft
surgery producing marvelous results. Tubercular leprosy makes swift
inroads and quick disposal of the sufferer. But it should make the
public happier to know that here the majority of the patients come and
go about the business of their lives as in other villages the world
over, if with less beauty of face and form.
In the afternoon Dr. Hollmann took us in charge and showed us first the
Bishop (Catholic) Home for Girls, presided over by Mother Marianne, the
plucky, aged Mother Superior of Hawaii Nei. Here she spends most of her
life, two sisters living with her. Like a tall spirit she guided us
across the playground and through schoolrooms and dormitories. In one of
the latter we recognized a young girl who came on the _Noeau_ last
night. Standing in a corner talking with two old friends whose faces
were almost obliterated, this latest comer neither looked nor acted as
if there was anything unusual about them. She has a rare sense of
adjustment, that girl—or else is mercifully wanting in imagination.
Women seem more susceptible to the ruin of disease, mental or physical,
than their brothers—at least they show it more ruinously. I have
noticed in feeble-minded and insanity institutions that the eclipse of
personality is more complete among the females. Perhaps it is because we
are used to especial comeliness in women; and to see a vacant or
disfigured countenance above feminine habiliments instead of the sweet
flower of woman’s face, is dreadful beyond the dreadfulness of man’s
features under similar misfortune.
“Would you like to hear the girls sing?”
_Like_ was hardly the word; I would have fled weeping from what could
only be an ordeal to every one. But we could not refuse good Mother
Marianne the opportunity to display the talents of her pupils, and a
Sister was dispatched to summon them.
Draggingly enough they came, unsmiling, their bloated or contracted
features emerging grotesquely from the clean holokus. Every gesture and
averted head bespoke a piteous shame over lost fairness—a sensitive
pridefulness that does not appear to trouble the male patients.
Clustered round a piano, one played with hands that were not hands—for
where were the fingers? But play she did, and weep I did, in a corner,
in sheer uncontrol of heartache at the girlish voices gone shrill and
sexless and tinny like the old French piano, and the writhen mouths that
tried to frame words carolled in happier days. They gazed dumbly at the
white wahine who grieved for them—indeed, it would have been difficult
to say who was sorrier for the other. Out of their horrible eye-pits
they watched us go, and I wonder if Jack’s sad face and my wet cheek
were any solace to them. But they called Aloha bravely as we went down
the steps, as did a group of girls under a hau tree—one of whom, a
beautiful thing, crossing the inclosure with the high-breasted,
processional carriage of Hawaiian, showed no mark of the curse upon her
swart skin where the blood surged in response to our greeting.
The Bay View Home was our next objective, in which are kept the most
advanced cases of the men. Nothing would do but Jack would see
everything to be seen—and where he goes and can take me, there does he
wish me to go to learn the face, fair and foul, of the world in which we
live. Here we found several of our own race who appeared quite
cheerful—let us say philosophical. One in particular, a ghastly white
old man whose eyes hung impossibly upon his cheeks, spoke with the
gentlest Christian fortitude, trying to smile with a lip that fanned his
chest—I do not exaggerate. Only one there was who seemed not in the
slightest resigned—he who led us among his brother sufferers in this
house of tardy dissolution.
“Do any of them ever become used to their condition?”
His terrible eyes came down to my face with a look of utter
hopelessness.
“I have been here twenty-five years, Mrs. London, and I am not used to
it yet.”
Glancing back from the gate, we saw him still standing on the lanai,
straight and tall, gazing out over the sea; a man once wealthy and
honored in his world—a senator, in fact. And now there remains nothing,
after his two and a half disintegrating decades of exile, but long years
of the same to follow; at the end of which he sees himself, an unsightly
object, laid in the ground out of the light of heaven.
There is one hope, always, for those of the lepers who think—the
shining hope that blessed science, now aroused, may discover at any
illuminated moment the natural enemy of the _bacillus lepræ_ which has
been isolated and become thoroughly familiar to the germ specialists.
Jack, visiting the Kalihi Detention Home and Experiment Station, in
Honolulu, was shown the _bacillus lepræ_ under the microscope. Plans are
under way for a federal experiment laboratory and hospital on Molokai
for the study of the evil germ. The Settlement itself is a territorial
care, managed by the Board of Health.
In still another building we inspected the little dispensary, and here
met Annie Kekoa, a half-white telephone operator from Hilo, on Hawaii,
daughter of a native minister. One of her small hands is very slightly
warped; otherwise she is without blemish, and very charming—educated
and refined, with the loveliest brown eyes and heart-shaped face. Being
a deft typewriter, she is employed in the dispensary to fill her days,
for she is unreconciled to her changed condition. Little she spoke of
herself, but was eager for news of Honolulu and our own travels. We told
her of a resemblance she bears to a friend at home, and she said in a
shaken voice: “When you see your friend again, tell her she has a little
sister on Molokai.” At the moment of parting, a sudden impulse caused us
both to forget the rules, and we reached for each other’s hands. I know
I shall never be sorry.
“Major” Lee, one-time American engineer in the Inter-Island Steamship
Company, demonstrated the workings of a newly installed steam poi
factory. He was in the gayest of humors, and ever so proud of his
spick-and-span machinery. “We’re not so badly off here as the Outside
chooses to think,” he announced, patting a rotund boiler. And then, with
explosive earnestness: “I say, Mr. London—give ’em a breeze about us,
will you? Tell ’em how we really live. Nobody knows—nobody has told
half the truth about Molokai and the splendid way things are run. Why,
they give the impression that you can go around with a basket and pick
up fingers and toes and hands and feet. They don’t take the trouble to
find out the truth, and nobody seems to put ’em straight. Why, leprosy
doesn’t work that way, anyhow. Things don’t _fall off_: they _take
up_—they absorb. We’ve got our pride, you know and we don’t like the
wrong thing believed on the Outside, naturally. So you give the public a
breeze about us, Mr. London, and you’ll have the gratitude of the
fellows on Molokai.”
And I thought I saw, in Jack’s active eye, a hint of the fair breeze to
a gale that he would set a-blowing on the subject of “the fellows on
Molokai.”
When “Major” Lee sailed his last trip on the old Line, the luckier
engineers of the _Noeau_, taking him to Kalaupapa, said: “Come on down
to our rooms, and be comfortable.” Lee protested—No, it would not be
right; it wouldn’t be playing the game; he was a leper now, a leper, do
you hear?—and things were different, old fellows.... “Different, your
granny!” and with friendly oaths and suspicious movements of
shirtsleeves across eyes, the chief and his men had their old comrade
into their quarters and gave him the best they had, even to a
stirrup-cup—an infringement of orders, as alcohol is the best
accomplice of leprosy.
Leaving Kalaupapa, we drove to the elder village, Kalawao, across the
mile of the rolling peninsula, a pathway of beauty from the iron-bound,
surf-fountained sea line, to the grandeurs of the persistent pali to the
south, which is beyond word-painting, unfolding like a giant panorama
even along that scant mile. Such crannied canyons, crowded with ferns;
such shelves for waterfalls that banner out in the searching wind; such
green of tree and purple of shadow. Midway of the trip, Dr. Hollmann
turned to the left up a short, steep knoll, from the top of which our
eyes dropped into a tiny crater—deep, emerald cup jeweled with red
stones, a deeper emerald pool in the bottom, fringed with clashing sisal
swords. We came near having a more intimate view of the inverted cone,
for a sudden powerful gust of the strong trade that sweeps the peninsula
caught us off guard and obliged us to lean sharply back against the
blast. Descending the outer slopes of the miniature extinct volcano, we
poked around amidst some nameless graves, the old cement mounds and
decorations crumbling to dust. The place was provocative of much
speculation upon human destiny.
In Kalawao we called at the Catholic Home for Boys, presided over by
Father Emmerau and the Brothers, and met up with Brother Dutton, veteran
of the Civil War, Thirteenth Wisconsin, who later entered the
priesthood, and has immolated himself for years among the leper youth.
We found him very entertaining, as he found Jack, with whose career he
proved himself well acquainted.
Across the road in a little churchyard, we stood beside the tombstone of
Father Damien—name revered by every one who knows how this simple
Belgian priest came to no sanitary, law-abiding, well-ordered community
such as to-day adorns this shunned region. He realized his destination
before he leaped from the boat; and, once ashore, did not shrink nor
turn back from the duty he had imposed upon himself. A life of toil and
a fearful lingering death were the forfeit of this true martyr of modern
times. We have seen photographs of him in the progressing stages of his
torment, and nothing more frightful can be conjured.
Never had we thought to stand beside his grave. Just a little oblong
plot of tended green, inclosed in iron railing, with a white marble
cross and a footstone—that is all; fittingly simple for the simple
worker, as is the Damien Chapel alongside, into which we stepped with
the Bishop, our fellow passenger on the _Noeau_, and Fathers Emmerau and
Maxime, to see the modest altar. Standing before the shrine in the
subdued light, it seemed as if there could have been no death for the
devoted young priest who came so far to lay down his life for his
friends.
* * * * *
After dinner, cooked by the pretty Japanese Masa and her husband, the
other household came over to our lanai. And while we talked, in through
the twilight stole vibrations of swept strings, and the sob of a violin,
and voices of the men’s “Glee Club” that wove in perfect
harmonies—voices thrilling as the metal wires but sharpened and thinned
by corroded throats. There we sat in plenitude of health and
circumstance, while at the gate, through which none but the clean may
ever stray, outside the pale of ordinary human association, these poor
pariahs, these shapes that once were men in a world of men, sang to us,
the whole, the fortunate, who possess return passage for that free
world, the Outside—lost world to them.
On and on they sang, the melting Hawaiian airs, charming “Ua Like No a
Like,” and “Dargie Hula,” “Mauna Kea” beloved of Jack, and his more than
favorite, Kalakaua’s “Sweet Lei Lehua,” with tripping, ripping hula
harmonies unnumbered. At the end of an hour bewitched, to Mr. McVeigh’s
low “Good night, boys,” their last Queen’s “Aloha Oe,” with its fadeless
“Love to You,” that has helped to make Hawaii the Heart-Home of
countless lovers the world over, laid the uttermost touch of eloquence
upon the strange occasion. The sweet-souled musicians, who in their
extremity could offer pleasure of sound if not of sight to us happy
ones, melted away in the blue starlight, the hulaing of their voices
that could not cease abruptly, drifting faint and fainter on the wind.
Kalaupapa, Wednesday, July 3, 1907.
“Quick! First thought! _Where are you?_” Jack quizzed, as through the
jasmine we peered at a score of vociferous lepers running impromptu
horse races on the rounding face of the green. Remote, fearsome Molokai,
where the wretched victims of an Asiatic blight try out their own fine
animals for the prize events of the Glorious Fourth! And all forenoon we
listened to no less than four separate and distinct brass bands
practicing in regardless fervor for the great day. Laughing, chattering
wahines bustled about the sunny landscape, carrying rolls of calico and
bunting; for they, too, will turn out in force on the morrow to show how
the women of Hawaii once rode throughout the kingdom, following upon
that gift of the first horse by Captain Cook to Kamehameha, astride in
long, flowing skirts of bright colors—the _pa’u_ riders of familiar
illustrations.
Mr. McVeigh, satisfaction limned upon his Gaelic countenance at all this
gay preparation, is much occupied, together with his _kokuas_ (helpers),
in an effort to forestall another brand of conviviality that is sought
by the lepers on their feast days; and, denied all forms of alcohol,
they slyly distil “swipes” from anything and everything that will
ferment—even potatoes.
But the lusty Superintendent was not too busy to plan for us a ride to
the little valleys of the pali. There was an odd assortment of
mounts—every one of which, despite the appearance of two I could name,
was excellent in its way. Jack’s allotment was a stout, small-footed
beastie little larger than a Shetland, and to me fell an undersized,
gentle-seeming white palfrey. To my observant eye, Jack _looked_ more
than courtesy would allow him to express, for his appearance was highly
ridiculous. Although of medium height, his feet hung absurdly near the
ground, and his small Australian saddle nearly covered the pony.
We ambled along for a short distance, when our host’s huge gray suddenly
bolted, followed by the others, and I as suddenly became aware that my
husband was no longer by my side. The next instant I was in the thick of
a small stampede across country, the meekness of the milk-white palfrey
a patent delusion and snare, while Jack’s inadequate scrap, leaping like
a jackrabbit, had outdistanced the larger horses. Every one was
laughing, and Jack, now enjoying the practical joke, waved an arm and
disappeared down Damien Road in a cloud of red dust.
Pulling up to a decorous gait through Kalawao, we left the peninsula and
held on around the base of the pali till the spent breakers washed our
trail, where a tremendous wall of volcanic rock rose abruptly on the
right. The trail for the most part was over bowlders covered with
seaweed, and we two came to appreciate these pig-headed little horses
whose faultless bare hoofs carried us unslipping.
Skirting the outleaning black wall, we looked ahead to a coast line of
lordly promontories that rise beachless from out the peacock-blue ocean,
and between which are grand valleys inaccessible except by boat and then
only in calm weather. Two of these valleys, Pelekunu and Wailau, contain
settlements of non-leprous Hawaiians, who are said to live much as they
did before the discovery of the Islands, although they now sell their
produce to the Leper Settlement.
Turning into the broad entrance of a swiftly narrowing cleft called
Waikolu, we rode as far as the horses could go, and some nice problems
were set them on the sliding, crumbling trail. We overheard the
Superintendent’s undertone to Dr. Goodhue: “No malihini riders with us
to-day!” which is encouragement that we may be permitted to travel the
coveted zigzag out of the Settlement. Then tethering the animals in the
kukui shade, we proceeded on foot up a muddy steep where the vegetation,
drenched overnight with rain, in turn drenched us and cooled our
perspiring skins. Except for the trail—and for all we knew that might
have been a wild-pig run—the valley appeared innocent of man; but
presently we gained to where orderly patches of water taro with its
heart-shaped leaves terraced the steep, like a nursery of lilies, and
glimpsed idyllic pictures of grass-houses clinging to ferny ledges of
the mountain side, shaded by large banana and breadfruit trees, and
learned that in these upland vales live certain of the lepers who,
preferring an agricultural life, furnish the Settlement with vegetables
and fruit. And we tried some “mountain apples,” the _ohia ai_, as
distinguished from the _ohia lehua_ which furnishes a beautiful dark
hardwood. This fruit is pear-shaped, red and varnished as cherries, and
sweet and pulpy like marshmallows.
Here were also many pandanus trees (_pandanus ordoratissimus_), called
_lauhala_ or _hala_ by the natives. Lest one fall into the misconception
that the Hawaiian tongue is a simple one, or depreciate the manifold
importance of the pandanus, it is interesting to note that the tree
itself is known more strictly as _puuhala_; the flat, pointed knives of
leaves, _lauhala_; the edible nut growing at the base, _ahuihala_; the
flower from which leis are strung, _hinana_. _Aakala_ are the many
stilted aerial roots which uphold the tree and even branch downward from
some of the limbs. These gradually lift the trunk, at the same time
anchoring it to the ground in all directions. They bear a very slight
resemblance to the mangrove, but are straight, while the other writhes
into an inextricable tangle. The pandanus is also familiarly spoken of
as the screw-pine, from the manner in which its sheaves of blades twist
in a perfect spiral upon the hole.
The number of its benefits to mankind is rivaled only by the coconut.
The _puuhala_, besides furnishing food in the shape of nuts and esthetic
pleasure by its orange leis and its tropical beauty, is the staple for
mat-, hat-, fan-, and cushion-weaving. Of old, strands of its fiber went
to make deadly slings for warfare. The fibrous wood of the mature trees
is hard and takes so high a polish that it is used in making the
handsome turned bowls that have come to be known as calabashes.
Jack’s imagination went a-roving over the possibilities of the
peninsula: “Why, look here, Mate Woman,” he planned, “we could, if ever
we contracted leprosy, live here according to our means. I could go on
writing and earning money, and we could have a mountain place, a town
house down in the village, a bungalow anywhere on the seashore that
suited us, set up our own dairy with imported Jerseys, and ride our own
horses, as well as sail our own yacht—within the prescribed radius, of
course—and let Dr. Goodhue experiment on our cure!—Isn’t it all
practical enough?” this to the grinning “Jack” McVeigh, who was
regarding him with unconcealed delight, and who assured us he wished us
no harm, but for the pleasure of our company he could almost hope the
plan might come to pass!
Hours Jack London spends “cramming” on leprosy from every book the
doctors have in their libraries. And literally it is one of the themes
about which what is not known fills many volumes. The only point upon
which all agree is that they are sure of nothing as regards the means by
which the disease is communicated. The nearest they can hazard is that
it is _feebly_ contagious, and that a person to contract it must have a
predisposition. Thus, one might enter the warm blankets of a leper just
risen, and, by hours of contact with the effluvia therein, “catch” the
disease. The same if one slept long in touch with a victim—and then
only if one had the predisposition. But who is to know if the
predisposition be his? Certain theories as to the mode of contagion were
given us as settled facts by the authorities of the Lazar Hospital in
Havana, where we first became interested in leprosy; but that there is
little dependence to be placed on these opinions is borne out by at
least two known cases on Molokai; one, a native who has remained “clean”
though living with a wife so far gone that she attends to her yearly
babies with her deft feet; and the other, a wahine who has buried five
successive leprous husbands, and has failed to contract their malady.
We recall that in Havana we were assured that no attendant, no Caucasian
living for years within the confines of the institution, had ever become
afflicted; and the same is held on Molokai—which reports make us, as
visitors, feel secure. On the other hand, several of the few white men
here assert that they are absolutely ignorant as to the means of their
own contagion, not having, to their knowledge, been exposed. One of
these is the village storekeeper, a hearty soul whom we have seen riding
about in smart togs on a good horse. He possesses but a spot—on one
foot—which to date has neither increased nor diminished. When he
discovered the “damned spot,” promptly he reported himself to the Board
of Health; and here he makes the courageous best of his situation.
No positive cure of leprosy has yet been discovered. But occasionally
some patient is found upon bacteriological examination to have no
leprosy in him—never having had leprosy. Such are discharged from the
Settlement. Nine times out of ten, they do not want to go, and will
practice any innocent fraud to retain residence in the place that has
become a congenial home.
In some ways the inhabitants of this peninsula are the happiest in the
world. Food and shelter are automatic; pocket-money may be earned.
Several private individuals conduct stores. The helpers, kokuas, are in
the main lepers, and earn salaries. The Board of Health carries on
agriculture, dairying, stock-raising, and the members of the colony are
paid for their labor, and themselves own many heads of cattle and horses
which run pasture-free over some 5,000 acres. The men possess their
fishing boats and launches, and sell fish to the Board of Health for
Settlement consumption. Sometimes a catch of 4,000 pounds is made in a
night. It is not an unhappy community—quite the reverse. And their
religions are not interfered with, which is amply shown by the six
different churches that flourish here. Also there is a Young Men’s
Christian Association.
Long we rested on the Goodhue lanai to-night, and long the shadowy leper
orchestra serenaded beyond the hibiscus hedges, while some one recalled
a story of Charles Warren Stoddard’s “Joe of Lahaina,” in which a
Hawaiian boy, bright companion of other days, crept to the gateway in
the dusk, and there from the dust called to his old friend. Forever
separated, they talked of old times when they had walked arm in arm, and
arms about shoulders, in Sweet Lahaina.
July 4.
This morning we were shocked from dreams by noises so outlandish as to
make us wonder if we were not struggling in nightmare—unearthly
cackling mirth and guttural shoutings and half-animal cries that hurried
us into kimonos and sandals to join our household at the gate where they
were watching a scene as weird as the ghastly din. Only a little after
five o’clock, the atmosphere was vague, and overhead we heard the
rasping cry of a bosun bird, _koae_. In the eery whispering dawn there
gamboled a score or so “horribles,” men and women already horrible
enough, God wot, and but thinly disguised in all manner of extravagant
costumings. They wore masks of home manufacture, in which the makers had
unwittingly imitated the lamentable grotesquerie of the features of
their companions—the lopping mouth, knobby or almost effaced nose,
flapping ear; while, equally correct in similitude, the hue of these
false-true visages was invariably an unpleasant, pestilent yellow. Great
heaven!—do our normal countenances appear abnormal to them?
Some of the actors in this serio-comic performance were astride
cavorting horses, some on foot; and one, an agile clown in dots and
frills, seemed neither afoot nor horseback, in a way of speaking, for he
traveled in company with a trained donkey that lay down peaceably
whenever it was mounted. One motley harlequin, whose ghostly white mask
did not conceal a huge bulbous ear, exhibited with dramatic gesture and
native elocution a dancing bear personified by a man in a brown shag to
represent fur.
And all the while the crowd kept up a running fire of jokes and mimicry
that showed no mean originality and talent.
In the silvering light across the dewy hemisphere a cavalcade of pa’u
riders took shape, coming on larger and larger with a soft thunder of
hoofs, wild draperies straight out behind in the speeding rush, and
drawing up with a flourish, horses on haunches, before the
Superintendent’s house. The vivid hues of the long skirts intensified in
the increasing daylight—some of them scarlet, some blue, or orange,
while one proud equestrienne sued for favor with a flaunting panoply of
Fourth of July red, white, and blue.
Many of the girls were mercifully still comely, even pretty, and rode
superbly, handling their curvetting steeds with reckless grace and ease.
All forenoon these gala-colored horsewomen trooped singing and calling
over the rises and hollows of the countryside, to incessant blaring of
the bands of both villages combined. The whole was a picture of old
Hawaii not to be composed elsewhere in the Territory, and certainly
nowhere else in the world. For no set reproduction of the bygone customs
could equal this whole-souled exhibition, costumed from simple materials
by older women who remembered days of the past, carried out in the
natural order of life in one of the most beautiful spots in the Islands,
if not on the globe. No description can depict the sight that was ours
the forenoon long.
To our distress, we were appointed to award prizes at the race track. We
feared hurting the contestants by injudicious choices. But Jack McVeigh
pooh-poohed our diffidence, and insisted that we serve on the committee.
Horseback we went to the races, and found the track like any other, with
its grand stand, its judges, its betting and bickering—the betting
running as high as $150—its well-bred horses, and wild excitement when
the jockeys came under the wire.
Jack tied his fractious pony, and I saw him on foot over by the judges’
stand, waving arms and cowboy hat and yelling himself hoarse, just as
crazy as the crowd of lepers he jostled, who were as crazy as he. Later,
he was conversing soberly with a Norwegian and his wife, both patients,
who told us we had no idea what it meant to them all for us to come here
and mingle among them as friends, and that people were very happy about
it. This was good tidings, for the lepers are so little forward in
manners that invariably we must accost them first, whereupon they break
into the smiling Aloha of their land.
Between heats, there were footraces, and screaming sack races, and races
to the slowest, in which McVeigh figured on the rump of a balking
donkey, and won; then followed a wahine contest of speed, and a wahine
horse race.
But the most imposing event of the afternoon, as of the morning, was
enacted by the pa’u riders, who paced leisurely in stately procession
once around the course, then circled once in a swinging canter, and,
finally, with mad whoopings, broke into a headlong stampede that swept
twice and a half around before the Amazons could win control of their
excited animals. A truly gorgeous spectacle it was, the flying horses
with their streaming beribboned tails, the glowing riders, long curling
hair outblown, and floating draperies painting the track with brilliant
color—all mortal decay a thing forgot of actors and onlookers alike, in
one grand frolic of bounding vitality and youth.
The three prizes were for $5, $3, and $2, and it would not be guessing
widely to say that they came out of the private pocket of the
Superintendent, along with numerous other gifts during the day. He is
not the man to go about with his heart’s good intentions pinned on his
sleeve—indeed, a supersensitive character would be out of place as
manager of such an institution; but hand in hand with iron will and
executive ability, he carries a heart as big as the charge he keeps, and
a keen gray eye quick to the needs of his children, as he calls them.
The three beaming winners galloped abreast once around the track, and
then rode out; but suddenly the buxom wahine, bright and bold of eye and
irresistible of smile, who had taken second, wheeled about and came to
attention before the judges’ stand with the request, to our surprise,
that I ride once around with her. “Oh, do, do!” Jack under his breath
instantly prompted, fearing I might hesitate. Of course I mounted
forthwith, and together we pranced the circuit, to deafening cheers.
But I was not riding with a leper, for it turned out that this inviting
girl is a kokua, an assistant at the surgery, from whom the bid to ride
with her was in the best Kalaupapa social usage.
The Superintendent’s big dinner was a signal triumph, and he handled the
mixed company with rare tact, several factions being represented. But
even the grave Bishop Liebert and the Fathers warmed to his kindly and
ready humor, and soon all were under the spell of Kalama’s perfumed
garlands and the really sumptuous feast.
Following several merry toasts, Mr. McVeigh rose and raised his glass to
“The Londons—Jack and Charmian, God bless them!” And went on to confess
to a warm regard that affected us deeply. For he has given us of his
confidence during the past day or two in a way that has mightily pleased
us. At the end of the little speech, breaking into his engaging smile,
he announced that he knew all present would wish us well upon our
departure, which was approaching all too soon etc., etc., and which
would be via the pali trail; and that Mrs. London should ride the best
horse on Molokai—his mule Makaha!
By the time we arrived at Beretania Hall for the evening entertainment,
it was crammed to suffocation with a joyful crowd of lepers, orchestra
in place, resting on their violins, banjos, guitars and ukuleles. After
they had opened with Star-Spangled Banner and several Hawaiian
selections, a willowy young woman, graceful as a nymph but with face as
awful as her body was lovely, rendered a popular lightsome song in tones
that had lost all semblance to music. Half-caste she is, traveled and
cultured, once a beauty in Honolulu, whose native mother’s bank account
is in seven figures. And this girl, in the blossom-time of life, with
death overtaking in long strides, bereft of comeliness, shocking to
behold, and having known the best that life has to bestow, rises
superior to life and dissolution, and, foremost in courage, surpasses
the gayest of her sisters in misfortune. What material for a Victor
Hugo!
At the end of an hour, we left the fantastic company dancing as lustily
as it had sung and laughed and ridden the gladsome day through. No one,
listening outside to the unrestrained merrymaking, could have guessed
the band of abbreviated human wrecks, their distorted shadows monstrous
in the flickering lamplight, performing, unconcernedly for once, their
Dance of Death.
July 5.
Let none say that great men, capable of noble sacrifice, have ceased
from the earth in this day and age. And Dr. William J. G. Goodhue, with
his exceeding modesty, would be the first to protest any association of
his pleasant name with such holy company. But no outsider, entering upon
the scene of his wonderful and precarious operations in tissue and bone
diseased with the mysterious curse of the ages, could doubt that he had
come face to face with one who spares himself not from peril of worse
than sudden death. Although the world at large recks as little of him as
it does of leprosy, great surgeons know and acclaim his work, performed
bi-weekly at his clinics, where remedial and plastic operations of
incalcuable importance take place. His tracheotomies in lepral stenosis
have saved many, and have cured or improved conditions of the nose and
throat which no other treatment, so far, has been known to relieve.
[Illustration: (1) The Forbidden Pali Trail, 1907. (2) Landing at
Kalaupapa, 1907. (3) Coast of Molokai—Federal Leprosarium on
shore. (4) American-Hawaiian. (5) Father Damien’s Grave, 1907.]
Ungloved, his sole protection vested in caution against abrading his
skin, and an antiseptic washing before and after his work, the man of
empirical science waded elbow-deep into the unclean menace upon the
operating table. He was assisted by two women nurses, one Hawaiian, one
Portuguese, and both with a slight touch of anæsthic leprosy.
The first subject to-day was a middle-aged wahine, jolly and rolling
fat, who was borne in laughing and borne out laughing again. In between
were but a few self-pitying moans when she raised her head to watch the
doctor. We had every proof that she knew no pain, nor even discomfort;
but the sight of copiously flowing blood caused her to weep and wail
“Auwe!” until one of the nurses said something that made her laugh in
spite of herself. The sole of her foot had thickened two inches, and she
had not stepped upon it for a couple of years. Into this dulled pad,
lengthwise, the cool surgeon cut clean to the diseased bone, which he
painstakingly scraped, explaining that the blood itself remains pure,
only the tissues and bone being attacked by the _bacillus lepræ_.
But the second patient, a good-looking lad who came on the _Noeau_ with
us, was victim of the most loathsome and agonizing sort, which made it
necessary to anæsthetize him—Dr. Hollman using the slow and safe “A. C.
E.” (Alcohol, one part; Chloroform, two parts; Ether, three parts). The
only visible spot was a running sore forward of and below the left
shoulder; but what appeared on the surface was nothing to that which the
knife divulged.
Although the details are not pretty, and I shall not harrow with more of
them, I wish I could picture the calm, pale surgeon, with his intensely
dark-blue eyes and the profile of Ralph Waldo Emerson, whose kinsman he
is, working with master strokes that cleansed the deep cavity of
corruption; for it was an illustration of the finest art of which the
human is capable.
And now this boy may possibly be quite healthy for the rest of a natural
life, and die of some other cause or of old age. Again, the bacillus at
any time may resume its destructive inroads elsewhere in his system.
There are myriad unknown quantities about leprosy. All that Dr. Goodhue,
with his pensive smile, can say about it with finality, is:
“The more I study and learn about leprosy, the less assurance I have in
saying that I know anything about it!”
By this evening all troubadour spirit was quenched, and no minstrelsy
greeted our postprandial lolling on the lanai. No voice above a
night-bird’s disturbed the quiet of tired Kalaupapa. And we also were
weary, for seeing the operations, though not our first, claimed a
certain measure of nervous energy; besides, we had ridden hard to
another rugged valley in the late afternoon, goat-hunting on the crags,
and were ready for early bed. In passing, I must not forget to relate
that we were shown some black-and-white-striped mosquitoes up-valley,
the proper carriers of yellow fever—though Heaven forbid that these
ever have a chance to carry it!
Mr. and Mrs. Myers to-day ascended the baking pali on foot, to prepare
for our coming on the morrow, when we shall have accomplished the
hair-raising exit from Kalaupapa. Now that permission has been
graciously accorded, our witty host enlarges continually upon the
difficulties and dangers of the route.
Waikiki, Sunday, July 7.
At eleven o’clock yesterday, on our diminutive beasts, we bade farewell
under the cluster of kukuis where our friends had accompanied us on the
beginning of the ascent, and proceeded to wage the sky-questing, arid
pathway, for this section of the pali is almost bare of vegetation.
Short stretches as scary we have ridden; it is the length of this climb
that tries—angling upon the stark face of a 2300-foot barrier.
They told me, when I bestrode the short strong back of the mule Makaha,
to “stay by her until the summit is reached. She never fails.”
Implicitly I obeyed, for the very good reason that I would have been
loath to trust my own feet, let alone my head. Never a stumble did her
tiny twinkling hoofs make, even where loose stony soil crumbled and fell
a thousand feet and more into the sea that wrinkled oilily far below;
and the hardy muscle and lungs of her seemed to put forth no unusual
effort. But Jack and the Hawaiian mail carrier, who led the way, were
obliged several times to dismount where the insecure vantage was too
much for the quivering, dripping ponies, though they are accustomed to
the work. Once, from the repairing above, some rubble came down,
fortunately curving clear. Makaha, who has a few rudimentary nerves,
shied, but instantly recovered, only to shy again at a bag of tools by
the trailside.
Sometimes an angle was so acute that she and the ponies were forced to
swing on hind legs to reach the upper zigzag, where poised front hoofs
must grip into sliding stones or feel for hold among large, fixed rocks,
and the rider lie forward on the horse’s neck. A miss meant something
less than a half mile of catapultic descent through blue space into the
blue ocean. Once Jack glimpsed destruction from the guide’s horse that
slipped and scrambled and almost parted from the zigzag immediately
overhead. There were places where it seemed incredible that anything
less agile than a goat could stick.
“I don’t wonder McVeigh won’t let malihinis go out this way,” Jack
called down, craning his neck to see the base of the sea-washed rampart,
and failing. “It is worse than its reputation!”
The Settlement lay stretched in the noonday sun, like the green map of a
peninsula in a turquoise sea. And we amused ourselves, while resting the
animals, picking out familiar landmarks.
A short distance from the summit we joined the rebuilt portion of the
trail, and passed the time of day with the stolid Japanese laborers. Six
feet wide, some parts railed, to our pinched vision it appeared a
spacious boulevard. Our sensations, now speedily at the top and looking
over, may have been something like those of Jack of Beanstalk fame when
he found a verdant level plain at the end of his clambering. Here was a
rolling green prairie browsed by fat cattle, and threaded by a red road.
A family carriage waited, driven by a stalwart son of the Myers’.
The restful two-mile drive through rich pasture land dotted with guava
shrub brought us to his home in the midst of a 60,000-acre ranch. There
are no hotel facilities on Molokai, which is forty miles long by ten in
breadth, and the visitor without friends and friends of friends on the
island will see little unless equipped for camping. The climate at this
elevation is mild and cool, the hills and ruggeder mountains
interspersed with meadows, where spotted Japanese deer have become so
numerous that shooting them is a favor to the ranchers.
High Molokai—and the top of it, Mt. Kamakou, is nearly 5000
feet—should be a paradise for sportsmen, and it is surprising the
Territory does not get together with the owners and try to develop
facilities at Kaunakakai for housing, and transportation into the back
country which is surpassingly beautiful and interesting. Somewhere on
the coast there is an old battlefield where countless human bones still
whiten; and on the rocky coast to the south can be seen in shallow water
the ruins of miles of ancient fish ponds equaled nowhere in the group.
To the northwest Oahu disturbs the horizon, cloud-capped and shimmering
in the blue; while Haleakala bulks ten thousand feet in air on Maui to
the east.
This ranch home is buried in flowers, and my unbelief in begonias a
dozen feet high underwent rude check. A fairy forest of these surrounds
the guest cottage, casting a rosy shadow on window and lanai. I should
have been content to remain here indefinitely.
On the ten-mile gradual descent mid-island to the port, Kaunakakai,
there was ample chance to observe this aspect of the supposedly
melancholy isle, and noticing dry creeks and the general thirsty
appearance of the lower foothills, we descanted upon its rich future
when irrigation schemes are worked out and applied. As it is now, only
in the rainy season do the streams flow, while the amphitheatre-shaped
valleys on the other side of the island, set as they are almost directly
across the path of the northeast tradewinds, are drenched with tropical
rains. Some day these waters will be controlled to make fertile these
rich but parched lands.
Dashing native cowboys, bound for a wedding luau, passed us on the road,
teeth and eyes flashing, gay neckerchiefs about their singing brown
throats, and hatbrims blown back from vivid faces, out-Westing the West.
Kaunakakai itself is not especially attractive, and during two hours’
waiting for the _Iwalani_, we occupied ourselves keeping as comfortable
as possible, for July is hot on the leeward sides of the “Sandwich
Islands.”
Once aboard, and our luggage, taken on at Kalaupapa, safely located, we
watched the loading of freight and live-stock on the little steamer.
Between the deep rolling of the ship and the din and odor of seasick
swine for’ard, there was little rest the night. And the Steamship
Company has a very unceremonious way of dumping its passengers ashore in
Honolulu at heathenish hours. The car lines had not yet started when we
stood yawning and chill beside our bags and saddles on the wharf, and we
were obliged to wake a hackman to drive us to Waikiki. The city might
have been dead but for an occasional milk-wagon; but after all we did
not grudge ourselves the dawning loveliness of the morning—an unearthly
gray-silver luminance wherein a large lemon-tinted moon melted in a
lilac sky. It was like a miracle, this swift awakening of the growing
earth. Birds stretched into song, the water-taro rustled in a fitful
wind, young ducks stirred and fluffed their night-damp feathers on the
margins of the ponds, where lilies opened to the brightening waves of
light, while the broken slate-blue mountains in the background shifted
their graying curtains of shimmering rain. Diamond Head developed slowly
into the scene, like a photographed mountain in a dark-room, and took
opalescent shades of dove and rose. Creation might have been like this!
I recalled Mascagni’s “Iris,” for all living things burgeoned visibly on
the warm awakening earth.
All through the busy morning hours, and the surf-boarding and swimming
and romping of the afternoon, of all the remarkable impressions of that
astounding week on Molokai, the pali endured. Again and again I seem to
cling to the incredible face of it, creeping foot by foot, alert, tense,
unafraid except for each other...[5]
Waikiki, July 11.
In a fine frenzy to give a just presentation of the Leper Settlement,
Jack has lost no time finishing the promised article, “The Lepers of
Molokai.”
In it he pictures himself having a “disgracefully good time,” yelling at
the track-side with the lepers when the horses came under the wire, and
presently branches off into a serious consideration of the situation,
interspersed with bright items of life in the Settlement. The article is
highly approved by Mr. Pinkham, and Mr. Lorrin A. Thurston avers it is
the best and fairest that has ever been written.
Although the President of the Board of Health is entirely satisfied with
himself and with the article, as well as with Jack’s press interviews
regarding the trip, several prominent citizens have expressed themselves
to the official as highly indignant that we should have been allowed in
the Settlement. But the imperturable Pinkham has told them with asperity
that it does not profit them or Hawaii to imitate ostriches and simulate
obliviousness of the fact that the world knows of leprosy in Hawaii. And
why should Hawaii be supersensitive? Leprosy is not unknown in the large
cities even of America; and Hawaii should be proud to advertise her
magnificent system of segregation, unequaled anywhere in the world, and
be glad to have it exploited by men of conscience and intelligence.
Wailuku, Maui, Sunday, July 14.
Two evenings gone, in company with Mr. and Mrs. Thurston, we boarded the
_Claudine_, which though much larger than the _Noeau_, pitched violently
in the head-sea of Kaiwi Channel, and took more than spray over the
upper deck for’ard where were our staterooms.
A swarm of Japanese sailed steerage and outside on the lower deck, each
bearing a matted bundle exactly like his neighbor’s. The women carried
their possessions wrapped in gorgeously printed challies in which a
stunning orange was most conspicuous among vivid blues and greens and
intermediate purples. Early in the trip all were laid low in everything
but clamor and from our deck we could see the poor things in every stage
of disheartened deshabille, pretty matron and maiden alike careless of
elaborate chignon falling awry, the men quite chivalrously trying to
ease their women’s misery in the pauses of their own.
Kahului, our destination, on Maui, the “Valley Isle,” is on the northern
shore of the isthmus connecting West Maui with the greater Haleakala
section of this practically double island; but Mr. Thurston’s sea-going
emotions had increased to such intensity that around midnight he crept
to our latticed door and suggested we disembark at Lahaina, the first
port, finish the night at the hotel, and in the morning drive around the
Peninsula of West Maui to Wailuku.
Nothing loath to escape the roughest part of the passage, doubling the
headland, we dressed and gathered our hand-luggage; and at half past one
in the morning dropped over the _Claudine’s_ swaying side. As we clung
in the chubby, chopping boat, manned by natives with long oars, we could
make out towering heights against the star-bright sky, and on either
side heard the near breakers swish and hiss warningly upon the coral.
And all about, near and far, burned the slanting flares of fishermen,
the flames touching the inky tide water with elongated dancing sparkles.
Voices floated after from the anchored steamer, and ghostly hoof-beats
clattered faint but distinct from the invisible streets of the old, old
town. As at Molokai, shadowy hands helped us upon the wharf—and the
tender witchery of the night fled before the babble of hackmen, stamping
of mosquito-bitten horses, a lost and yelping dachshund pup that
insisted on being trod upon, and the huge red-headed hotel proprietor of
an unornamental wooden hostelry, its uninviting entrance lighted with
smoking kerosene lamps.
“Beautiful Lahaina,” warbles Isabella Bird Bishop, in her charming book
“Hawaii”; “Sleepy Lahaina,” she ecstatically trills—and she is not the
only writer who has sung the praises of this town of royal preference,
once the prosperous capital of the kingdom, and the oldest white
settlement, where touched the whaling ships that sometimes anchored
fifty strong off shore. But this prosperity entailed disease and death,
since the sailors were given free run by their unscrupulous captains.
The village dwindled to less than a wraith of its former opulence, much
of the original site now being planted to cane.
A short distance above the town, at an altitude of 700 feet, the old
Lahainaluna (“upper Lahaina”) Seminary, founded in 1831 by the
missionaries, still flourishes, maintaining its reputation as an
excellent industrial school. The land on which it stands was a gift from
Hoopili Wahine, wife of Hoopili, governor of Maui. The original school
opened in a temporary lanai shed of kukui poles with grass roof. Tuition
was free; but the scholars did what work was required, and raised their
own food. Among the pupils of The Reverend Lorrin Andrews were some of
the finest young men from the islands, many of whom were married. During
the next year a stone building with thatched roof was raised by the
scholars. In 1833 a very much worn printing outfit was obtained and
placed in charge of Mr. Ruggles, with the aid of which school books were
printed; and the very first Hawaiian newspaper was published, the _Lama
Hawaii_ (“Hawaiian Luminary”), preceding the _Kumu Hawaii_, at Honolulu.
Mr. Andrews prepared the first Hawaiian Grammar, and later the Hawaiian
Dictionary.
The reader of Isabella Bird longs for Lahaina above all bournes;
Lahaina, Seat of Kings! He cannot wait to test for himself its spell of
loveliness and repose. But this repose is of the broad day, or else the
gallant lady’s mosquito net was longer than ours, which did cruelly
refuse to make connection with the coverlet. Jack’s priceless
perorations will ever be lost to posterity, for I shall repeat them not.
In the morning, Mrs. Thurston peeped laughingly in and asked if I knew
my husband’s whereabouts; and I, waking solitary, confessed that I did
not, though I seemed to recall his desertion in a blue cloud of
vituperation against all red-headed hotel hosts and stinging pests. Mrs.
Thurston, viewing the blushing morn from the second-story veranda, had
come upon the weary boy fast asleep on the hard boards, blanket over
head and feet exposed, as is the wont of sailors and tramps, and led me
to where he lay. But none more vigorously famished than he, when we sat
in an open-air breakfast room, table spread with land fruit and sea
fruit; for Mr. Thurston had been abroad early to make sure the repast
should be an ideal one after our hard night—fish from the torchlight
anglers, alligator pears dead-ripe out of the garden, mangoes of
Lahaina, the best in the Islands, and coffee from the Kona Coast.
Mrs. Bishop, in the seventies, spoke of Lahaina as “an oasis in a
dazzling desert.” The dazzling desert has been made to produce the cane
for two great sugar mills whose plantations spread their green over
everything in sight to the feet of sudden mountains, rent by terrific
chasms that rise 6000 feet behind the village. Once this was a
missionary center as well as the regular port of call for the
devastating whale ships. The deserted missionary house, fallen into
decay these long years, is still landmark of a Lahaina that but few live
to remember. But the blood of the missionaries has neglected not to make
hay, or, more properly, sugar, under the ardent sun.
The streets of the drowsy town are thickly shaded by coconuts,
breadfruit with its glossy truncated leaves and green globes,
monkey-pod, kukui, bananas, and avocados; and before we bade farewell to
Lahaina, Mr. Thurston drew up beside an enormous mango tree, benefactor
of his boyhood, where an obliging Hawaiian policeman, in whose garden it
grows, with his pretty wife threw rocks to bring down a lapful of the
ripe fruit—deep yellow, with crimson cheeks, a variety known as the
“chutney” mango.
It is some twenty-three scenic miles from Lahaina to Wailuku, and the
road runs for a distance through tall sugar cane, then begins an easy
ascent to where it is cut into the sides of steep and barren volcanic
hills above the sea. There was a glorious surf running, and for miles we
could gaze almost straight down to the water, in places catching
glimpses of shoals of black fish in the blue brine where there was no
beach and deep ocean washed the feet of the cliffs.
Jack has blue-penciled my description of the capital luncheon arranged
in advance by Mr. Thurston, holding that though I write best on the
subject of food, my readers may become bored. So I pass on to Iao Valley
(E-ah-o—quickly E-ow) where we drove in the afternoon, following the
Wailuku River several miles to the valley mouth. On the shelving banks
of this river, near the town, many Hawaiians have their homes and live
in native style for the most part.
Iao has been pronounced by travelers quite as wonderful in its way as
Yosemite. I should not think of comparing the two, because of their wide
dissimilarity. The walls of Iao are as high, but appear higher, since
the floor, if floor it can be called, is much narrower. Most gulches in
Hawaii draw together from a wide entrance, but in Iao this is reversed,
for, once the narrow ascending ingress is passed, the straight walls
open like the covers of a book which Dore might have illustrated, the
valley widening into an amphitheater of surpassing grandeur. On the
ferned and mossed walls of the entrance hang festoons of deep-trumpeted,
blue convolvulæ between slender dracena palms and far-reaching branches
of silvery kukuis, quivering or softly swaying in passing airs.
It is foolish to try to extend any impression of the prodigious
palisades with their springing bastions; the needled peaks; shimmering
tropical growth of tree and vine; bursting, sounding falls of
watercourses rushing headlong over mighty bowlders; the rolling glory of
clouds, casting showers of gold upon joyous green pinnacles or with deep
violet shadow turning these into awful fingers pointing to the zenith.
Nor can one fitly characterize the climate—the zephyrs warm and the
wind-puffs cool that poured over us where we lay on a table-land,
reached by trail through a sylvan jungle of ferns, in matted grass so
deep and dense that we never felt the solid earth.
Long we rested, speaking little, surrounded by impregnable fastnesses,
marveling at this superlatively grand and beautiful cleft, at its head,
lord of all lesser peaks and spires and domes, Puu Kukui piercing nearly
6000 feet into the torn sky. There are other valleys back of Puu Kukui,
as beautiful as Iao, but more difficult of access. It is said by the few
who have ascended that the view from the top of Puu Kukui is away and
beyond anything they have ever seen.
There is but one way out of Iao, as with most of these monster gulches
of Hawaii, and that is the way in. Old warriors learned this to their
rue, caught by Kamehameha in the sanguinary battle that completed his
conquest of Maui, when their blood stained the waters of the stream as
it flowed seaward, which henceforth bore the name of Wailuku, “Water of
Destruction.”
From our high post, looking seaward, down past the interlacing bases of
beryl-green steeps eroded by falling waters of æons, the vision included
the plains country beneath, rose and yellow and green with cultivated
abundance, bordered at the sea-rim by white lines of surf inside bays
and out around jutting points and promontories, the sapphire deep
beyond; and upon the utmost indigo horizon pillowy trade clouds
lowlying—all the splendor softened into tremulous, mystic fairyland.
“Hawaii herself, in all the buxom beauty, roving industry ... with all
the bravery and grace of her natural scenery.”
One pursues one’s being in Hawaii within an incessant atmosphere of
wonder and expectation—ah, I have seen Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, the
Alps, the Swiss lakes; but Hawaii is different, partaking of those and
still different, and more elusively wonderful. Even now, as I write of
what my eyes have gloried in, they behold mighty roofless Haleakala,
ancient House of the Sun, its ragged battlements ranging two miles into
the ether, above the cloud-banners of sunset.
Haleakala Ranch, Maui, Monday, July 15.
Except one be deaf, dumb, and blind, there is no boredom in these
Islands. Indeed, one must avoid bewilderment among the attractions that
fill the days. Little opportunity was ours to become acquainted with the
old town of Wailuku, with its picturesque population of natives and
immigrants, for yesterday’s program included a private-car trip over the
Hawaiian Commercial and Kihei Sugar Companies’ vast plantations. We were
the guests of the superintendent of the Kahului Railroad Company, who
entertained us at Kahului, where we went aboard the car. There was a
bustling air of activity and newness about the port—track-laying,
boat-loading, house-building; and in the harbor swung at anchor a big
freighter of the American-Hawaiian Line, unloading on lighters and
receiving sugar by the same means.
Waving fields of cane occupy practically all the broad neck between the
two sections of Maui, spreading into the slopes of Haleakala’s foothills
and extending well around to the “windward” side of the island. Our trip
included one of the mills and a descent three hundred feet into the
shaft of Kihei’s pumping station, where we were conducted by a young
football giant from Chicago.
At the village of Paia, with its alluring Japanese shops, we transferred
to carriages for an eight-mile drive to this stock ranch 2000 feet up
Haleakala. From afar, the mountain appears simple in conformation,
smooth and gradual in rise. The rise is gradual, to be sure, but varied
by ravines that are valleys, and level pastures, and broken by ancient
blowholes and hillocks that are miniature mountains as symmetrical as
Fujiyama. It is almost disappointing—one has a right to expect more
spectacular perpendicularity of a 10,000-foot mountain. Even now, from
where we sit on a shelf of lawn, under a tree with a playhouse in its
boughs, it is impossible to realize that the amethyst summit, free for
once of cloud, is still 8000 feet above, so lazily does it lean back.
And looking downward, never have I taken in so much of the world from
any single point.
Louis von Tempsky, English-Polish, son of the last British officer
killed in the Maori War, handsome, wiry, military of bearing and
discipline, is manager of this ranch of sixty thousand-odd acres, owned
by Lorrin A. Thurston, James B. Castle, and H. P. Baldwin. He came to
Hawaii years ago on a vacation from his New Zealand bank cashiership,
and he never went back—“Shanghaied,” says Jack. One cannot blame the
man. Here he is able to live to the full the life he loves, with those
he loves—the big free life of saddle and boundless miles, with his own
fireside (and one needs a fireside up here of an evening) at the end of
the day. His wife, Amy, was born in Queen Emma’s house in Honolulu, of
English parentage. Her father, Major J. H. Wodehouse, was appointed
English Minister to Hawaii about three years before annexation to the
United States took place, and now, home in England, is retired upon a
pension.
The climate is much like California’s in the mountains, and refreshing
after the sea-level midsummer heat. This bracing air makes one feel
younger by years. Life here is ideal—a rambling old house, with a
drawing-room that is half lanai, furnished with a good library and
piano, and fine-matted couches deep in cushions; a cozy dining-room
where one comes dressed for dinner, and a commodious guest-wing where
Jack and I have two rooms and bath, and he can work in comfort.
The lawn is in a two-sided, sheltered court, intersected with red-brick
walks, and lilies grow everywhere. From our books on the lawn beside a
little fountain under tall trees where birds sing and twitter, we rise
and step past the lilies to the edge of the garden where the rich red
earth, grass mantled, slopes to the ocean. Standing as if in a green
pavilion, we seem detached from the universe while viewing it. Terrace
upon terrace of hills we trace, champaigns of green speckled with little
rosy craters like buds turned up to sun and shower; and off in the blue
vault of sea and sky, other islands mirror-blue and palpitating like
mirages. One hears that Maui, the second largest island, contains 728
square miles and that it is 10,000 feet high; but what are calculated
confines when apparently the whole world of land and sea is spread
before one’s eyes on every hand! Hand in hand, we look, and look, and
strive to grasp the far-flung vision, feeling very small in its midst.
“Beautiful’s no name for it,” breathes Jack; and through my mind runs a
verse of Mrs. Browning’s, a favorite of my childhood:
“We walk hand in hand in the pure golden ether,
And the lilies look large as the trees;
And as loud as the birds sing the bloom-loving bees—
And the birds sing like angels, so mystical-fine,
While the cedars are brushing the Archangel’s feet.
And Life is eternity, Love is divine,
And the world is complete.”
This morning early we were out looking over our mounts and seeing that
our saddles were in good shape. “I love the old gear!” Jack said,
caressing the leather, well worn on many a journey. A cattle-drive and
branding, with colt-breaking to follow, were the business of the day. At
ten we cantered away from the corrals, and Jack and I went right into
the work with Mr. Von Tempsky and his girls, Armine and Gwendolen, and
the native cowboys, to round up the steers. Oddly enough, although born
and raised in the West, we two have sailed over two thousand miles to
take part in our first _rodeo_.
To my secret chagrin, I was doomed to be tried out upon an ambitionless
mare, albeit Louisa is well-gaited and goodly to the eye. But I dislike
to spur another person’s animal, so took occasion to look very rueful
when my host, coming alongside, inquired: “Are you having a good time?”
He could see that I was not, and sensed why; so he advised me not to
spare the spur, adding: “There isn’t a better cattle pony, when she
knows you mean business!”
And oh, these “kanaka” horses, with their sure feet! And oh, the wild
rushes across grassland that has no pit-falls—gophers and
ground-squirrels are unknown—thudding over the dustless, cushioned
turf, hurdling the taller growth, whirling “on a cowskin” to cut off
stray or willful stock, and making headlong runs after the racing herd.
All the while taking commands from General Daddy, and sitting tight our
eager horses, streaking the landscape in ordered flight to head off the
runaways, the young girls with hair flying, sombreros down backs, cheeks
glowing, eyes sparkling, utterly devoted to the work in hand.
Miles we covered, doubling back and forth, searching out the bellowing
kine; up and down steep canyons we harried them, along narrow
soft-sliding trails on stiff inclines, turning to pathless footing to
keep them going in the right direction. And the farther afield we rode,
the farther beckoned the reaches of that deceptive mountain.
At last the droves were converged toward a large gate not far from the
outlying corrals, and after a lively tussle we rounded up all but one
recalcitrant—a quarter-grown, black-and-white calf that outran a dozen
of us for half an hour before we got him.
Promptly followed the segregation of those to be marked; the throwing of
calves in the dusty corral, and their wild blatting when the cowboys
trapped them neck and thigh, with the lasso; the restless circling of
the penned victims waiting their turns; the trained horses standing
braced against lariats thrown from their backs into the seething mass;
the rising, pungent smoke of burning hair and hide as the branding irons
bit; then frantic scrambling of the released ones to lose themselves in
the herd.
We sat fence-high on a little platform overlooking the strenuous scene,
and when the branding was finished, the colt-breaking began, in which
the Von Tempsky children took intense interest, as did we. Their father
superintended his efficient force of native trainers in the work of
handling three-year-old colts that had never known human restraint,
which made a Buffalo Bill show seem tame indeed. For breathless hours we
watched the making of docile saddlers, all being finally subdued but
one, which threatened to prove an “outlaw.” After the “buck” has been
taken out of the young things, they are tied up all night to the corral
fence, and in the morning are expected to be tractable, with all
tendency to pull back knocked out of them forever.
“And some are sulky, while some will plunge,
(_So ho! Steady! Stand still, you!_)
Some you must gentle, and some you must lunge,
(_There! There! Who wants to kill you!_)
Some—there are losses in every trade—
Will break their hearts ere bitted and made;
Will fight like fiends as the rope cuts hard,
And die dumb-mad in the breaking-yard.”
Ukulele, on Haleakala, July 16.
Thirteen strong, we rode out from the ranch house this morning,
beginning a week’s trip in the crater and on around through the Nahiku
“Ditch” country. Besides the cowboys, gladsome brown fellows, overjoyed
to go along, there were seven in the party, with a goodly string of pack
animals trailing out behind. And bless my soul! if there wasn’t Louisa,
meekly plodding under a burden of tent-poles and other gear. For Mr. Von
Tempsky had now allotted me his own Welshman, “the best horse on the
mountain.”
Fifty-four hundred feet above sea level, we stopped here at Ukulele, the
dairy headquarters of the ranch. Why Ukulele, we are at loss to know,
for nothing about the place suggests that minute medium of harmony.
However, there is a less romantic connotation, for the definition of
ukulele is literally “jumping louse,” which name was given by the
natives to the first fleas imported. Let us hope the place was called
after the instrument!
The ascent was steeper than below the ranch house, but it worked no
hardship on horse or rider. We were in good season to “rustle” supper,
and went berrying for dessert. Of course, there had to be a berry-fight
between Jack and the two husky girls, who soon became weird and
sanguinary objects, plastered from crown to heel with the large juicy
_akalas_, which resemble our loganberries. Jack asserts that they are
larger than hens’ eggs; but lacking convenient eggs, there is no proving
him in error. Nothing does him more good than a whole-hearted romp with
young people, and these were a match that commanded his wary respect.
After supper, we reclined upon a breezy point during a lingering sunset
over the wide, receding earth, lifted high above the little affairs of
men, and, still high above, the equally receding summit. We felt light,
inconsequential, as if we had no place, no ponderability, no
reality—motes poised on a sliver of rock between two tremendous
realities.
Louis Von Tempsky recounted old legends concerning the House of the Sun,
and the naming thereof, and the fierce warfare that is ever going on
about its walls, between the legions of Ukiukiu and Naulu, the Northeast
Trade and the Leeward Wind; and until we were driven indoors by the
chill, we lay observing the breezy struggle beneath among opposing
masses of driven clouds.
There is a continual temptation to digress and dwell upon the rich
folk-lore. I am glad to note that Thomas G. Thrum, of Honolulu, has
compiled a book entitled Hawaiian Folk Tales.
It will fascinate many an older person than a child in years to learn,
whatever we know or do not know about fairies, that in truth there is a
foundation, in the lore of Hawaii, for the belief in Brownies. Tradition
says that they were the original people of these Islands—an adventurous
and nomadic tribe known as Menehunes, sprightly, cunning, and so
industrious that it was their rule that any work undertaken must be
entirely accomplished in one night. If it were not, it would never be
finished, since they would not put their hand twice on one task. An
ancient uncompleted wall of a fish-pond, on Kauai, is by credulous
natives laid to the fact that the Menehunes neglected to begin work
until midnight, and dawn found them but half done. To those who may
smile at this legend, I can only point out the Little Peoples whom
Martin Johnson has but lately discovered in both the Solomons and New
Hebrides, moving-pictures of which I have seen: veritable Brownies, if
better-proportioned than our fairy-tale books would have us believe of
Menehunes.
We are going to rest upon our _hikie_ (hik-e-a), the same being a
contrivance of hard boards, seven feet square, laid deep, native
fashion, with lauhala mats, and haole quilts made to measure, with
warmer covering at hand for the crisp small hours.
Paliku, Crater of Haleakala, July 17.
And it’s ho! for the crater’s rim, to look over into the mysterious
Other Side from the tantalizing skyline that promises what no other
horizon in all the world can give. Hail, Haleakala! It’s boots and
saddles for the unroofed House of the Sun, the largest extinct crater in
existence! What will it be like? (“Nothing you’ve ever seen or dreamed,”
assures one.) Shall we be disappointed? (“Not if you’re alive!” laughs
another.) Jack gives me a heaving hand into the saddle, and my Welshman
strikes a swinging jog-trot that plays havoc with the _opu_-full—opu
being stomach—with which my terrible mountain appetite has been
assuaged.
Rolling grasslands give place to steep and rugged mountain, with sparse
vegetation. Here and there gleams a sheaf of blades, the “silver-sword,”
with a red brand of blossoms thrusting from the center; or patches of
“silver verbena,” a velvet flower that presses well and serves as
_edelweiss_ for Haleakala. Stopping to breathe the horses, we nibble
_ohelo_ berries, like cranberries, but with a mealy-apple flavor, like
the manzanita-berries of California. There is wild country up here,
where sometimes cattle and ranging horses are pulled down by wild dogs;
and back in the fastnesses, even mounted cowboys, rounding up the stock,
have been attacked.
Somebody is singing all the time. If it is not Mr. Von’s tenor, one
hears Mr. Thurston’s pleasant voice on the breeze, attempting a certain
climacteric note that eludes his range at the end of “Sweet Lei Lehua.”
Over the sharp, brittle lavas of antiquity our horses, many barefooted,
their hoofs like onyx, scramble with never a fall on the panting steeps;
on and on, up and up, we forge, with a blithe, lifting feel in the thin
and thinner air, while the great arc of the horizon seems ever above eye
level. Rings a thrilling call from ahead that the next rise will land us
on the jagged edge of the hollow mountain. I am about to join the charge
of that last lap when a runaway packhorse—none other than
Louisa—diverts my attention to the rear. When I turn again, the rest
are at the top—all but Jack, who faces me upon his Pontius Pilate,
until I come up. “I wanted to see it with you,” he explains, and
together we follow to Magnetic Peak—so-called what of its lodestone
properties. And then...
More than twenty miles around its age-sculptured brim, the titanic rosy
bowl lay beneath; seven miles across the incredible hollow our eyes
traveled to the glowing mountain-line that bounds the other side, and,
still above, across a silver sea, high in the sky ... we could not
believe our vision that was unprepared for such ravishment of beauty.
Surely we beheld very Heaven, the Isles of the Blest, floating above
clouds of earth—azure, snow-crowned peaks so ineffably high, so
ungraspably lovely, that we forgot we had come to see a place of ancient
fire, and gazed spellbound, from our puny altitude of ten thousand feet,
upon peaks of snow all unrelated to the burned-out world on which we
stood.
It was only Mauna Kea—Mauna Kea and its twin, Mauna Loa, on the Big
Island of living fire, half again as high as our wind-swept position;
but so remote and illusive were they, that our earthborn senses were
incapable of realizing that their sublimity was anything more than a
day-dream, and that we looked upon the same island, the loftiest on the
globe, that had greeted our eyes from the _Snark_.
“It never palls,” Armine whispered solemnly, the dew in her
forget-me-not-blue eyes. And her father, who had stood here uncounted
times, soberly acquiesced. I knew, with certitude birthed of the magic
moment, that my memory, did I never return, would remain undimmed for
all my days.
[Illustration: (1) Hana. (2) The Ruin of Haleakala. (3) Von and Kakina.]
And then we devoted ourselves to hanging upon the glassy-brittle brink
and peering into the crater’s unbelievable depths, which are not sheer
but slope with an immensity of sweep that cannot be measured by the eye,
so deceptive are the red and jet inclined planes of volcanic sand.
Pointing to an inconsiderable ruddy cone in the floor of the crater, Mr.
Thurston said: “You would hardly think that that blowhole is taller than
Diamond Head, but it is!” And before there was time to readjust our
dazzled minds, he was indicating an apparent few hundred feet of
incurving cinder-slope that looked ideal for tobogganing, with the
information that it was over a mile in length. A dotted line of hoof
prints of some wayward goat strung across its red-velvet surface, and we
tossed clinkers of lava over-edge upon unbroken stretches immediately
below, to watch the little interrupted trails they traced until the wind
should erase them. Only when the men loosened bowlders into the chasm,
and we saw them leaving diminishing puffs of yellow ocher dust as they
bounded upon the cindrous declivity, could we begin to line up the
proportions of the immediate crater-side. Whole minutes were consumed,
and minutes upon minutes for those swift projectiles to pass beyond
sight.
“And why,” queried Jack, “are we the only ones enjoying this
incomparable grandeur? Why aren’t there thousands of people climbing
over one another to hang all around the rim of ‘the greatest extinct
crater in the world’? Such a reputation ought to be irresistible. Why,
there’s nothing on earth so wonderful as this! I should think there
wouldn’t be ships enough to carry the tourists, if only for Iao and
Haleakala. Perhaps Hawaii doesn’t want them, or need them.....
Personally,” he laughed, “I’m glad my wife and I are the only tourists
here to-day. And we’re not tourists, thank God!”
Two broad portals there are into the House Built by the Sun, and through
them march the warring winds, Ukiukiu and Naulu. In at the northern
portal, Ukiukiu drives the trade clouds, mile-wide, like a long line of
silent, ghostly breakers, only to have them torn to shreds, as to-day,
and dissipated in the warm embrace of the rarefied airs of Naulu.
Sometimes Ukiukiu meets with better fortune, and fills the castle with
cloud-legions; but ours was the fortune this day, for the crater was
swept of all but remnants of floating cloud-dust, and the view was
superb.
At last, tearing from the absorbing spectacle, we descended a short way
to a stone-walled corral, where the bright-eyed, quiet-mannered cowboys
had lunch waiting—a real roughing-it picnic of jerked beef and salt
pork, products of the ranch; and hard-poi, called _pai’ai_, thick and
sticky, royal pink-lavender, in a roomy sack. Into this we dug our
fists, bringing them out daubed with the hearty substance. It came to
me, blissfully licking the pai’ai from my fingers, that this promiscuous
delving for poi into one receptacle which obtains among the natives, and
which the real kamaaina hesitates not to emulate, is far from the
unfastidious custom it is sure to appear upon first sight. “Why, yes—”
Jack caught the idea, “you stick your finger into a thick paste, and the
finger is withdrawn coated with it. Ergo, your finger has touched
nothing of what remains in the pot—or sack.”
Having lunched, we mounted a disgorged litter of bowlders and sharp
lava, to the meager crumbling ruins of what are thought to be
fortifications built into the side of the mountain by Kamehameha the
Great; then, overtopping the verge, slowly we sank into the ruddy
depths, by way of the cinder declivities we had speculated upon from our
soaring perch. They proved entirely too rough with loose rubble for
tobogganing. The horses left sulphur-yellow tracks as they pulled their
pasterns from out the bottomless burnt sands, and a golden streamer flew
backward from each hoof-fall. So swift was our drop that riders strung
out ahead speedily grew very, very small, though distinct, as if seen
through the wrong end of a telescope. In the crystal-pure atmosphere
each object stood out clean-cut, while an insidious sunburn began to
spread over lips and cheeks and noses. Apart from slightly shortened
breathing at the summit, we had felt no inconvenience from the
elevation.
Thus our caravan straggled into the depths of Haleakala, sometimes a
horseman galloping springily across a dark cinderslope in a halo of
tawny sun-shot dust, then dropping steeply, his mount nearly sitting;
while overhead and behind, on the evanescent path of our making, came
the picturesque pack horses and cowboys, and one small patient mule
laden with camp comforts. From farthest below rose quaint reiterative
chants of hulas, as Louis von Tempsky rode and sang, loose in the
saddle, reins on his cow-pony’s neck, debonair and tireless, with a
bonny daughter to either side.
Strange is the furnishing of this stronghold of the Sun God. And few are
the nooks in it that would invite the tired and parched wayfarer to
tarry. For all the beauty of its rose and velvet of distance, there
reigns intense desolation, With something sinister in the dearth of
plant or animal life. Passing an over-toppling crimson Niagara of dead
lava frozen in its fall, we reinvested the silent bleakness with fire
and flow and upheaval, until, suddenly whooping into a mad race up the
flanks of a big blowhole that had earlier presented its dry throat to
our downward scrutiny, we hesitated to look over into the soundless pit,
half expecting we knew not what. Nothing happened, of course, though
dead volcanoes have been known to resurrect; and we slanted back into
the floor of the House, and went on our burning, arid course.
It gives an odd sensation to realize that one is traversing miles
literally inside a high mountain. We thought of friends we should have
liked to transport abruptly into this unguessable cavity. Oddly enough,
as we progressed, it turned out that the warm color, so vivid from the
summit, flushes only one side of the cones, like a fever not burned out;
although ahead, on the opposite wall, there is a giant scar of perfect
carmine.
At last we commenced to wind among crateresque hillocks, clothed with
rough growths by the healing millenniums, until, far on, we could just
glimpse the Promised Rest of verdure—clustered trees and smiling
pasture, where our tents were to be pitched for two nights, while the
beasts should graze. But the distance was as deceptive as a mirage, and
we had still to endure many a sharp trail across fields of clinking
lava, black and fragile as jet, swirled smoothly in the cooling process,
and called _pahoehoe_; while the _a-a_ lava, twisted and tormented into
shapes of flame, licked against the blue-enamel sky. I never cease to
feel a sense of aghastness before these stiff, upstanding waves of the
slow, resistless molten rock, flung stark and frozen like the stilled
waters of the Red Sea of old; and here, at the bases of the carven
surges, are smooth sandy levels, dotted with shrubs, where one may
gallop in and out as if at the bottom of a recessant ocean.
Involved in a maze of lava-flows among small gray cones, the vast aspect
of the crater was lost. Still, turning, we could yet discern Magnetic
Peak. In every direction the vistas changed from moment to moment; and
wonder surged as we tried to grasp the immensity of the moribund volcano
and its astounding details. Once we halted at the Bottomless Pit
itself—a blowhole in the ground that had leisurely spat liquid rock,
flake upon flake, until around its jagged mouth a wall piled up, of
material so glassy light that large pieces could easily be broken off.
And one must have a care not to lean too heavily, for judged by its
noiseless manner of swallowing dropped stones, a human body falling into
the well would never be heard after its first despairing cry.
There is but one chance to water animals until camp-ground is reached,
and we found the pool dry—auwe! But the kanakas, carrying buckets,
scaled the crater wall to a higher basin, from which they sent down a
thin stream. One by one the horses drank while we rested in an oasis of
long grass, cooling our flaming faces in the shade.
A mile or two more, and we reined up, to the cracking of rifle-shots,
under the cliff at Paliku, a fairy nook of a camping spot where Mr. Von
and the cowboys, having outdistanced us, were bringing down goat-meat
for supper. I was guilty of inward treacherous glee that only one was
killed, as that was plenty for our needs; and the spotted kids looked so
wonderful upon a wall where we could see no foothold.
Camp had been planned in a luxuriant grove of _opala_ and _kolea_ trees
close to the foot of the pali; but the ground being soggy from recent
rains, we found better tent-space in the open, where sleek cattle grazed
not far off, getting both food and drink from lush grass that grows the
year round in this blossoming pocket of the desert. There are sections
on the “dry” side of Maui where herds flourish entirely upon prickly
cactus, having no other food or moisture. Only the weaker ones succumb
to the spines of the cactus, and it is said that there are no finer
cattle on the islands than the survivors.
All took a hand in settling camp, we women filling sacks with ferns, to
serve as mattresses. The change of exercise was the best thing that
could happen to us malihinis, else we might have stiffened from the many
hours in saddle.
It was a starved company that smacked its lips at Von’s jerked beef
broiling on a stick over a fire at the open tent-flap, behind which the
rest of us sat and made ready the service on a blanket. For it is right
cold of an evening, nearly 7000 feet in the air—a veritable
refrigerating plant in the mansion of the Sun.
I hope, if ever I land in heaven, and it is anything half as attractive
as this earth I go marveling upon, that it will not be incumbent upon me
to keep a journal. Seeing and feeling are enough to keep one full
occupied.
Paliku, to Hana, Maui, July 18.
Too burned and tired to fancy goat-hunting in the rain, Mrs. Thurston
and I spent yesterday resting, reading, sleeping, and playing cards in
the dripping tent, while our men went with Mr. Von and the girls. The
drenching clouds drifted and lifted on the pali, where the sun darted
golden javelins through showers until the raindrops broke into a glory
of rainbows. Then the brief splendor waned, leaving us almost in
darkness at midday, in an increasing downpour.
The hunters returned in late afternoon, wet and weary, but jubilant and
successful, eager for supper and a damp game of whist on the blankets.
After we had tucked under those same blankets, with shrewdly placed cups
to catch the leaks in our soaked tent-roof, we listened to the mellow
voices of the Hawaiians singing little hulas and love-songs and laughing
as musically.
This morning it was down-tent, and boot and saddle once more; but ere we
made our six o’clock get-away, I found a half hour to go prowling to the
feet of the pali, to an alluring spot that had been in my eyes since the
moment of arrival—a green lap in the gray rock where a waterfall had
been. Winning through a thicket, I peeped into a ferny, flowery corner
of Elfland at the base of a vertical fall, down which the water had
furrowed a shining streak on the polished rock amid fanning ferns and
grasses and velvet mosses—a grotto fit for childhood’s imaginings to
people with pink and white fairy-folk and brown and green gnomes.
They were slippery trails that led out of the crater and down through
Kaupo Gap, chill with Naulu’s drafty onslaught, where Pélé, Goddess of
Fire, once broke through the ramparts of the crater and fled forever
from Maui to take up her abode on Mauna Loa’s wounded side. But soon out
of the clouds we rode and went steaming in the horizontal rays of a
glorious sunrise. Again there were glimpses of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa,
supernal in the morning sky, though a trifle more plausible seen from
this level.
Down our sure-footed animals dropped into lush meadows, where fat cattle
raised their heads to stare; up and down, across crackling lava beds,
like wrecked giant stairways balustraded by the cool gray-and-gold
palisades of the Gap, from between which we could make out the surfy
coast line. Once we had struck the final descent, there were no ups,
only downs, for 6000 feet; and several times our saddles, sliding over
the withers of the horses, obliged us to dismount and set them back.
On a rocky cliff above the sea we found an early lunch ready and
waiting, at the house of a Portuguese-Hawaiian family; and by eleven
were cantering easily along green cliffs, past old grass-houses still
occupied by natives—a sight fast becoming rare. From one weirdly
tattered hut, there rushed a nut-brown, wrinkled woman, old, but with
fluffy black hair blown out from wild black eyes, flinging her arms
about and crying “Aloha! Aloha!” with peal upon peal of mad sweet
laughter.
For several miles the coast was much like that of Northern California,
with long points, rimmed by surf, running out into the ocean; but soon
we were scrambling up and down gulch-trails. In olden times these clefts
were impassable on account of the tremendous rainfall on this eastern
shore; and around on the north, or Nahuku side, it averages two hundred
inches yearly. (Three years ago it registered as high as four hundred
and twenty inches.) So the wise chiefs, somewhere around the sixteenth
century, with numerous commoners at their command, had the curt zigzags
paved with a sort of cobblestone, without regard to suavity of grade. So
the rises and falls of this slippery highway are nothing short of
formidable, especially when one’s horse, accustomed to leading, resents
being curbed midway of the procession and repeatedly tries to rush past
the file where there is no passing-room.
But the animals quickly proved that they could take care of themselves,
and we advantaged by this assurance to look our fill upon the beautiful
coast and forested mountain. Tiny white beaches dreamed in the sunlight
at the feet of the deep indentations, where rivers flowed past banana
and cocoanut palms that leaned and swayed in the strong sea breeze, and
brown babies tumbled among tawny grass huts; while gay calicoes, hung
out to dry, gave just the right note of brilliant color.
Some of the idyllic strands were uninhabited and inviting; and I thought
of the tired dwellers of the cities of all the world, who never heard of
Windward Maui, where is space, and solitude, and beauty, warm winds and
cool, soothing rainfalls, fruit and flowers for the plucking, swimming
by seashore and hunting on mountain side, and Mauna Kea over there a
little way to gladden eye and spirit. Then, “Mate, are you glad you’re
alive?” broke upon my reverie as Jack leaned from his horse on a zigzag
above my head.
It would not have seemed like Hawaii if we had not traversed a cane
plantation, and halt was made at the Kipahulu Sugar Mill, where one of
the horses must have a shoe reset. It would appear that the onyx feet of
the unshod horses, that have never worn iron in their lives, stand the
wear and tear of the hard travel over ripping lava better than the more
pampered ones.
All of the eager train knew from experience that at Hana waited their
fodder; and we, in like frame of mind, restrained them not. We had done
thirty-five miles when we pulled up before the small hotel—and such
miles! Mr. Cooper, manager of Hana Plantation store, called upon us with
extra delicacies to eke out the plain hotel fare—avocados, luscious
papaias, and little sugary bananas. “Gee!” murmured Jack from the
buttery depths of a big alligator pear, “I wish we could grow these
things in the Valley of the Moon!”
This village of Hana lies high on the horseshoe of a little blue bay
embraced by two headlands, and is fraught with warlike legend and
history. In the eighteenth century, King Kalaniopuu, of the old dynasty,
whose life was one long bloody battle with other chiefs of Maui for the
possession of these eastern districts, held the southern headland of the
bay, Kauiki, for over twenty years; then the great Kahekili deprived the
garrison of its water supply, and retook the fort, which is an ancient
crater. In the time of Kamehameha, it withstood his attacks for two
years, after the remainder of Maui had been brought to his charmed heel.
To-night, I know, I shall fall unconscious with, in my ears, the ringing
of iron hoofs on stony pathways and the gurgle and plash of waterfalls.
Hana, to Keanae Valley, Maui, July 20.
The Ditch Country—this is the unpoetical, imageless name given to a
wonderland that eludes the power of language. An island world in itself,
it is compounded of vision upon vision of heights and depths, hung with
waterfalls. It is of a gentle grandeur withal, clothed softly with
greenest green of tree and shrub and grass, ferns of endless variety,
fruiting guavas, bananas, mountain-apples—all in a warm, generous,
tropical tangle. It is a Land of Promise for generations to come. All
who can sit a Haleakala horse—the best mountain horse on earth—must
come some day to feast eyes upon this possession of the United States of
America, whose beauty, we are assured of the surprising fact, is unknown
save to a few hundred white men exclusive of the engineers of the trail
and ditch and those financially interested in the plantations of
Windward Maui. And undoubtedly no white foot previously trod here.
The Ditch Country—untrammeled paradise wherein an intrepid engineer
yclept O’Shaughnessy, overcame almost unsurmountable odds and put
through an irrigation scheme that harnessed the abundant water and
tremendously increased the output of the sugar plantations. And to most
intents it remains an untrammeled paradise, for what little the
transient pilgrim marks of the fine achievement of the Nahiku Ditch is
in the form of a wide concrete waterway running for short, infrequent
distances in company with a grassy trail before losing itself in Mr.
O’Shaughnessy’s difficult tunnels, through which most of its course is
quarried.
All manner of Hawaiian timber goes to make up the splendid foresting of
this great mountainside, whose top is lost in the clouds; huge koa
trees, standing or fallen, the dead swathed in vines, the quick embraced
by the _ie-ie_, a climbing palm that clings only to living pillars, its
blossoming tendrils depending in curves like cathedral candelabra; the
ohia ai, lighting the prevailing green with its soft, thistle-formed,
crimson-brushed blossom, and cherry-red fruit; the ohia lehua, prized
for its dark-brown hardwood, but bearing no edible fruit; and the kukui,
silver-green as young chestnuts in springtime, trooping up hill and down
dale. More than half a hundred varieties of bananas grow from beach to
summit of this exotic region. Especially ornamental are the luxuriant
tree ferns on their chocolate-hued, hairy pedestals. Many of the ground
ferns were familiar—even the gold- and silver-back flourish in Hawaii.
Indeed, a collector of _Filicales_ would be in his element in these
islands, which own to a large number known nowhere else. Maui alone has
a hundred and thirty-odd different kinds.
We nooned on a rubber plantation, where we were entertained at a
hospitable luncheon, served by two kimino’d Japanese maids—little bits
of pictures off a fan, Jack observed. He, by the way, well-nigh
disgraced himself when, replying to a query from the hostess whether or
not he liked foreign dishes, he assured her he enjoyed all good food of
all countries, with one exception, “nervous” pudding, which he declared
made him tremble internally. The words and accompanying gestures were
still in the air when a maid entered bearing the dessert, a quivering
watermelon-hued dome of gelatine! A horrified silence was broken by a
shout of laughter, in which every one joined with relief. But Jack
consistently declined any part of the “nervous” confection, saying that
he always preferred coffee alone for his dessert.
Armine, to the surprise of father and sister, and my speechless delight,
offered to let me ride her superb Bedouin, a young equine prince with
movement so springy that he seemed treading in desert sand. We had
traveled nearly all day in heavy showers, and were convinced of the
accuracy of the figures of Windward Maui’s annual rainfall; for no
saddle-slicker was able to turn the searching sky-shot water. But the
discomfort of wet garments was lost in rapt attention to the splendor
round about. Rightly had our guides assured us that yesterday’s scenery
was as nothing compared to this, where the waterfalls ever increased in
height and volume, thundering above and sometimes clear over the trail
quarried into a wall of rock that towered thousands of feet overhead and
a thousand sheer below the narrow foothold. Our brains swam with the
whirling, shouting wonder of waters, the yawning depths that opened
beneath our feet, filled with froth of wild rivers born of the fresh
rains. Jack’s warning was right: I have saved no words for this stunning
spectacle.
We reached Keanae Valley tired in body, in eye, in mind—aye, even
surfeited with beauty. Once in dry clothing, however, weariness fell
from us, and we reclined in rattan chairs on a high lanai, leisurely
counting the cataracts that fringed the valley amphitheatre, upon whose
turrets the sunset sky, heavy with purple and rose and gold, seemed to
rest. We made out thirty-five, some of them dropping hundreds of feet,
making hum the machinery in great sugar mills elsewhere. Commercialism
in grand Keanae! And yet, it is not out of the way of romance to
associate the idea of these natural forces with the mighty enginery that
man’s thinking machinery has evolved for them to propel in the
performance of his work.[6]
Keanae Valley, to Haleakala Ranch, July 21.
Mr. Von had us stirring by half-past six, after ten hours in bed. So
soundly had we been sunk in “the little death in life,” that even a
driven rain which soaked our dried riding togs, hanging on chairs in the
middle of the room, failed to disturb. We had the novel sensation of
shivering in a tropic vale, the while pulling on water-logged corduroy
and khaki, even hats being soggy.
Our amiable host and hostess, Mr. and Mrs. Tripp, after serving a
breakfast of wild bananas, boiled taro, poi, broiled jerked beef, and
fresh milk, bade us Godspeed with tiaras and necklets of
ginger-blossoms, and we fared from the mist-wreathed valley and up-trail
on horses spurred with knowledge of this last stretch to home stables.
The air was ineffably clear, as if from a cleansing bath, with light
clouds in the sunny sky to rest the eyes.
More ditch trails and jungle of unwithering green, sparkling wet, and
steaming rainbows in the slanting sun-gold of the morning; more and
still more stupendous gulches, to make good Mr. Von’s overnight
prophecy. And we traversed a succession of makeshift bridges that called
for the best caution of the horses who knew every unstable inch. Jack,
pacing behind on many-gaited Pontius Pilate, told me afterward that his
heart was in his throat to see the slender spans give to the weight and
swinging motion of my stout charger, who, never ceasing to fret at being
withheld from the lead, pranced scandalously in the most unwise places.
At length we approached a promised “worst and last gulch,” a
flood-eroded ravine of appalling beauty, down the pitch of which we slid
with bated breath, to the reverberation of hurtling waters on every
hand. Obeying Mr. Von’s serious behest, we gathered on the verge of a
roaring torrent overflung by a mere excuse for a bridge, not more than
four feet wide, about fifty feet long, and innocent of railing. To our
left the main cataract sprayed us in its pounding fall to a ledge in the
rocky defile where it crashed just under the silly bridge, thence
bursting out in deafening thunder to its mightiest plunge seaward.
“Now, hurry and tell Von what you want,” Jack shouted in my ear above
the din. And what I wanted was to be allowed to precede the others over
this bridge;—oh, not in bravado, believe—quite the contrary. Fact was,
I feared to trust the Welshman, justly intolerant of his enforced
degradation to the ranks, not to make a headlong rush to overtake his
rival, Mr. Von’s horse, should he lead; for a single rider at a time was
to be permitted on the swaying structure.
Mr. Von appreciated and consented; and when the order of march was
arranged, the Welshman proved his right to leadership; without
hesitation, wise muzzle between his exact feet, sniffing, feeling each
narrow plank of the unsteady way. It was an experience big with
thought—carrying with it an intense sense of aloneness, aloofness from
aid in event of disaster, trusting the vaunted human of me without
reserve to the instinct and intelligence of a “lesser animal.” The
blessed Welshman!—with chaos all about the insecure foothold, trembling
but courageous, he won slowly step by step across the white destruction
and struck his small fine hoofs into firm ground once more.
With brave, set face Harriet Thurston, who was little accustomed to
horses, came next after Mr. Von, and her ambitious but foolhardy steed,
midway of the passage, began jogging with eagerness to be at the end,
setting up a swaying rhythm of the bridge that sent sick chills over the
onlookers, and it was with immense relief we watched him regain solid
earth. Pontius Pilate bore Jack sedately, followed by the little girls.
A conception may be gained of the scariness of this adventure through an
incident related by Mr. Von. One of his cowboys, noted on Maui for his
fearlessness, always first in the pen with a savage bull, and first on
the wildest bucking bronco off range, absolutely balked at riding this
final test of all our nerve: “I have a wife and family,” he
expostulated; then led his horse across.[7]
Kaleinalu, Maui, July 23.
Kaleinalu (Kah-lay-e-nah’-lu), “Wreath of Surf,” the seaside retreat of
the Von Tempskys, is but another illustration of the ideal conditions
that compose existence in these fabulous isles. We become almost
incoherent on the subject of choice of climates and scenery and modes of
living to be found from mountain top to shore. One may sleep none too
warmly under blankets at Ukulele and Paliku, with all the invigoration
of the temperate zone; enjoy mild, variable weather at 2000 to 3000
feet, as at the Ranch house; or lie at sea level, under a sheet or none,
caressed by the flowing trade wind. “Watch out, Mate,” Jack warns; “I’m
likely to come back here to live some day, when we have gone round the
world and back—if I don’t get too attached to the Valley of the Moon.”
One ceases not to marvel that the shore-line is not thronged with globe
trotters bickering for sand lots. It is an enviable place for old and
young, with finest of sand for the babies to play in, and exciting
surfing inside protecting reef, for swimmers.
And here we malihinis are resting, after one day of tennis and
colt-breaking up-mountain, from our six days in the saddle. Nothing more
arduous fills the hours than swinging in hammocks in a sheltered ell of
the beach-house, reading, playing whist, swimming in water more
exhilarating than at Waikiki, romping, sleeping—and eating, fingering
our poi and kukui-nut and lomi’d salmon with the best.
To-morrow we bid good-by to these new friends, who must have sensed our
heart of love for them and their wonderland, for they beg us to return,
ever welcome, to their unparalleled hospitality. By now we have proudly
come into our unexpected own, with a translation of our name into the
Hawaiian tongue, worked out by Kakina (Mr. Thurston) and Mr. Von, who
speak like natives with the natives, and sometimes with each other,
while the speech of the lassies abounds in the pretty colloquialisms of
their birth-land.
Always they say _pau_ for connotation of “finish,” “that will do,”
“enough”; _kokua_ for help, noun or verb—or, in the sense of approval,
or permission; _hapai_ is to carry; _hiki no_, as we should say “all
right,” “very well”; _hele mai_, or _pimai_, come here, or go up; one
oftenest hears _pilikia_ for trouble, difficulty, or _aole pilikia_ for
the harmonious negative; the classic _awiwi_, hurry, has been superseded
by expressive and sharply explosive synonym, _wikiwiki_; and when the
hostess orders a bath prepared, she enunciates _auau_ to the Japanese
maids. Most commands, however, are given in mixed English-Hawaiian. The
old pure word for food, and to eat, _paina_, is never heard, for the
Chinese kowkow—_kaukau_ in the Hawaiian adaptation—has likewise come
to stay.
Peremptory commands often trail off into the engaging _eh?_ that charmed
our ears the first day at Pearl Lochs. And so, as I say, upon us has
been bestowed the crown of all graciousness accorded upon Maui—the
Hawaiian rendering of London, which is _Lakana_; although how London can
be transmuted into Lakana is as much a mystery as the mutation of
Thurston into Kakina. At any rate, my pleased partner struts as Lakana
Kane (Kane means literally _male_), while meekly I respond to Lakana
Wahine.
Aboard _Claudine_, Maui to Honolulu, July 24.
From Kahului the passengers were towed on a big lighter to the
_Claudine_ rocking well offshore; and, watching Louis von Tempsky’s
lean, military figure growing smaller on the receding wharf, we felt a
surge of emotion at parting. “He’s all man, that Von,” Jack said,
hastily turning away and lighting a cigarette. And in my ears still rang
the quaint cadences of his voice, rising from the cinder-slopes of
Haleakala, or heard from smoking corral, or hammock on the beach, in
little hulas of his own devising.
From the deck we saw his fine beef-cattle towed swimming to the steamer
and crowded in the main-deck forward, bound for the Honolulu market. And
when the _Claudine_ swept out of the roadstead, we gazed our last,
through daylight into dark, upon hoary Haleakala, whose stern head only
once looked out from a red sunset smother.
The moon came up like a great electric globe, spilling pools of
brilliant light in the pitchy water. At Lahaina the steamer lay off to
take aboard a few passengers, and again we saw the infrequent lights of
the little quiet town. We could have wished nothing better than once
more to disembark at Sleepy Lahaina, and repeat the whole holiday.
Nuuanu Valley, August 1.
It seems that we are to know many homes in Hawaii Nei. Now it is with
Mr. and Mrs. Thurston, who have lifted us, bag and baggage, from the
August fervency of Waikiki to a cooler site within the “first shower”
level of Nuuanu. Here, at the end of a short side street, their roomy
house[8] juts from the lip of a ravine worn by a tumultuous watercourse
from the Koolau Mountains. And here, on the edge of the city, from the
windows, we can see, across fertile plains broken with green hillocks,
the blue, velvet masses of the Waianae Range, and, below, can pick out
Pearl Lochs and the silvered surf-line of the coast around to Honolulu
Harbor.
[Illustration: (1) Prince Cupid. (2) Original “Monument.” (3) The
Prince’s Canoe. (4) At Keauhou, Preparing the Feast. (5) Jack at Cook
Monument. (6) King Kalakaua and Robert Louis Stevenson. (7) Kealakekua
Bay—Captain Cook Monument at +.]
At table, on a broad lanai, morning, noon and night, can be observed the
life of the port, the movement of ships to and from the storied harbors
of all the world. One cannot rave too earnestly over this lanai
existence, in the ideal climate of Hawaii. Jack, at work, must needs sit
with back resolute against the distracting windows that set him dreaming
of the future of the _Snark_.
We are accorded the perfect entertainment of freedom to come and go at
our own sweet will, which is the way of the land. At meals, and
afterward lounging in hanging-couches and great reclining chairs, we
listen rapt to Kakina’s memories of the old regime, from his missionary
childhood on through the variable fortunes of the doomed monarchies, in
which he bore his important part. And he, wisely reticent except with
those he knows are deeply appreciative of the romance and tragedy of the
Hawaiian race and dynasties, delves into his mine of information with
never a relaxing of attention from us.
Of a late afternoon, Mrs. Thurston and I drive down palmy Nuuanu avenue
into the architectural jumble of the business center, picturesque
despite its unbeautiful buildings, what of foreign shops and faces and
costumes. Here we abstract her husband from the _Advertiser_ editorial
sanctum, and Jack from the barber’s shop; afterward driving for an hour
in the bewilder of wandering hibiscus byways and narrow streets, where
hide, in a riot of foliage, the most exquisite old cottages of both
native and foreign citizens. Thus we become acquainted with the city
known and loved until death by travelers like Isabella Bird, whose book
still holds place, with me, as the sweetest interpretation of the Hawaii
we have so far seen.
One evening we left behind the homes that stray over the lower slopes of
the purple-rosy, time-worn crater of Punch Bowl, Puowaina; wound up past
the Portuguese settlement that hangs, overgrown with gayest flowers, on
haphazard rock terraces, and ascended through a luxuriant growth of
blossoming, fruiting cactus, to the height of five hundred feet, where
we stood at the mouth of the perfect crater basin that had suggested the
name of Punch Bowl. This cone, blown out by a comparatively recent,
final upheaval between the spurs of the older peaks and the Pacific,
standing isolated as it does, we now realize should be visited early in
one’s sojourn in Honolulu, for it is a remarkable point from which to
orient oneself to the city’s topography. And lo, a white speck on the
water-front, we could make out the _Snark_, moored opposite a leviathan
black freighter. From the mauka edge of the Bowl we looked up Pauoa, one
of the wooded vales that rend Honolulu’s lofty background, flanked with
sharp green ridges.
For the present, although we miss the convenient swimming of Waikiki,
welcome indeed is this chance to acquaint ourselves with other phases of
this Paradise at the cross-roads of the Pacific.
August 4.
“Mate, you know, or I think you know, how little figure fame cuts with
me, except in so far as it brings you and me the worth-while things—the
free air and earth, sky and sea, and the opportunities of knowing
worth-while people.” Thus Jack, descanting upon some of the rare
privileges that money cannot buy but which his work has earned him in
all self-respect. This leads to the observation that in this community
composed of groups of the closest aristocracies in the world, bar none,
to quote Jack’s sober judgment, mere wealth cannot buy the favor of
their hospitality. It is a well-recommended tourist who ever sees behind
into the kamaaina social atmosphere of Honolulu. And of all the
exclusive spirit manifested by the kamaainas, none is more difficult to
conquer than that of the elder Hawaiian and part-Hawaiian families.
So it was with quiet gratification that we two set out upon an
invitation to the out-of-town retreat of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Macfarlane,
members of the same family with whom we have come in contact from time
to time, since the day we first shook the Commodore’s hand in Pearl
Lochs.
Our way lay over the Pali, and this second view lost none of the
glamorous memory of the former. Now that I have seen other parts of
Hawaii, I find that no comparison can be made. Nuuanu Pali stands
unique.
Descending the zigzags to the main drive, we soon turned off to the left
and rolled over the red loops of a branch road to the very base of the
Mirrored Mountains, where nestles Ahuimanu, “Refuge of Birds.” It is a
beauteous spot, more than faintly Spanish in suggestion, where an old
house, in sections connected by arbors, rambles about a court of green
lawn that terraces down to the hospitable gate. The Spanish-mission
effect of the low architecture is enhanced by the fact that it occupies
the site of a Catholic institution, built by the first French Bishop of
Honolulu as a place where he might retire for meditation and prayer. A
short distance behind the present buildings the precipitous mountain
rises until its head is lost in the clouds. Somewhere on its face,
reached by a stiff trail, hides a pocket, a small, green solitude,
called the Bishop’s Garden. From this the climb is so steep that it is
said none but the olden natives could surmount it, and one young priest
lost his life making the attempt.
Adown the terraced walk, with this background of romance and stern
beauty, stepped our part-Hawaiian hostess with the inimitable stately
bearing of her chiefly kind, clad in flowing white holoku; and a little
behind walked her daughter, Helen, as stately and graceful if more
girlishly slender. Our welcome was of a warmth and courtesy that still
further bore out the Spanish air of the place. But Hawaiian manners and
hospitality were never patterned upon the Spanish nor any other; they
are original, and as natural to these gracious souls as the breath of
their nostrils.
In bathing attire we all emerged from our rooms that opened upon a low
flagged veranda, and went barefoot along a grassy pathway wet with a
fresh rain shot from the near clouds which hid the upstanding heights,
to a large cement pool fed from a waterfall. The sun had dropped
untimely behind the valley wall, while the air was anything but summery
in this nook where daylight is of short duration; but the shock of cold
water sent blood and spirit a-tingling. Before we had finished a game of
water-tag, there was a merry irruption of young cousins from the city,
several of whom we greeted as acquaintances. Boys and girls, in haole
swimming suits or muumuus, they turned the tranquil late-afternoon into
a rollicking holiday, some making directly for the pool, others playing
hand ball, and all wasting no moment of their youth and high spirits
while the light lasted.
In the absence of her husband, Mrs. Macfarlane presided at the head of a
long table that nearly filled the low-ceilinged, oblong room in a wing
of the old house, and the more racket the hungry swarm raised, the more
benignly she beamed. The greater the number of guests and their
appetite, the greater the content of the Hawaiian-born.
Following dinner, we sat or lay about in the soft-illumined living-room,
gone all the bashful reserve that unknowing ones mistake for
superciliousness in the Hawaiian. Mrs. Macfarlane we coaxed from smiling
confusion to talk of her family’s interesting present and past, members
of whom, Cornwells and Macfarlanes, served in honored capacities under
the crowned heads of the country, as late as Queen Liliuokalani’s
interrupted reign.
In a comprehensive window seat some of the young men sprawled reading
magazines, and a quartet at the card-table was oblivious to all comforts
of deep easy-chairs, pillowed floor-nooks, and indoor hammocks. One
golden-eyed boy on a scarlet hassock strummed an ukulele to a low song
to his lady-love. She, from the cushioned recess of a hanging-chair,
gazed back langurously out of great soft Hawaiian eyes—lovely as an
exotic blossom, in her long, clinging holoku of rose-flowered silken
stuff. Oh, we were very Spanish this night—and all-Hawaiian.
And yet, there is but a trace of the Hawaiian stock in any of
these—like Jack’s French, or my own Spanish strain—an eighth, perhaps,
a sixteenth, a thirty-second; but the modicum of native blood that they
are heir to lends them their pleasant lack of sharp edges. Among such
one is gentled and loved into thinking well of oneself and all mankind.
“I have _Aloha nui loa_ for them, forever,” Jack murmured as we pattered
over the brick pave of the fragrant arbor to the quaint bedroom whose
small-paned windows might have looked out upon a New England landscape.
At six we were roused by the shouting clan trooping to the pool, and the
indefatigable Jack rose to write for a couple of hours before breakfast,
on his Maui article, “The House of the Sun.” By nine, with dewy cables
of roses about our shoulders, unwillingly we bade farewell to the
household, and drove under a lovely broken sky to the foot of the Nuuanu
Pali. Here, as much for the experience of climbing the up-ended ridges
as to ease the burden of the horses, we left the carriage to meet it at
the pass. Except for a short climb I once made at Schynige Platte in
Switzerland, this wet path, lying straight up an extremely narrow
hog-back, was the steepest and most difficult of my life. The ground
drops with startling suddenness on either hand—or foot; and for me it
was not infrequently both hand and foot. But we won over the horses, and
had leisure at the drafty platform once more to feast our unsatiated
eyes on the wide beauty of that scene which never can tire.
My husband, who holds that it is a waste of valuable effort to shave
himself when he might be enjoying the soothing ministrations of a
specialist, went to the barber in town while I shopped in the
fascinating Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese, and East Indian stores,
always with an eye to the fine Filipino and other embroideries, pina or
pineapple cloth, of exquisite tints, and unusual and gorgeous stuffs
worn by the oriental women in Honolulu—silk and wool and mysterious
fibers impossible to buy in the States, as there is no demand. And the
heart feminine thrills not in vain over kimonos and mandarin coats, for
the prices are absurdly cheap, and the colors food for the eye, with
untold possibilities for household as well as personal decoration.
From little houses and huts on the rolling fields, parties of natives,
men, women, old and young, and naked brown imps of babies, gather to
bathe—always the favorite sport—in a rocky basin of the verdant
ravine. From the balconies of the big house often we watch them playing,
in gaudy, wet-clinging muumuus, unaware of any haole observer—their
carefree, childlike selves, splashing, diving, laughing and singing,
laundering their hair, and calling to one another in wild, sweet
gutturals. This afternoon we were struck with a new note—a strange,
savage chanting. In it there was distinct, accentuated rhythm, but no
music as we understand the term—only the harsh, primitive voicing of a
man with the noble, grayed head of the old Hawaiians. Listening to the
curious untamed note, the like of which we had never heard, Mr. Thurston
said: “You are lucky to hear it under these circumstances—when the old
fellow thinks no one but his own people are listening. He is probably
intoning the _oli_, genealogy of one of the swimmers. There _was_ no
music, what we would call music, until the missionaries brought it
here.”
In the sudden transition from the ancient tabu system to an entirely
changed order that came with the death of Kamehameha I in 1819, followed
by the arrival from Boston a year later of the first missionaries, the
old “singing” became obsolescent. The new music, with its pa, ko, li,
conforming to our do, re, mi, was taken up by everyone, soon becoming
universal with these people who learned with such facility; and out of
the simple, melodious Christian hymning, the natives evolved a music
inoculated with their primal rhythms, that has become uniquely their
own. Captain James King, who sailed with Captain Cook on his disastrous
last voyage, makes the interesting statement that the men and women
chanted _in parts_.
The predominance of vowel and labial sounds lends a distinct character
to the tone-quality of Polynesian language, lacking, as it does our
consonants, _b_, _c_, _s_ and _d_, _f_, _g_, _j_, _q_, _x_, and _z_, so
that the upper cavities of the throat are not called into full play.
Therefore the voice, with its Italian vowels, developed a low and
sensuous quality that, when strained for dramatic or passional
expression, breaks into the half-savage, barbaric tones that stir the
ferine blood lying so close to the outer skin of the human. Sometimes
there is a throaty musical gurgle that seems a tone-language out of the
very tie-ribs of the human race.
The phrasing was made by old Hawaiians to suit the verse of the _mélé_,
a sort of chanted saga, and not to express a musical idea. The cadencing
was marked by a prolonged trilling or fluctuating movement called _i’i_,
in which the tones rose and fell, touching the main note that formed the
framework of the chant, repeatedly springing away for short intervals—a
half-step or even less. In the hula the verses are shorter, with a
repetitional refrain of the last phrase of each stanza. That
full-throated, lissom-limbed girl at the christening feast on the
peninsula illustrated much of the foregoing when she sang for the
dancers.
* * * * *
With a pleasant thrill I looked forward to meeting Alice Roosevelt
Longworth at a dinner and dance given this evening at the Seaside. In
one’s imagination she seems the epitome of the American Girl, and I
found her far more beautiful than her pictures, with eyes wide apart,
unafraid and level, looking like topazes from across the table in a glow
of yellow candleshades upon yellow roses. And when “Princess Alice”
smiles, she smiles, with eyes as well as lips. There is inner as well as
outer poise about her brown-golden head, and she is straight as a young
Indian and fair as a lily.
She and Jack were in no time cheek-by-jowl in a heated argument upon
“nature-faking” that would have delighted, by proxy, her illustrious
father, with whom Jack has all these weeks been tilting in the press;
and I heard him offering to back a bull-dog against the Colonel’s
wolf-dog, in the latter’s back yard!
I sat between Nicholas Longworth and “Jack” Atkinson, and our talk at
table—strange subject for a banquet—was largely concerned with the
welfare of the Leper Settlement, in which both Mr. Longworth and Mr.
Atkinson are extraordinarily interested.
The Longworths were scheduled to serve on the committee receiving
Secretary Strauss and his party from Washington; and though Jack and I
first begged off from attending the formal occasion, when we learned it
was to be in the old throne room of the Palace, we decided to go. Mr.
Atkinson whirled us away to the Executive Building, standing in its
illuminated gardens, and soon we were passing along the dignified line
of those receiving, out of which Mrs. Longworth, who is refreshingly
unbound by convention, temporarily strayed to bombard Jack with a new
argument in favor of the wolf-dog she had essayed to champion against
his imaginary bull-pup.
But what snared our fancy on this occasion was not the gathering of
American statesmen and their bejeweled ladies, nor the impressive
meeting between Secretary Strauss from Washington and Governor Carter of
Hawaii. Our eyes were most often with the throng of high-caste Hawaiians
in the lofty hall, more especially the queenly women, gowned in their
distinguishing and distinguished white holokus, standing proud-bosomed,
gazing with their beautiful eyes of brown at the white-and-gold girl who
is the daughter of their alien ruler, President Theodore Roosevelt. We
wondered what memories were in their brains as they recalled other
brilliant occasions when they had filed by the imposing crimson throne
yonder, to bow kissing the hands of their hereditary kings, and their
last queen. She, H. R. H. Liliuokalani, has resolutely declined all
invitations whatsoever to this house of her royal triumph and her
humiliating imprisonment, since 1895, the year of her formal
renouncement of all claim to the crown, and her appeal for clemency to
those who had taken part in the insurrection.
Honolulu, August 6.
A few kamaainas of Honolulu have long since discovered the climatic and
scenic advantages of Tantalus, Puu Ohia, one of the high, wooded ridges
behind the city, more particularly in the sultry summer months. Tantalus
is ideal for suburban nests, overlooking as it does the city and Waikiki
District, well-forested, with opportunity for vigorous exercise on the
steep sides of Makiki and Pauoa valleys, and to their rustic eyry at the
head of Makiki Valley, the Thurstons carried us by saddle.
One afternoon, while I languished with a headache, Jack returned
gleefully from a tramp, bringing me some of the wild fruits and nuts of
the mountain, among them water-lemons and rose-apples. The former are
round balls of about two-inch diameter, with greenish-brown, crisp rind
full of tart, pulpy, spicy seeds. Although quite different in flavor and
color, the formation reminds one of pomegranates and guavas. But the
rose-apple!—evergreen native of the West Indies, it is too good to be
true, for the edible shell has a flavor precisely like the odor of attar
of roses, which is my favorite perfume. Almost it makes one feel native
to the soil of a strange country, to nourish the blood of life with its
vegetation.
Last night, back in town, Jack, at the request of Mr. Thurston and the
Research Club of which he is a member, delivered his much-bruited
lecture, “Revolution.”
This paper of Jack’s, an arraignment of the capitalist class for its
mismanagement of human society, was originally a partly extempore flare
of the spirit delivered in 1905 before an audience of nearly five
thousand at the University of California, where he himself had studied
during part of a Freshman year.
Hawaii knows little of socialism, for she lacks the problems that
confront the United States and other great countries. Sugar is her
backbone, labor is almost entirely imported, and handled in a
patriarchal way that makes for comparative contentment, especially in so
rigorless a climate. Feudal Hawaii is; but the masters are benevolent.
And Jack, who stepped before the Research Club with the blue fire of
challenge in his eyes, his spirited head well back, and a clarion in his
voice, found these gentlemen to be their own vindication of the name
they had chosen for their Club. For with open minds they hearkened to
this passionate youngster, insolent with righteous certitude of his
solution of the wrongs of the groaning old earth; and presently, sensing
unexpected atmosphere of intelligent and courteous attention, Jack muted
his trumpets.
Discussion lasted into the small hours, and Lorrin Thurston, no mean
antagonist with his lightning-flash arguments, who laid every possible
gin and pitfall for Jack’s undoing, beamed upon the rather startling
guest he had introduced among his tranquil fellows, and whispered to me:
“That boy of yours is the readiest fellow on his feet in controversy
that I ever laid eyes upon!”
Honolulu, August 14.
To-morrow we embark once more upon our Boat of Dreams, for the Big
Island. Thence, if the engines prove satisfactory, and our new skipper,
Captain James Langhorne Warren of Virginia, measures up to Jack’s
judgment, we shall sail from Hilo in earnest for the South Seas. Captain
Rosehill and the crew had failed to assimilate.
And now, a few notes upon these latter days on Oahu.
No one interested should fail to visit the Entomological and Sugar Cane
Experiment Station, where the clear-eyed and sometimes weary-eyed
scientists are glad to explain the remarkable work being done in coping
with all pestiferous enemies of profitable agriculture in the Territory.
Mr. “Joe” Cooke, midway in a drive to the polo field, allowed us a
fascinating hour or two with our eyes glued to wondrous microscopes that
showed us an undreamed world of infinitesimal life.
In the open air once more, we set out for Moanalua Valley, to see the
polo ponies that were being conditioned for the great game, which we
attended two days later. The players of Hawaii cherish a widespread and
enviable reputation for their keen, clean game.
Saturday dawned clear and fine, after a hard rain. The beautiful course
around the slippery field was lined with automobiles, while an upper
terrace furnished the parked carriages an unobstructed view. Miss Rose
Davison, astride a mighty red roan, officer of the S. P. C. A., and a
splendidly efficient character, marshaled the crowd, with the assistance
of a staff of mounted Hawaiian police—magnificent fellows all. Every
one loves the Hawaiian police for their ability, courtesy, and
distinguished appearance.
Mr. and Mrs. Longworth declared that this tournament, set in the
exquisite little valley, and played so inimitably, was quite the most
exciting they had ever witnessed anywhere.
We had heard of the Bishop Museum as being one of the world’s best,
embracing exhibits from every isle in the Pacific Ocean, historical,
geographical, ethnological, zoological; and hither one afternoon we
went. Despite the exalted repute of this storehouse of antiquity, we had
passed it by, for the idea of wandering through a stuffy public building
on a hot day, concerning ourselves with lifeless relics, when we might
be out in the open-air world of the quick, had never appealed.
Once inside the portals of koa wood, as ornamental as precious marbles,
we knew no passing of time until the hour of their closing for the day.
The building alone is worthy of close inspection, finished as it is
throughout with that incomparable hardwood. In the older sections, the
timber has been fantastically turned, much of its splendid grain being
lost in convolutions of pillar and balustrade; but modern architects
have utilized the timber in all its beauty of rich gold, mahogany-red,
maple-tints, and darker shades, with sympathetic display of its
traceries that sometimes take the form of ships at sea, heads of
animals, or landscapes.
The Curator of the Museum, Dr. William T. Brigham, spends his learned
years in the absorbing work of sustaining and adding to the excellence
of his charge.
Of all the treasures of this passing race, we lingered most enchanted
before the superb feather cloaks, or capes, long and short, of almost
unbelievable workmanship; as well as helmets, fashioned of wicker and
covered with the same tiny feathers, yellow or scarlet, of the _oo_,
_mamo_, _iiwi_, and _akakani_, birds now practically extinct, and
modeled on a combined Attic and Corinthian pattern. The cloaks, robes of
state, called _mamo_, were the costly insignia of high rank; a wondrous
surface of feathers, black, red, red-and-black, yellow,
yellow-and-black, upon a netting of _olona_, native hemp. Some notion of
the value of these kingly garments may be gained by the statement that
nine generations of kings lapsed during the construction of one single
mantle, the greatest of all these in the Bishop Museum, that fell upon
the godlike shoulders of the first Kamehameha. Among the others,
remarkable though they be, this woof of _mamo_, of indescribable
flame-yellow, like Etruscan gold, stands out “like a ruby amidst
carrots.”
All this royal regalia, blood-inherited by Mrs. Pauahi Bishop, together
with the kahilis, formed the starting point for the Museum. And the
kahilis! Their handles are inlaid cunningly with turtle shell and ivory
and pearl, some of them ten to thirty feet in height, topped by
brilliant black or colored feather cylinders fifteen or eighteen inches
in diameter. In 1822, one of the second party of missionaries went into
ecstacies over these feather devices of Hawaii royalty:
“So far as the feather mantles, helmets, coronets and kahilis had an
effect, I am not fearful of extravagance in the use of the epithet
(splendid). I doubt whether there is a nation in Christendom which at
the time letters and Christianity were introduced, could have presented
a _court dress_ and insignia of rank so magnificent as these; and they
were found here, in all their richness, when the islands were discovered
by Cook. There is something approaching the _sublime_ in the lofty
noddings of the kahilis of state as they tower far above the heads of
the group whose distinction they proclaim; something conveying to the
mind impressions of greater majesty than the gleamings of the most
splendid banners I ever saw unfurled.”
Dr. Brigham comments upon the foregoing:
“Not in the least does the excellent missionary exaggerate in his eulogy
on the grand kahilis. Those of us who, in these latter days of the
degeneration of all good native works and customs, have seen the kahilis
wave above royalty, however faded—the finely built and naked bronze
statues that bore the kahilis replaced by clumsy, ill-dressed,
commonplace bearers of neither rank nor dignity—even the withered rose,
most of its fragrance gone, has yet appealed strongly to our admiration
and sympathy. The powerfully built chiefs, head and shoulders above the
common crowd, free from all sartorial disfigurements, sustained easily
the great weight of these towering plumes; but the modern bearer,
stranger alike to the strength and virtue of his predecessors, has to
call in the aid of stout straps of imported leather to bear the much
smaller kahilis of the modern _civilized_ days.”
A bit of heraldry would not be out of place here. I borrow Mary S.
Lawrence’s description of the Royal Hawaiian coat-of-arms. The device is
extensively reproduced in jewelry, its colors pricked up in enamel, and
is a handsome souvenir of these islands.
“It is divided into quarters. The first and fourth quarters of the
shield contain the eight red, white and blue stripes which represent the
inhabited islands.
“Upon the yellow background of the second and third quarters are the
_puloulou_, or tabu sticks—white balls with black staffs. These were a
sign of protection, as well as of tabu.
“In the center is found a triangular flag, the _puela_, lying across two
_alia_, or spears. This also was a sign of tabu and protection.
“The background represents a mantle or military cloak of royalty. At the
sides are the supporters in feather cloaks and helmets. Kameeiamoku on
the right carries an _ihe_, or spear, while Kamanawa, his twin brother,
on the left, holds a _kahili_, or staff, used only upon state occasions.
“Above the shield is the crown, ornamented with twelve taro leaves.
Below is the national motto taken from the speech of the king upon
Restoration Day: ‘The life of the land is perpetuated by
righteousness.’”
The coat-of-arms has not been used by the government since the islands
have been a territory of the United States.
No tapa “cloth” is made in Hawaii to-day, though these people formerly
excelled all Polynesia for fineness of the almost transparent,
paper-like tissue, beaten from bark of the _wauke_, paper-mulberry. It
was worn, several deep, for draping the human form. Now, for the most
part, Hawaiian tapa can be seen only in the Museum, where rare samples
are pasted carefully upon diamond-paned windows. Yards of it are stored
in drawers. There is little resemblance between this delicate stuff and
the handsome but heavy modern tapas of Samoa, with which one grows
familiar in the curio shops of Honolulu.
A replica of the volcano Kilauea claimed especial attention, in view of
our visit in the near future to the vent in Mauna Loa’s 14,000-foot
flank; and we lingered over a model, worked out in wood and grass and
stone, of an ancient temple and City of Refuge, or _heiau_, with its
place of human sacrifice at one end of the inclosure. A gruesome episode
took place shortly after this model was installed. A young Hawaiian,
repairing the roof, lost balance and crashed through, breaking a gallery
railing directly above the imitation sacrificial altar, where his real
blood was spilled—Fate his executioner, _ilamuku_.
One more of the countless exhibits, and I am done. Here and there in the
building, stages are set with splendid waxen Hawaiians engaged in olden
pursuits, such as basket-weaving and poi-pounding. The figures,
full-statured, are startlingly lifelike, except in the unavoidable
deadness of the coloring. It is impossible to imitate the living hue, of
which the natives say, “You can always see the blood of an Hawaiian
under his skin.” The model for one of the best of these figures died
some time ago; and to this day his young widow comes, and brings her
friends, to admire the beautiful image.
No matter how the very thought of a museum aches your feet, and back,
and eyes, do not pass by the Bishop Museum.
* * * * *
It was our good fortune to be bidden, with the Thurstons, to a New
England breakfast at the Diamond Head seaside residence of Judge and
Mrs. Sanford B. Dole. Judge Dole, who was President of the Provisional
Republic (often called the Dole Republic) that followed the collapse of
the monarchy, is a busy man; and so, rather than visit and be visited
during the week, at eleven of a Sunday he and Mrs. Dole welcome their
friends to déjeuner.
Imposingly tall, benignant and patriarchal, blue-eyed and
healthy-skinned, with silver-white hair and long beard, the Judge is
unaffectedly grand and courteous, making a woman feel herself a queen
with his thought for her every comfort. He must have been another of the
courtly figures of the old regime, and Jack always warms to the instance
of the gallant resistance made by him and another man, holding the
legislative doors against an infuriated mob during an uprising incident
to a change of monarchs. “Can’t you see them? Can’t you see the two of
them—the glorious youth of them risking its hot blood to do what it saw
had to be done!” he cries in appreciation of the sons of men.
Anna Dole, the Judge’s wife, is a forceful, stately woman of gracious
manner, with handsome eyes rendered more striking by her shining white
hair and snowy garb—a diaphanous holoku of sheerest linen and rare
lace.
And groaning board is just what it was, from alligator pears and big
spicy Isabella grapes, papaias, luscious Smyrna figs, mangoes,
pineapples, and “sour-sop,” a curious and pleasant fruit, of the
consistency of cotton or marshmallow, and of a taste that might be
described as a mixture of sweet lemonade and crushed strawberries.
Also we sampled our first breadfruit, roasted over coals, although not
at its best in this season. I concluded that upon closer acquaintance I
should like it as well as taro or sweet potatoes, for it resembles both
potato and bread, broken open and steaming its soft shellful of tender
meat, of the consistency of moist potato. The breadfruit has no seeds,
being propagated by suckers.
But this exotic menu was not the half. We were expected to partake, and
more than once, of accustomed as well as extraordinary breakfast
dishes—eggs in variety, crisp bacon, and delicious Kona coffee from
Leeward Hawaii—and, as if to bind us irrevocably to New England
tradition, brown-bread and baked pork and beans!
This leisurely breakfasting was done to the animated conversation of two
of the most representative of kamaainas, who talked unreservedly of
their vivid years and their ambitions for the future of the Islands.
Always and ever we note how devoted seem the “big” men of the Territory,
old and young alike, above personal aggrandizement, to the interests of
Hawaii. It looks to be an example of a benevolent patriarchy.
Following this matin banquet, which, it scarce need be urged, one should
approach after a fast, we reclined about the awninged lanai, talking or
listening to the phonographic voices of the world’s great singers, the
while a high tide, driven by the warm Kona wind, broke upon coral
retaining walls in a rhythmic obligato.
“The Doctorage,” Holualoa, Hawaii, August 21.
Long ago, when the building and purpose of the _Snark_ were first
reported in the press, Dr. E. S. Goodhue, brother of our noble Dr. Will
Goodhue on Molokai wrote to Jack, bidding us welcome when we should put
in at Kailua, in the Kona District of the west coast of Hawaii. And here
we are, surrounded with the loving-kindness of his family, in their home
nestled a thousand feet up the side of Hualalai, “Child of the Sun,” a
lesser peak on this surpassing isle of mounts—merely eight thousand
feet in height, and an active volcano within the century.
There was a touching gathering of Honolulu acquaintance on the 15th, to
bid the _Snark_ Godspeed for the Southern Seas, by way of Kailua and
Hilo on Hawaii. Piled to the eyes with sumptuous leis, we waved farewell
while the little white yacht, under power, moved out in response to the
new skipper’s low, decisive commands. She was a very different craft, or
so we thought, from the floating wreck that, praying to be unnoticed of
yachtsmen, slipped by the same harbor four months earlier.
With the exception of Nelson, a Scandinavian deep-water sailor, we all
fell seasick in the rough channel. Next day, with a dead calm of which
we had been warned, in Auau Channel between Maui and the low island of
Lanai, the big engine was started, with high hopes of reaching Kailua by
nightfall. But auwe! Something went immediately wrong, despite the
months of expensive repair.
At sunset Haleakala vouchsafed a glimpse of its head two miles in the
flushing ether, and on Sunday we sighted the island of Hawaii above a
cloud-bank. Crippled with neither engine nor wind-power, we could only
wonder when the few remaining miles would be covered; for still in our
ears rang tales of schooners long becalmed off the Kona coast, and of
one that drifted offshore for a sweltering month.
Monday night, four days from Honolulu, the _Snark_ wafted into Kailua.
There Kamehameha died in 1819, at the age of eighty-two, his active
brain to the last filled with curiosity about the world even to an
interest in rumors of the Christian religion, which had found their way
from the Society group. Three years after his death, Kaahumanu, favorite
of his two wives (a remarkable woman whose career would make a great
romance), together with her second husband, held a grand midsummer
burning of idols collected from their hiding places.
Kailua is the first port into which our boat has made her own way under
sail. It was an occasion of sober excitement, in a moonless night
lighted softly by large stars that illumined the shifting cloud vapors.
The enormous bulk of the island appeared twice its height against the
starry night-blue sky, and a few unblinking lights strewn midway of the
darkling mass hinted of mouths of caverns strewn in a savage wilderness.
When at last the searchlight was manned, fed by the five-horse-power
engine that had been driving our blessed electric fans, we discovered
the palm-clustered village on the shore, and, sweeping the water with
the shaft of radiance, made out a ghostly schooner in our own
predicament.
“Do you know where you are?—do you like it?” Jack breathed in the
almost oppressive stillness, where we sat in damp swimming-suits, in
which we had spent the afternoon, occasionally sluicing each other with
canvas bucketfuls of water from overside. Ah, did I like it! I sensed
with him all the wordless glamour of the tropic night; floating into a
strange haven known of old to discoverer and Spanish pirate, the land a
looming shadow of mystery; our masts swaying gently among bright stars
so low one thought to hear them humming through space, and no sound but
the tripping of wavelets along our imperceptibly moving sides, with a
dull boom of breakers not too far off the port bow. As we drew closer in
the redolent gloom, dimly could be seen melting columns and spires of
white, shot up by the surf as it dashed against the rugged lava shore
line.
Little speech was heard—the captain alert, anxious, the searchlight
playing incessantly to the throbbing of the little engine, anchor ready
to let go at an instant’s notice. Suddenly the voice of Nelson, who
handled the lead-line, struck the tranquility, naming the first
sounding, and continued indicating the lessening depth as we slid
shoreward in a fan of gentle wind, until “Twelve!” brought “Let her go!”
from the skipper. Followed the welcome grind of chain through the hawse
pipe, the yacht swung to her cable as the fluke laid hold of bottom, the
breakers now crashing fairly close astern; and we lay at anchor in a
dozen fathoms in Kailua Bay, all tension relaxed, half-wondering how we
had got there.
Hardly could we compose ourselves to sleep, for curiosity to see in
broad daylight our first unaided landfall. And it was not disappointing,
but quite our tropic picturing, simmering in dazzling sunlight. One
could not but vision historical enactments in the placid open bay, say
when the French discovery-ship _Uranie_ put in, the year of Kamehameha’s
death, yonder, past the wharf, where heavy stone walls mark his
crumbling fortifications. The _Uranie_ was received by a chief, Kuakine,
popularly called Governor Adams, from a fancied resemblance to President
Adams of the United States. The “palace” built by Kuakine still is to be
seen, across from the stone church with its memorial arch to the first
missionaries, who stepped ashore near the site of the wharf where we of
the _Snark_ landed, with their three Hawaiian associates, Thomas Hopu,
William Kenui, John Honolii, all returning from Connecticut. Besides the
Thurstons, the other first missionaries were: Mr. and Mrs. Bingham, Mr.
and Mrs. Chamberlain with their five children, Mr. and Mrs. Holman, Mr.
and Mrs. Loomis, Mr. and Mrs. Ruggles, Mr. and Mrs. Whitney. George
Kaumalii, son of the king of Kauai, was also with them, returning home.
“Kuakine,” says the late Dr. Sereno E. Bishop in his _Reminiscences of
Hawaii_, “was disposed to monopolize such trade as came from occasional
whalers.... He possessed large quantities of foreign goods stored up in
his warehouses, while his people went naked. I often heard my father
tell of once seeing one of Kuakine’s large double canoes loaded deep
with bales of broadcloths and Chinese silks and satins which had become
damaged by long storage. They were carried out and dumped in the ocean.
Probably they had been purchased by the stalwart Governor with the
sandalwood which in the twenties was such a mine of wealth to the
chiefs, but soon became extirpated.” And, later, the brig _Thaddeus_,
long months from Boston Town with her pioneer missionaries, was greeted
by the welcome tidings that the tabus were abolished, temples and fanes
destroyed, and that peace reigned under Kamehameha the Second, Liholiho,
who, among other radical acts, had broken the age-long tabu and sat at
meat with his womenkind.
[Illustration: (1) Where the Queen Composed “Aloha Oe”. (2) A
Hair-raising Bridge on the Ditch Trail. (3) A Characteristic Mountain
Trail in Hawaii. (4) The Flume Across a Gulch.]
Aboard the _Thaddeus_ were Mr. and Mrs. Asa Thurston, grandparents of
our Kakina. All must have suffered outlandish inconveniences, to say the
least, in that primitive environment. I am minded of having read how, on
one occasion, those early Thurstons made a passage from Kailua to
Lahaina in a very small brig that scarcely furnished standing room for
its four hundred and seventy-five passengers and numerous live stock;
which was not considered an unusual overcrowding.
A good five-mile pull it is from the village to the “Doctorage,” through
quaint Kailua, past Hackfeld’s old store, and the small, formal white
palace where Prince Kalanianaole and his princess are staying; on,
higher and higher, across a sloping desert of cactus blooming white and
red and yellow, and laden with juicy-sweet “prickly pears,” called
_papipi_, and sometimes _panini_, by the natives. In these, with care
for the prickles, we eased a continuous thirst in the sapping noonday
heat.
Shortly after quitting Kailua, we were pointed out a tumble-down frame
dwelling, the home of the original Thurstons, which is now almost
disintegrated by _termites_, borers, inaccurately termed “white ants,”
whose undermining must ceaselessly be fought in the Islands. This house
is a dreamfully pathetic reminder of those long-dead men and women who
voyaged so courageously to a far land where, oh, savage association! a
conch shell was the bell for the afternoon session of school. Their
special interest in the Hawaiian people had been awakened in the New
England missionaries by the acquaintance of several kanaka sailors
brought to New Haven by Captain Brintnall in 1809, more especially one
Opukahaia, whom they dubbed Obookiah. In 1817 the “Foreign Mission
School” was instituted at Cornwall, Connecticut, for heathen youth, and
five Sandwich Islanders were among the first pupils. Obookiah died in
1818, but three of his countrymen embarked for their native isles, with
the missionaries, in 1819, in the _Thaddeus_, Captain Blanchard.
Presently we began to enjoy a cooler altitude, in which the vegetation
changed to a sort of exotic orchard—a wilderness of avocado, kukui,
guava, and breadfruit trees burdened with shining knobby globes of
emerald, like those of Aladdin’s jeweled forest. And coffee—Kona
coffee; spreading miles of glossy, green shrubbery sprinkled with its
red, sweet berry inclosing the blessed bean.
At 1000 feet elevation the road emerged upon a variously level, winding
highway which we pursued to the post office of Holualoa. From there we
turned down an intricate lane between stone walls overhung with blossomy
trees, that with sudden twist delivered us upon a verdant shelf of the
long seaward lava incline. Here the Goodhues live and work and raise
their young family of two in this matchless equable climate; and here
with the unstudied graciousness of their adopted land welcomed us as we
had been kinfolk.
“Now, this is what I call a white-man’s climate,” Jack enounces. “Few of
us Anglo-Saxons are so made as to thrive in fervent spots like Kailua
yonder,” indicating the far-distant and just-visible thumb-sketch of
that storied hamlet, “no matter how beautiful they may be to the eye and
mind.”
Dr. Goodhue agrees to this; but Jack will not follow him in the
contention that, under the Hawaiian sun, even in this semi-temperate
climate, said Anglo-Saxon should rest more than do we. “I wish you’d
heed what I am advising,” almost wistfully the good Doctor urges.
“You’ll last longer under the equator and have a better time on your
voyage.—If I did not have such sweet responsibilities,” he smiled upon
his wife and young ones, “I’d beg the chance to go along as ship’s
physician!... And as for myself,” he added, “I _have_ to work too
hard—largely prescribing for people like you and myself, who have not
heeded my own warnings.”
There is small need for residents of Kona to plan special entertainment
for guests, provided those guests have eyes. First, one’s imagination is
set in motion by this unheard-of gradient vastness of molten rock so
ancient that it has become rich soil overspread in the higher reaches
with bright sugar cane, coffee, bracken and forestage. Below this belt
of vegetation, barren, seamy lava stretches to the coast line, lost in
distance to right and left, all its miniature palm-feathered bays
pricked out by a restless edge of pearly surf in dazzling contrast to
the vivid turquoise water inshore. Off to the south, the last
indentation visible is historic Kealakekua Bay, where Captain Cook paid
with his life for stupid mishandling of a people proud beyond that
Englishman’s comprehension of a brown-skinned people. We have never seen
anything like this azure hemisphere of sea and sky. For we have observed
no horizon from the Kona Coast. The water lies motionless as the sky—a
frosted blue-crystal plane, no longer a “pathless, trackless ocean,” for
over its limitless surface run serpentine paths, coiling and
intermingling as in an inconceivable breadth of watered silk. Ocean and
dome overhead are wedded by cloud masses that rear celestial castles in
the blue, which in turn are reflected in the “windless, glassy floor”;
and the atmospheric and vaporous suffusion I can only call a _blue
flush_. The very air is blue.
We can just make out our house-upon-the-sea, tiny pearl upon lapis
lazuli, beyond the slender, white spire of Kailua’s church. Fair little
Dorothy, her eyes the all-prevalent azure, glides white-frocked and cool
to our side and lisps her father’s child-verse:
“There’s Jack London coming, see?
In a little white-speck boat;
He will wave his hands to me,
Then he’ll float and float and float;
So he said last time he wrote—
He is such a man of note!”
For three miles today we rode south along the fine road skirting the
mighty sweep of mountain. On our saddles were tied raincoats, for smart
rains are frequent of an afternoon, filling one’s nostrils with the
smell of the good red earth.
“Oh, look—look at your yacht!” Jack suddenly cried; and there was she,
the “white-speck boat,” in a whisper of wind crawling out across the
level blue carpet of the open roadstead, growing dimmer and still dimmer
in the Blue Flush, bound for Hilo, our port of departure for the
Marquesas.
We turned downhill on a trail through guava and lantana shrubbery
sparkling from the latest shower. Owing to the success of an imported
enemy, large tracts of that beautiful pest, the lantana, have the
appearance of having been burned.
One of our party bestrode a ridiculous dun ass, a pet that for the most
part wreaked its own will upon its young rider, especially when its
large braying, “a sound as of a dry pump being ‘fetched’ by water and
suction,” elicited like responses from the “bush” where these Kona
Nightingales, as they are known throughout the region, breed unchecked
and are had for the catching. If not a favorite, they are an inexpensive
and popular means of travel among the poorer natives and the long-legged
_pakés_ (Chinese) on the roads of the district.
Winning through the expanse of shrubbery, we traversed a desert of
decomposed lava, our path edged pastorally with wild flowers, among them
the tiny dark-blue ones of the indigo plant. Across this arid prospect
undulates the ruin of the prehistoric _holualoa_—a causeway built fifty
feet wide of irregular lava blocks, flanked either side by massive,
squat walls of masonry several feet thick. This amazing slide extends
from water’s edge two or three miles up-mountain, and its origin, like
that of the ambitious fish ponds, is lost in the fogs of antiquity. Its
supposed use was as an athletic track for the ancient game of
_holua_—coasting on a few-inches-wide sledge—_papa holua_—with
runners a dozen feet long and several inches deep, fashioned of polished
wood, hard as iron, curving upward in front, and fastened together by
ten or more crosspieces. The rider, with one hand grasping the sledge
near the center, ran a few yards for headway, then leaped upon it and
launched headforemost on the descent. Ordinarily, a smooth track of dry
_pili_ grass was prepared on some long declivity that ended in a plain;
but this _holualoa_ (_loa_ connotes _long_) is believed to have been
sacred to high chiefdom, whose papa holuas were constructed with
canoe-bottoms. Picture a mighty chief of chiefs, and his court of
magnificent warriors, springing upon their carved and painted
canoe-sleds, flashing with ever increasing flight down this regal course
until, at the crusty edge of the solid world, shouting they breasted the
surf of ocean!
We have heard that there is another holua, a short one, with a level
approach of but seventy-five feet, eight feet wide, with a
two-hundred-foot incline widening to twenty feet at the sea-edge. This
may be visited by canoe, with a chance to see beautiful colored fish by
water-telescopes.
The ancients of Hawaii were keen sportsmen—and gamblers. One historian
asserts that many of their games were resorted to primarily for the
betting, which was pursued by both sexes, and often resulted in
impromptu pitched battles. We should hesitate before speaking loosely of
“modern” sports, for in Old Hawaii boxing, _moko-moko_, regulated by
umpires who rigidly enforced strict rules, was the favorite national
sport, often attended by spectators numbering ten thousand.
And there was wrestling, _hakoko_, and the popular _kukini_,
foot-racing. Disk-throwing, _maika_, was done with a highly polished
stone disk, _ulu_, three or four inches in diameter, slightly convex
from edge to center, on a track half a mile long and three feet broad.
The game was either to send the stone between two upright sticks fixed
but a few inches apart at a distance of thirty or forty yards, or to see
which side could bowl it the greater length. The champions would
sometimes succeed in propelling it upward of a hundred rods.
They also knew a complicated game of checkers, played with black and
white pebbles upon a board marked with numerous squares. These
irrepressible gamesters raised cocks for fighting, and wagered hotly
around the ringside. The tug-of-war was not unknown, _hukihuki_; and
there was a polite parlor game, _loulou_, the pulling of crooked fingers
hooked in those of an opponent. Another mild amusement was similar to
“cat’s cradle,” the _hei_. A wide variety of ball-playing was done with
a round ball, and called _kini-popo_. _Po-hee_ was a contest in which
darts or spears were made to skip along the ground or over the grass.
Even children played at this, with reeds or sugar-canes, getting their
hand in for adult spear-throwing, in which Kamehameha was so proficient.
There were schools for warriors, in which the use of the sling-shot,
_maa_, was taught as a fine art with warlike purpose.
Mr. Ford should resurrect some of the games of Hawaii—even to the
restoration of the Great Slide—as he has done with surf-boarding, for
not only would the natives doubtless be interested, but haole residents
have their lives enriched by either the novelty or the resemblance of
the ancient sports to modern ones. Visitors would welcome the
innovations. I do not mean merely as a spectacle, such as Honolulu
resurrects so splendidly from time to time, but that some of these
forgotten athletics be incorporated into the life of the Islands.
That monster scenic railway, _holualoa_, of Polynesian forefathers, lies
in flowing undulations like our twentieth century ones, showing the
engineers to have been men of calculation. One old Hawaiian told us the
story that the arduous toil of building it was performed by amorous
youths contesting for a single look at the loveliness of a favorite of
the _moi_, king.
Despite the fact that wahines existed under severe and sometimes
heartless tabus and punishments for the infringement thereof, they
played the usual important role of femininity among superior races. For
one thing, they were exempt from sacrifice; and rank was inherited
chiefly from the maternal parents. War canoes were christened for the
loved one of the chiefs, as evidenced by Kamehameha, whose sentiment for
Kaahumanu caused him to rename for her the brig _Forester_, bought from
Captain Piggott in exchange for sandalwood. And after Kamehameha II,
Liholiho, had removed the ban of Adamless feasting, woman’s emancipation
went on apace. When, in the past century, the “people” were called by
their white government to vote, there was no murmur from the husbands,
fathers, and brothers, if report can be credited, at having their
womenkind accompany them to the polls to cast their own ballot. The
haole law-makers, however, not ripe to tolerate woman suffrage, and
equally unwilling to cause hurt, got around the embarrassing difficulty
by merely neglecting to count the feminine names![9]
The “free life of the savage” is a myth, so far as concerns the early
Hawaiians. Almost every act was accompanied by prayer and offering, to
the tutelar deities. Every vocation had its patron gods, who must be
propitiated, and innumerable omens were observed. A fisherman could not
use his new net without sacrifice to his patron fane, more especially
the shark-god. A professional diviner, _kilokilo_, had to be called in
for advice as to the position of a house to be erected; and no tree must
stand directly before the door for some distance, lest bad luck be the
portion of the householder. Canoe-building was a ceremonial of the
strictest sort; while, most important of all, the birth of a male child
was attended by offerings to the idols, with complicated services.
Again am I lost in the labyrinth of Hawaii’s tempting history, for
between the lines one may find the utmost romance.
The Kona coast is said to be as primitive in its social status as
anywhere in Hawaii to-day, but we saw none but wooden dwellings, tucked
in the foliage of the high bank behind Keauhou’s miniature crescent
beach with its miniature surf—a mere nick in the snowy coastline, where
small steamers call at a little roofed pier. In a small lot inclosed by
a low stone wall, gravely we were shown by the natives a large sloping
rock, upon which, they said, Kamehameha III, grandson of the Great
Ancestor, was born. Queen Liliuokalani has lately caused the wall to be
built around the sacred birthplace.
August 23.
This perfect day, in high balmy coolness, found us driving twenty miles
over the shower-laid highway. Once more we detected the _Snark_, still
holding to westward in order to lay her proper slant for the coastwise
course—by now a mere-flick of white or silver or shadow in the shifting
light, sometimes entirely eluding sight in the cloud-dimming blue
mirror.
The road swings along through forest of lehua and tree-ferns, the larger
koa being found in higher regions of the acclivity; and on some of the
timbered hillsides Jack and I exclaimed over the likeness to our home
woods.
At intervals, up little trails branching from the road, poi-flags
fluttered appetizingly in the breeze—a white cloth on a stick being
advertisement of this staple for sale. I longed to follow those crooked
pathways for the sake of a peep at the native folk and their huts.
“I wish I had miles of these stone walls on my ranch,” quoth Jack, on
the broad top of one of which he sat, munching a sandwich in the kukui
shade. Every where one sees examples of this well-made rock-fencing,
built by the hands of bygone Hawaiian commoners to separate the lands of
the alii. But most of the stone-fencing along the highway has been done
since 1888, when the first wagon-road was built in Kona.
The return miles were covered in a downpour that the side-curtains could
not entirely exclude, and we stopped but once—to make a call upon a
neighbor, a hale and masterful man of eighty-odd years, whose fourth
wife, in her early twenties, is nursing their two-months-old babe.
“Gee!” Jack said in an awed tone as we resumed our way under a
sunset-breaking sky, “the possibilities of this high Kona climate are
almost appalling! This is certainly the place to spend one’s declining
years.” And the Doctor added, “They say in this district that people
never die. They simply dry up and float away in the wind!”
Jack’s admiration for the holoku remains unabated; and so, as have many
Americans, I have adopted it for housewear as the most logically
beautiful toilette in this easy-going latitude. Callers arrive: I am
bending over the typewriter, wrapped in a kimono. In a trice, I am
completely gowned in a robe of fine muslin and lace, with ruffled train,
ready for domestic social emergency.
August 24.
To Keauhou again we came this lovely evening, guests of Mr and Mrs.
Thomas White, of Kona, she of alii stock. After a mad dash, neck and
neck, on the bunched and flying horses, with heavy warm rain beating in
our warmer faces, someone led the riot makai on the muddiest trail
through the slapping, dripping lantana. We arrived at the seashore
drenched to the buff, feet squashing unctuously in our boots.
Turkey-red calico muumuus had been brought for us malihini haoles, that
we might be entirely Hawaiian in the water, and at last I was able to
demonstrate to my own skepticism that it is more than possible to keep
from drowning in a flowing robe. A bevy of chocolate colored
water-babies were already bobbing blissfully in the sunset-rosy flood
that was tepid as new milk.
In the water I was seized with a small panic when a distressful stinging
sensation began spreading over my body like flame. Simultaneously,
others began to make for the beach with little shrieks of pain and
laughter. The brown mer-babies tried with wry, half-smiling faces to
explain, but it took an older indigene to make plain that in the
twilight we had blundered into a squadron of Portuguese men of war,
whose poisonous filaments are thrown out somewhat as spiders cast their
webs over victims. A man-of-war has been known to lower these filaments
many feet, say into a shoal of sardines, whereupon the fish become
paralyzed from poison at the instant of contact and the enemy is able to
hoist them to the surface. No wonder our tender skins felt the
irritation. Never again shall I be able to look upon the fairy fleets of
Lilliputian azure ships with the same unalloyed pleasure in their pretty
harmlessness.
Robust appetites we brought to Mrs. White’s luau, spread on the little
wharf. Although we did sit on the floor, in approved posture, it was
disappointing to note the forks, spoons, and knives, together with many
haole dishes. Jack considerately forestalled comment from me by
whispering, “They do not know us well enough to realize that we would
appreciate the strictly Hawaiian customs.”
Some of the Keauhou folk sat with us, but were extremely shy, for few
strangers find their way to the little village by the sea; and at the
shore end of the pier a group of singers stared at us out of their
beautiful eyes while their voices blended “with true consent” in older
melodies than any we had heard.
Jack and I rode home in the dim misty moonlight, beholding the land and
sea in a wondrous new aspect, the Blue Flush transformed into iridescent
pearl and the frosted silver sea streaked with dull gold by a
low-dipping moon. In the stillness the hoofs rang sharply on the stony
steep, or a clash of palm swords in a vagrant puff of wind startled the
horses to the side. It was a wild ride, up into the chiller air strata
and along the clattering highway, and I enjoyed imagining myself a
half-winged creature in a dream.
August 25.
Farther than any day yet we have bowled along the blithesome highroad,
and then dropped into the increasing heat of the shimmering tropic
levels, into Napoopoo village under its fruitful palms on the beach of
Kealakekua Bay where Captain Cook met his fate. Mr. Leslie had us into
his pleasant home to rest from the hot drive, and then led to where two
canoes lay ready at the landing to paddle us over the romantic waters to
the Cook Monument. Weather-grayed little outriggers they were; one of
them propelled by an astonishing person, a full-blooded Hawaiian
albino—curious paradox of a white man who was not a white man.
Skimming the lustrous water beyond the inshore breakers, on our way to
the point of land, Kaawaloa, where stands the white monument pure and
silent in the green gloom of trees, our eyes roved the palm-feathered,
surf-wreathed shore and beetling cliffs honeycombed with tombs where
rotting canoes still hold tapa-swathed bones of bygone inhabitants. Some
of these, undoubtedly, knew the features of the Captain James Cook whom
they deified as an incarnation of their secondary god, Lono, previous to
slaying him for his misbehavior with a people too decent to countenance
methods he had found possible among certain South Sea groups.
Day-dreaming I reinvested the roadstead with its sturdy whalers and
picturesque adventurers’ ships, and garlanded dusky mermaidens swimming
out in laughing schools to the strange white men from an unimagined
bourne beyond the blue flush that encircled theirs, while again the
friendly natives made high luau beneath the palms of the waterside. Our
handsome boatman somewhat disturbed the mermaid fantasy: “_Aole_—no; no
swim this place ... I tell you—planty, planty shark.”
No shark could we discern; only, in coral caverns deep below the quaint
outrigger, burnished fishes playing in and out like sunbeams. We skimmed
a jeweled bowl, the blue contents shot through with broadsides of amber
by the afternoon sun, and on the surface shadowy undulations—violet
pools in the azure; liquid sapphire spilled upon molten turquoise; and
all exquisite hues melting into an opalescent fusion of water and air.
An arm of lava draws in the harbor on the north and near its end the
rocky ruin of a heiau, undoubtedly of Lonomakahiki, where Captain Cook
was worshipped, lends a befitting sacrificial spell, which the loud and
irreverent mynah does everything in his power to desecrate. We landed on
the broad dark rocks opposite the white concrete monument, which stands
half-way of the little cape. The original memorial was a piece of ship’s
copper, nailed to a coco palm near the site of the present imposing
shaft, which is inclosed in a military square of chain-cable supported
from posts topped by cannon-balls.
When Captain Cook was slain here, in 1779, his body was borne to a
smaller heiau above the pali, where the same night the high priests
performed their funeral rites. The flesh was removed from the skeleton,
and part of it burned; while the bones were cleansed, tied with red
feathers and deified in the temple of Lono. All that the men of his
ship, the _Resolution_, could recover of their commander’s valorous meat
was a few pounds which had been allotted to Kau, chief priest of Lono,
which he and another friendly priest secretly conveyed to them under
cover of darkness. Most of the wan framework, apportioned among the
chiefs according to custom, was eventually restored, and committed with
military honors to the deep.
It has been held that the flesh of Captain Cook was devoured, but this
rumor is disproved by written accounts of officers of the _Resolution_
and the _Discovery_. What probably gave rise to the impression of
gustatory propensities in the Hawaiians at that time is the story that
three hungry youngsters, prowling about during the ghastly ceremonial,
picked up the heart and other organs that had been laid aside, and made
a hearty lunch, taking them to be offal of some sacrificial animal. It
is not recorded whether or not these gruesome giblets were already
roasted! The three children lived to be old men in Lahaina. There seems
to be no proof that the Hawaiians ever were cannibals—with the
exception of the man on Oahu, before mentioned, where he was named
Aikanaka, Man-Eater; whereas there is indisputable evidence that in
extremity many Caucasians have eaten their fellows.
Always a rebellious memory will be mine that I allowed myself to be
dissuaded by the Doctor from climbing the avalanched slope at the base
of the pali in which those canoe-coffined bones of Kealakekua’s dead are
shelved. It is even said that Kekupuohe, wife of Kalaniopuu, who was
king of Hawaii at the time of its discovery by Captain Cook, is interred
here. Such a burial place is rare in the Islands, for more frequently
human relics were secreted beyond discovery, as in the case of the
mighty warrior Kahekili, who died at Waikiki less than twenty years
after Cook’s passing, and whose blanched bones were effectively hidden
in some cave near Kaloko on the North Kona coast. Mine was a perfectly
healthy yearning to brave the face of the cliff and peer into sunless
cobwebby recesses to see what I could see. The open mouths of these
aerie tombs were once barred by upright stakes. The fact that so few are
now thus grated is said to be due to warships having used them as
targets; while sailors rifled the lower caves.
Back on the lava masonry of the steamboat landing at Napoopoo, in the
shade we ate luncheon, dangling our happy heels overside; after which
Mr. Leslie carried us off again to his house, where he showed us the
original Cook “monument,” the slab of vert, sea-worn copper, bearing the
old scratched inscription. A man of deep content is the wealthy Mr.
Leslie, who declares that he prefers life in this dreamy Polynesian
haven, with his tranquil-sweet part-Hawaiian wife, to any place on
earth. Perhaps his philosophy of happiness is somewhat like that of our
Jack, who always comes back to this:
“A man can sleep in but one bed at a time; and he can eat but one meal
at a time. The same with cigarettes, drink, everything. And, best of
all, he can only _love_ one woman at a time ... a long time, if he is
lucky.”
August 26.
Mr. White, debonair and gay, on a nimble cattle pony, led up a
guava-wooded trail that leads to a fair free range of upland, where we
could give rein to the impatient horses, as on the Haleakala
pasture-lands. Higher still, near the edge of the umbrageous woods we
rounded in with a flourish at an inclosure containing a very old frame
house, or connected group of houses of various periods. Here lives Mrs.
Roy, Mrs. White’s part-Hawaiian mother of chiefly lineage.
Never were ranch-house precincts so bewitchingly harmonious. The garden
is terraced shallowly, its grassy divisions hedged with flowering
hibiscus, white and blush, coral, and crimson flame; and all about the
rambling structure, bounded castle-like with a great barrier of
eucalyptus, grows a tended riot of plants—red amaryllis, and glooms of
heliotrope; young bananas, their long leaves like striped ribbons;
tree-ferns in the deep, short-clipped sod; a sober cypress or two; tawny
lilies, with splashes of blood in their hearts; a merry blow of Shirley
poppies, white and crinkly and scarlet-edged like bonbons, and double
rosettes of white and mauve and twilight-purple; steep gables of the
dwelling smothered under climbing roses; and rarest roses blooming about
the steps; flagged walks bordered with violets white and blue,
distilling perfume.
And begonias amazingly everywhere. Begonias big, begonias little;
begonias in sedate rows, pink and white; begonias in groups, and singly;
begonias standing a dozen feet tall swaying like reeds in the wind; why,
the very entrance to the charmed garden is by a gateway of withy
begonias, afire like lanterns dripping carmine; wrist-thick and twenty
feet in length, bent and bound into a triumphal arch of welcome. What
had seemed the enormity of the Molokai begonias receded before these
that were twice their height and girth. And speaking of Molokai reminds
me that a guest at the Whites to-day is a relative of the Myers
family—a magnificent woman, high-featured, high-breasted, with the form
and presence of a goddess and the indefinable Hawaiian hauteur that
dissolves before a smile.
The old house seems made of crannied nooks, and contains curious and
antique furnishings that fared across the Plains or around Cape Horn;
little steps up, little steps down, from room to room; or rooms joined
by short paved walks drifted with flowers.
Later, continuing up Hualalai, we edged along lehua woods that would
make a lumberman dream of untold wealth of sawmills; and I for one
yearned toward the forest primeval of koa, still above, which we had not
time to penetrate. Once this mountain was the property of the Princess
Ruta Keelikolani, granddaughter of Kamehameha.
Native cowboys, with shining eyes and teeth, gay in colored
neckerchiefs, dashed about the pasture, working among the cattle. Upon
the backs of detached ruminating cows sat the ubiquitous and impudent
mynah birds, devouring pestiferous horn-flies. And we malihinis were
amused and edified by the sworn statements of the men of our party, that
the scraggly tails of the Kona horses, which had aroused our polite
curiosity, are shaped by hungry calves patiently chewing this
questionable fodder with scant protest from the larger beasts.
One feature of great human interest is a mammoth wall of large stones,
four feet high, and more than wide enough to accommodate an automobile.
It rose in a single day, by edict of Kamehameha, to inclose four hundred
acres of choice grazing land. The people turned out en masse and toiled
systematically under the genius of organization and the direction of his
lieutenants.
One who has come to believe that the “trade winds make the climate of
Hawaii,” cannot comprehend why, in Kona, lying north and south, where
the trades are cut off by Mauna Loa’s bulk to the east and the dome of
Hualalai to the north, this is the most “abnormally healthy” climate in
the group. Explanation is found in the frequent afternoon and night
rains resulting from the piling up, by a gentle west wind, of banks of
cloud against the high lands. Toward sundown, whatever airs have been
blowing from the west, die out, replaced by an all-night mountain
breeze, chill and refreshing, which makes one draw the blankets close.
August 27.
“The little ship—the little old tub!” Jack fairly crooned, hanging up
the telephone receiver. “It was Captain Warren, and they anchored last
night in Hilo Bay. He says they ran into a stiff gale as soon as they
got out of that Blue Flush calm of yours, and the big schooner that left
Kailua the same day had to double-reef, while our audacious little tub
weathered the big blow under regular working canvas. The captain’s voice
was quite shaky with emotion when he said he was more in love with the
_Snark_ than ever.—Some boat, Mate-Woman, some boat!” And all during
the drive to Kailua to call on Prince and Princess Kalanianaole he kept
bubbling over with his joy in “the little tub.”
Prince Cupid had urged Dr. Goodhue to bring us to the Palace; but the
meeting was doomed through carelessness of a Japanese servant who failed
to deliver the Doctor’s telephoned message; and the couple, to our
disappointment, were absent when we called.
We tied the team in the shade of banyan, and proceeded along the garden
path between white-pillared royal palms to the mauka entrance, where we
knocked again and again. Peering through the ajar door, we saw, at the
farther end of a little reception hall, upon its man-high pedestal the
marble head of King Kalakaua, heroic size, festooned with freshly made
leis of the enamel-green mailé and glowing red roses. What furniture we
could see was of koa and hair-cloth, reminiscent of our grand-parents.
So I was robbed of my opportunity to wander in the square wooden house
of departed as well as deposed Polynesian royalty, that had surperseded
the grass habitations of Hawaii’s undiscovered centuries. It was on the
Kona coast, according to tradition, that the very first white navigators
who flushed these Delectable Isles set their feet—the captain of a
Spanish vessel that was wrecked at Keei, just below Kealakekua Bay. The
only other survivor was his sister, and the natives received them
kindly. Intermarrying, these Castilian castaways became the progenitors
of well-known alii families, one of these being represented by
Kaikioewa, a former governor of Kauai. There is also small doubt that
the Sandwich Islands were discovered also by another Spaniard, Juan
Gaetano, in 1555, since no other Europeans were navigating the Pacific
at that early time.
The Princess’s garden is ravishing—a fragrant crush of heliotrope and
roses and begonias, with shadowy bowers among tall vine-veiled trees.
Our mind’s eye needed only the flower of all—the tropic grace of the
Princess of the Palace.
August 29.
Mr. Tommy White, aided and abetted by Mrs. Tommy, making good the
determination that we should see a real, untarnished-by-haole luau, had
us down once more to the jewel-sanded horseshoe of Keauhou waterside,
and gave us what bids fair to rival all memories of Hawaiian Hawaii that
have yet been ours.
Our one responsibility, at ease on yielding layers of ferns and flowers
and broad ti-leaves that brown hands had spread, was to strike the exact
right human note with the Keauhou dwellers. The essential thing a
foreigner, who would know them, should avoid is the slightest spark of
condescension toward the free, uncapturable spirit-stuff of the race.
Proud, with fine, light scorn of lip and eye, volatile if you will, they
are still unhumiliated by circumstance. Grudges they do not harbor; but
pride bulks large in their natures. Affection spent upon them returns in
tenfold meed of love and confidence that to forfeit would be one of the
few true sins of mankind.
Arriving early to observe the bustle of preparation, we peeped into an
improvised kitchen over by the bank, near which sucking-pigs were
barbecued in native fashion, stuffed with hot stones and wrapped in
ti-leaves and laid among other hot roasting-stones in the ground; and
wahines sat plaiting individual poi-baskets from wide grasses.
The men were approachable, and ready to chat upon the least
encouragement. One in particular was an elegantly mannered man, of fine
form and carriage and handsome face, hair touched with gray at the
temples and corners of eyes sprayed with the kindly wrinkles that come
from much smiling through life. Educated at Punahou College in Honolulu,
he speaks noticeably correct English. Again to-night we observed that
the elderly men are even more distinguished in appearance than their
sons, with unmistakably aristocratic air, something lion-like about
their gray-curled heads, the leonine note softened by smile-wrought
lines and wonderfully sweet expression of large, wide-set, long-lashed
eyes. And in their bearing is a slow stateliness of utter serenity, and
gentlehood, as of souls born to riches of content. Many tend to obesity;
but this superior specimen was slim, and clean-limbed, and muscularly
graceful as a cadet in marching trim.
Mr. Kawewehi, a full-blooded Hawaiian who ran for the Legislature last
year, was cordial as ever and entirely at ease, while his pretty
hapa-paké wife, amiably non-committal at a former meeting, blossomed out
deliciously, talking excellent English and doing much by her unaffected
example to draw the other women from their cool aloofness.
One unforgettable picture I must give: Upon arrival we had observed a
more than ordinarily large and elegant canoe of brilliant black and
yellow, fitted with mast and sail, hauled out upon the sunset-saffron
strand. “The Prince’s canoe,” was the word, and a perfect thing it was
in the semi-torrid scene. And then came Prince Cupid, and we knew, once
and for all, why he was so called. In careless open-breasted fishing
clothes, a faint embarrassment in his otherwise calm expression as he
regretted his absence the day of our call, he was another creature from
the formal Prince of Honolulu. Despite mature years, he looked a
beautiful boy as he stood before us, holding his hat in both tapering
hands, showing a double row of white teeth in a smile that spread like
breaking sunlight to his warm brown eyes. He declined an invitation to
remain to the luau, pleading as excuse his rough attire and that he was
expected home; and by the time we were taking our places around the
feast on the pier, the great barbaric canoe floated alongside and
presently sailed out leisurely, two men resting on the steering-paddles,
their graceful, indolent Prince, crowned with red bugles of stephanotis,
in the stern sheets.
In the past, the physical difference between the nobility—alii—and the
common or laboring people was far more conspicuous than to-day, when
practically all Hawaiians are well nourished. “No aristocracy,” says one
historian, “was ever more distinctly marked by nature.” Death was the
penalty for the most trifling breach of etiquette, such as for a
commoner to remain on his feet at mention of the moi’s (king’s) name, or
even while the royal food or beverage was being carried past. This
stricture was carried even to the extent of punishing by death any
subject who crossed the shadow of the sacred presence or that of his
_halé_, house.
Besides the ordinary household officials, such as wielder of the kahili,
custodian of the cuspidor, masseur (the Hawaiians are famous for their
clever massage, or _lomi-lomi_), as well as chief steward, treasurer,
heralds, and runners, the court of a high chief included priests,
sorcerers, bards and story-tellers, hula dancers, drummers, and even
jesters.
The chiefs were as a rule the only owners of land, appropriating all
that the soil raised, and the fish adjacent to it, to say nothing of the
time and labor of the _makaainana_ (workers) living upon it—a proper
feudal system. The only hold the common people and the petty chiefs had
upon the moi was their freedom to enter, service with some more popular
tyrant; and as wars were frequent, it behooved monarchs not to act too
arbitrarily lest they be caught in a pinch without soldiery.
To dip into the lore of Hawaii, is to be stirred by the tremendous
romance of it all. Visioning the conditions of those days, one sees the
people slaving and sweating for their warlike masters, and, after the
manner of slaves the world over down the past, worshiping the pageantry
supported by their toil, whether of white invention, or that of the most
superb savagery—priceless feather-mantles, ornaments, weapons of
warfare, or red-painted canoes with red sails cleaving the blue of
ocean.
[Illustration: (1) Iao Valley, Island of Maui. (2) Rainbow Falls,
Hawaii.]
Before reclining upon the green-carpeted wharf, we haole guests were
weighted with leis of the starry plumeria, _awapuhi_, in color
deep-cream centered with yellow, in touch like cool, velvety flesh,
clinging caressingly to neck and shoulder. The perfume is not unlike
that of our tuberose, or gardenia, though not quite so heavy.
Half-breathing in the sensuous air, we were conscious of the lapping of
dark waters below, that mirrored the star-lamped zenith.
Our unforced relish of their traditional delicacies had much to do with
the unbending of the natives, both those who sat with us and those who
served. And when we were seen to twirl our fingers deftly in their
beloved poi and absorb it with avidity that was patently honest, the
younger women and girls were captured, ducking behind one another in
giggly flurry at each encounter of smiles and glances. I wonder if they
ever pause to be thankful that they live in the days of _ai noa_, free
eating, as against those of _ai kapu_, tabu eating, which obtained
before the time of Kamehameha II.
The foods were of the finest, and, half-lying, like the Romans, we ate
at our length—and almost consumed our length of the endless variety,
this time without implements of civilized cutlery. We pitied quite
unnecessarily, those who boast that they have lived so-and-so many years
in the Islands and have never even tasted poi—together with most other
good things of the land and sea and air.
Recalling the christening feast at Pearl Lochs, we looked vainly for
some sign of desire on the part of the Hawaiians to dance, and finally
asked Mr. Kawewehi about it. The young people appeared unconquerably
shy, but an old man, grizzled and wrinkled, his dim eyes retrospective
of nearly fourscore years, squatted before us, reenforced with a
rattling dried gourd, and displayed the rather emasculated hula of the
Kalakaua reign—an angular performance of elbows and knees accompanied
by a monotonous, weird chant, the explosive rattling of the gourd
accentuating the high lights. This obliging ancient responded to several
encores; and while the “dance” was different from any we had witnessed,
it seemed a bloodless and decadent example of motion in which was none
of the zest of life that rules the dancing of untrained peoples.
With smiles and imploring looks, and finally, in response to their
tittering protestations of ignorance of the steps, declaring that after
all we believed they did not know the hula, we touched the mettle of
some of the younger maidens. One white-gowned girl of sixteen
disappeared from the line sitting along the stringer-piece of the pier,
and presently, out of the dusk at the land-end, materializing between
the indistinct rows of her people, she undulated to the barbaric
two-step fretting of an old guitar that had strummed throughout.
Directly the social atmosphere underwent a change, vibrating and
warming. Wahines with their sweet consenting faces, and their men,
strong bodies relaxed as they rested among the ferns, jested musically
in speech that has been likened to a gargle of vowels. Another and
younger sprite took form in the shoreward gloom and joined the first,
where the two revolved about each other like a pair of pale moths in the
lantern light. Fluttering before Mrs. Kawewehi, with motions they
invited her to make one of them; but either she could not for
diffidence, or would not, even though her husband sprang into the
charmed space and danced and gestured temptingly before her blushing,
laughing face. A slim old wahine, coaxed by the two girls, whom all the
company seemed eager to exhibit as their choicest exponent of the olden
hula, next stood before us, and held the company breathless with an
amazing and all-too-short dance. Unsmiling, she seemed unconscious of
our presence—twisting and circling, drawing unseen forms to her
withered heart; level eyes and still mouth expressionless, dispassionate
as a mummy’s. She was anything but comely, and far from youthful. But
she could out-dance the best and command the speechless attention of
all.
Came a pause when the guitar trembled on, though it seemed that the
dancing must be done. Just as, reluctantly, we began to gather our leis
and every day senses, in order not to outlive the sumptuous welcome,
into the wavering light there glided a very young girl, slender and
dark, curl-crowned, dainty and lovely as a dryad, who stepped and
postured listlessly with slow and slower passes of slim hands in the
air, as a butterfly opens and shuts its wings on a flower, waiting for
some touch to send it madly wheeling into space.
And he came—the Dancing Faun; I knew him the moment he greeted my eyes.
Black locks curled tightly to his shapely head, his nose was blunt and
broad, eyes wild and wicked-black with fun, and lips full and curled
back from small, regular teeth. I could swear to a pointed ear in his
curls to either side, and that his foot was cloven. I could not see
these things, but knew they must be. His shirt, for even a Faun must
wear a shirt in twentieth century Hawaii, was a frank tatter—a tatter
and nothing more, over his bister, glistening chest. The hands, long and
supple, betokened the getting of an easy livelihood from tropic
branches.
The listless dryad swayed into quickened life, and the last and most
beautiful spectacle of the night was on. I do not try to describe a
hula. To you it may mean one thing, or many; to me, something else, or
many other things. History tells us that the ancient professional
dancers were devotees of a very naughty goddess, Laka. One may read
vulgarity and sordid immorality into it; another infuse it with art and
with poetry. And it is the love-poetry of the Polynesian. A poet sings
because he must. The Hawaiian dances because he cannot refrain from
dancing. Deprived of his mode of motion, he fades away, and in the
process is likely to become immoral where before he was but unmoral, as
a child may be. The page of the history of this people is nearly turned.
Such as they were, they have never really changed—the individuality of
their blood, manifested in their features, their very facial expression,
is not strong enough to persist as a race, but unaltered endures in
proportion to its quantity, largely mixed as it now is with other
strains. The pure-bred Hawaiians are become far-apart and few, dying off
every year with none to fill their gracious places. The page is being
torn off faster and faster, and soon must flutter away.
Holualoa, to Huehue, August 30.
The Doctor, as a final benefaction, waiving inconvenience to himself,
sent us the whole journey to Waimea on the Parker Ranch, in his own
carriage, in charge of the Portuguese coachman.
The first night we were fortunate enough to spend at Huehue, home of the
John Maguires, rich Hawaiian ranchers who had extended the invitation at
the Goodhues’ reception. Lacking such hospitality, the malihini must
travel, either by horse or carriage, or the one automobile stage, a long
distance to any sort of hotel. “They don’t know what they’ve got!” Jack
commented on the ignorance of the American public concerning the
glorious possibilities of this country. “Just watch this land in the
future, when they once wake up!”
Mrs. Maguire, one eighth Hawaiian, is an unmitigated joy, compounded of
sweet dignity and a bubbling vivacity that wipes out all thought of
years and the wavy graying hair that only intensifies the beauty of her
dark eyes—a merry, sympathetic companion, one decides, for all moods
and ages. Her husband is a noble example of the Hawaiian type, like the
descendant of a race of rulers, strong kings, with commanding brow and
eye of eagle, firm mouth, square jaw, and stern aquiline nose, the
lofty-featured countenance gentled by a thatch of thick powder-gray hair
and a benevolent expression.
The Kona Sewing Guild was in full blast when we drew up in the blooming
garden of the rambling house, but I fell napping on a hikiè in the
guest-cottage, tired from a strenuous day of packing, typing—and
traveling, even through such ravishing country, in full view of the
ravishing Blue Flush of sea and sky.
“I hate to wake my poor tired Woman,” Jack’s voice wooed me from sleep
an hour later; “but the most wonderful horse is waiting for you to ride
him.”
“But I’ve no clothes,” as I came back to earth.
“Oh, I’ve got some for you,” he grinned, depositing a scarlet calico
muumuu on the hikiè, “and I’m just dying to see you ride in it!—Mrs.
Maguire has one on, and looks all right.”
Properly adjusted, in a man’s saddle this full garment appears like
bloomers, and I can vouch is most comfortable.
Then to me they led one of Pharaoh’s horses—no other could it be, so
full his eye, so proud his neck, the pricking of his ear so fine; none
but a steed of Pharaoh’s wears quite such flare of nostril, nor looks so
loftily across the plain. Ah, he is something to remember, “Sweet Lei
Lehua,” and I can never forget his brave crest, nor the flick of that
small pointed ear, and the red, red nostril, blowing scented breath of
grass and flowers—sweet as the flower whose name he wears.
Our ride was upon the lava flank of Hualalai and all within the
boundaries of the Maguire possessions, which comprise some 60,000 acres.
My steed, like the Welshman on Haleakala showing yonder above the
clouds, evidenced his sober years only in judgment of head and hoof. We
attacked precarious places of sliding stones and slid down others as
steep and uncertain, brushing lehua and great ferns; into deep,
green-grown blowholes of prehistoric convulsions we peered; and finally,
descending a verdant pinnacle where Mrs. Maguire led for the viewing of
broad downward miles of tumultuous lava to the blue sea, we went
gingerly on a grassy trail beset with snares of slaty lava that tinkled
like glass, over natural bridges of the same brittle-blown substance,
then threaded a sparse lehua wood to the main road.
All the while our hostess, younger hearted than any, was the soul of the
party, a constant incentive to daring climbs or breathless bursts of
speed, just an untired girl in mind and body of her. One could but join
in abandon of enjoyment that comes with swift motion, urging to greater
effort, whirling around curves, going out of the way to leap obstacles.
And which is better, and what constitutes long life: to sit peacefully
with folded hands while the rout goes by a-horseback with laugh and love
and song, walking carefully all one’s days, or to live in heat of blood
and thrill of beauty and every cell of persisting youth, taking high
hazard with sea and sail, mountain and horse, and every adventurous
desire?
Spinning an abrupt curve, our mounts stopped at a gate like shots
against a target, and our gleeful leader spurred at right angles
straight up a four-foot stone wall to the next zigzag of road, we
following willy-nilly in the mad scramble, marveling how we escaped a
spill.
Following the Feast of Horses came the luau—not so-called, for it is
the accustomed dinner of these people who, it seems to me, feed upon
nectar and ambrosia. Fancy the tender fowl, stewed in coconut cream, and
the picked and “lomied” rosy salmon bellies, with rosier fresh tomatoes,
and salmon-pink salt like ground pigeon-blood rubies, and—but the
entirely Hawaiian dinned, served with all the silver and crystal, napery
and formality of a city banquet eludes my pen.
“Do play, Mate,” Jack said in the twilight, where he lounged on the
lanai after dining; “I haven’t heard a grand piano for a long time, in
this lotus loveland of guitars and ukuleles and their delectable airs.”
And so, high upon a sleeping volcano in the Sandwich Isles I sat me down
to Chopin’s and Beethoven’s stately processionals. For once, in this
land of spent fires, we all forewent and forgot the lilt of hulas and
threnodies of dusky love songs, in the brave, deep music of our own
Caucasian blood.
“I haven’t played those things since I studied in Paris,” Mrs. Maguire
said with reminiscence in her sobered eyes; and a “Thank you” came
through the doorway from a visiting clergyman, while a blithe young
judge of the District called for Mendelssohn’s Funeral March while I was
about it.
But Jack, with cigarette dead between his pointed fingers, lay in a long
chair, his wide eyes star-roving in the purple pit of the night sky; for
music always sets him dreaming, and many’s the time I have momentarily
wondered, at concert and opera, if he heard aught but the suggestions of
the opening measures, so busily did he make notes upon whatever those
suggestions had been to his flying brain.
Huehue, to Parker Ranch, August 31.
“The sweetest poi is eaten out of the hau calabash,” “_He mikomiko ka
ai’na oka poi o loko oka umeke hau_,” say the Hawaiians; and our parting
gift from the Maguires was a little calabash of polished, light-golden
wood, out of their cherished hoard.
Then, sped by the warm “Aloha nui oe” we set our faces toward the
expanse of lava that was to be our portion for a day. One’s principal
impression, geographical as well as geological, of the journey, is of
lava, and lava, and more lava—new lava of 1859, old lava, older lava,
oldest lava, and wide waste of inexpressible ruin upon ruin of lava,
lava without end. How present any conception of this resistless,
gigantic fall of molten rock across which, mid-mountain, our road
graded? The general aspect of stilled lava is little different from
photographic portrayal of the living, fluid substance. It cools, and
quickly, in the veriest shapes of its activity, and the traveler who
misses the wonder of a moving mountain-side finds fair representation in
the arrested flood. It needs little imagination to assist the eye to
carry to the brain an illusion of movement in the long red-brown sweep
from mountain top to sea margin. In many places we could see where
hotter, faster streams had cut through slower, wider swaths; and again,
following the line of least resistance, where some swift, deep torrent
had burned its devastating way down between the rocky banks of a gully.
The pahoehoe lava preserves all its swirls and eddies precisely as they
chilled in the long-ago or shorter-ago; while the a-a rears snapping,
flame-like edges against obstructions, or has piled up of its own
coolness in toothed walls. Incalculable, shimmering leagues below,
purple-brown lava rivers lie like ominous shadows of unseen menaces upon
plains of disintegrate eruptive stuff of our starry system that has for
remote ages ceased to resemble lava.
Ribboning this strange, fire-licked landscape our road lay gray-white as
ashes, at times spanning dreadful chasms where once had blown giant
blisters and bubbles. These, chilling too suddenly, had collapsed,
leaving caverns and bridges of material fragile as crystal, layer upon
layer, which at close range looked to be molten metal, shining like
grains of gold and silver mixed with base alloy.
Often our eyes lifted to the azure summer sea with its tracks like
footprints of the winds, or as if the water had been brushed by great
wings. And with that day, meeting the breezes of Windward Hawaii, there
passed my Blue Flush into the limbo of heavenly memories.
Leaving the later flow, we traversed a land of lava so eternally ancient
that it blossoms with fertile growth. Beautiful color of plant life
springs from this seared dust of millenniums—cactus blossoming magenta
and reddish-gold and snow-white; native hibiscus, flaunting tawny flames
on high, scraggly trees of scant foliage; lehua’s crimson-threaded paint
brushes; blue and white morning-glories and patches of crimson flowers,
flung about like velvet rugs. And here one comes upon what remains of a
sandalwood forest that was systematically despoiled by generations of
traders from the time of its discovery somewhere around 1790, according
to Vancouver. By 1816 the ill-considered deforesting of sandalwood had
become an important industry of the Hawaiians, chief and commoner, with
foreigners.
The wood was originally exported to India, though said to be rather
inferior. Then the Canton market claimed the bulk of the aromatic
timber, where it was used for carved furniture, as well as for incense.
Even the roots were grubbed by the avaricious native woodsmen, and trade
flourished until about 1835, when the government awoke to the imminent
extermination of the valuable tree, and put a ban upon the cutting of
the younger growth. But it is not surprising to learn that the tireless
forethought of Kamehameha had long before protested against the
indiscriminate barter, and particularly the sacrifice of the new growth.
The livelong day we had traveled upon privately owned ranches, and at
last found ourselves on Parker Ranch, the largest in the Territory,
approximately 300,000 acres, lying between and on the slopes of the
Kohala Mountains to the north, knobby with spent blowholes, and great
Mauna Kea, reaching into the vague fastnesses of the latter. This grand
estate, estimated at $3,000,000, is the property of one small, slim
descendant of the original John Parker who, with a beautiful Hawaiian
maiden to wife, founded the famous line and the famous ranch, which is a
principality in itself. Perhaps no young Hawaiian beauty, since
Kaiulani, has commanded, however modestly, so conspicuous a place as
that occupied by Thelma Parker.
Although we had gone with humane leisure, the horses fagged as the day
wore. Often we walked to rest them and refresh our own cramped members,
treading rich pasture starred with flowers we did not know, and keeping
an eye to bands of Scotch beef-cattle, some of the 20,000 head with
which little Thelma is credited. After the pampering climate of Kona,
coats and carriage robes were none too warm at the close of day, when we
neared the sizable post-office village of Waimea, headquarters of the
enormous ranch.
Never shall be forgotten that approach to Waimea under Kohala’s
jade-green mountains like California’s in showery springtime; nor the
little craters in plain and valley—red mouths blowing kisses to the
sun; nor yet tenderly painted foothills and sunset cloud-rack, and the
sweet, cool wind and lowing herds.
“It seems like something I have dreamed, long ago,” Jack mused; for,
year in and year out, often in sleep he wanders purposefully in a land
of unconscious mind that his waking eyes have never seen.
Parker Ranch, September 2.
Judging from even our sketchy view of the Parker Ranch, it is reason in
itself for a future visit to Hawaii. The glorious country, with its
invaluable assets, is handled with all the precision of a great
corporation. Through the courtesy of Mr. Thurston, we are enjoying the
hospitality of the manager, Mr. Alfred W. Carter, and his wife, who
dwell in the roomy house of Thelma, now abroad. In our short horseback
ride we saw a few of the fine thoroughbred horses which are raised, one
of the imported stallions being a son of Royal Flush II. Royal Flush II
lives and moves and pursues his golden-chestnut being on the ranch of
Rudolph Spreckles, adjoining our own on Sonoma Mountain.
Louisson Brothers’ Coffee Plantation, Honokaa District, Hawaii,
September 5.
Our next lap was to Honokaa, where we were met by another carriage. The
day’s trip demonstrated a still better realization that the big island
comprises nearly two-thirds of the 6700 square miles of the eight
inhabited islands; as well as the copiously watered fertility of this
windward coast. Leaving Waimea, we continued across the rolling green
plains, whose indefinite borders were lost in Mauna Kea’s misty
foothills. Rain fell soothingly, and often we had glimpses of
fierce-looking, curly-headed Scotch bulls with white faces, vignetted in
breaking Scotch mist into the veriest details of old steel engravings.
Hawaiian cowboys, taking form in the cottony vaporousness, waved and
called to our coachman ere swallowed again.
One cannot encompass Hawaii without stepping upon the feet of one lordly
mountain or another. If it is not the exalted Mauna Kea, it is surely
the hardly less lofty Mauna Loa, or Hualalai.
At any moment in these Islands one may look off to the sea, whether calm
or blue-flushed; or, as here, deep-blue and white-whipped, driven like a
mighty river by the strong and steady trade wind. One never grows fully
accustomed to the startling height of the horizon, which seems always
above eye-level, cradling one’s senses in a vast blue bowl.
At last the road dipped seaward to the bluffs where lies red-roofed,
tree-sheltered Honokaa, headquarters of a great sugar plantation. After
luncheon at the little hotel, we set out upon the almost unbroken climb
of several miles to Louissons’ coffee plantation, where we had been
invited by these two indefatigable brothers. Never have I met but one
man who could surpass in perpetual motion our dear and earnest friend
Alexander Hume Ford, and that man is “Abe” Louisson, who, body and eye
and brain, seems animated by a galvanic battery.
It was a waving, shimmering land of incalculable proportions through
which we ascended, of green so fair that there is no other green like
it—the fabulous sugar-cane so closely standing that it responds to all
moods of the capricious sky, like the pale-green surfaces of mountain
lakes; cane that on the one hand surges out of sight into the mountain
clouds, and on the other floods its fair green clear to the sudden red
verge of cliffs sheering into the blue, high-breasting Pacific. And
every way we turned, there were the sweat-shining, swart foreigners,
Japanese, Portuguese, and what not, in blue-denim livery of labor,
directed by mounted khaki-gaitered _lunas_ (overseers), white or
Hawaiian, or both, under broad sombreros.
We had not been in the high-basemented cottage half an hour, when the
driven enthusiasm of Mr. “Abe” had us out again and among the
magnificent coffee plants; and we learned that a coffee plantation can
be one of the prettiest places under heaven, with its polished
dark-green foliage, head-high and over, crowded with red jewels of
berries, interspersed by an imported shade tree which he calls the
_grevillea_. This tree serves the dual purpose of shading the
plants—which are kept resolutely trimmed to convenient height—and of
fertilizing with its leaves the damp ground under the thick shrubbery.
Nowhere have we seen such luxuriant growth of coffee, and the café noir
was unequaled save for a magic brew we had once drunk in the mountains
of Jamaica.
We were making very jolly over dessert and the thick, black coffee, when
the house seemed seized in an angry grasp and shaken like a gigantic
rat. I never did like earthquakes, and the April eighteenth disaster
which I saw through in California has not strengthened my nerve. Jack,
with expectant face, remained in his seat; but I, as the violence
augmented, stood up and reached for his hand, vaguely wondering why
every one did not run for the outside. The frame building seemed
yielding as a basket—purposely erected that way. At the beginning of
the tremor, the cook and his kokua had come quietly into the room and
held the lamps; and when the second shock was heard grinding through the
mountain Mr. Abe, wishing us to have the full benefit of the harmless
volcanic diversion, rose dramatically, black eyes burning and arms
waving, and cried:
“Here it comes! Listen to it! It’s coming! Hear it! Feel it!”
It was a milder shock, and was followed by a still lighter one,
accompanied by a distant rumbling and grinding in this last living
island of the group.
Of course, our first thought following upon the immediate excitement of
the shake was of the volcanoes. Would Kilauea, which had this long time
dwindled to a breath of smoke, awake? A telephone to Hilo brought no
report of activity. Our first attempts to use the wire were ludicrous
failures, for every Mongolian and Portuguese of the thousands on Hawaii
was yapping and jabbering after his manner, and the effect was as of a
rising and falling murmur of incommunicable human woe, broken here and
there by a sharper or more individual note of trouble. A white man’s
speech carried faintly in the unseen Babel.
Louisson’s to Hilo, September 6.
In the perfumed cool of morning we bade farewell to the hospitable
bachelors, and descended once more from the knees of Mauna Kea to its
feet upon the cliffs. The world was a-sparkle from glinting mountain
brow above purple forest and cloud-ring, down the undulating lap of
rustling cane, to the dimpling sea that ruffled its edges against the
bold coast. Trees, heavy with overnight rain, shook their sun-opals upon
us from leaf and branch, and little rills tinkled across the road. The
air was filled with bird-songs, and in our hearts there was also
something singing for gladness.
Thus far, in our junketing, we have relied for the most part upon saddle
horses and railroad trains, or private conveyances of one sort or
another. Long stretches endured in public vehicles have never tempted.
But to-day’s journeying, in the middle seat of three, luggage strapped
on behind the four-in-hand stage, was a unique experience, and an
excellent chance to observe the labor element. For we traveled in
company with members of its various branches—Hawaiian, Portuguese,
Japanese, and many another breed.
The overcrowding was ludicrous. At some stop on the way, a bevy of
Japanese would swarm into the stage without first a “look-see” to find
if it was already full, literally piling themselves upon us. Jack,
determinedly extricating them and holding firmly to his seat, would say
with laughing eyes and smiling-set lips, while he thrust his big
shoulders this way and that: “I like to look at them, but they’d _camp_
on us if we’d let them!”
The only compromise we made with the overreaching coolie tide was to
take into our seat a sad little Porto Rican cripple, a mere child with
aged and painwrought face, whom the passengers, of whatsoever
nationality, shunned because of the bad repute of his blood in the
Islands; and also a sunny small daughter of Portugal, glorious-eyed and
bashfully friendly. When presented with a big round dollar, she answered
maturely, to his query as to how she would squander it, a laconic:
“School shoes.”
Shades of striped candy! How did her mother accomplish it? Now, the
shrinking Porto Rican lad hobbled straight into a fruit store at the
next halt, reappeared laden with red-cheeked imported apples, and with
transfigured face of gratitude, held up his treasure for us to share.
Jack, with moist eyes, bit his lip. So much for one Porto Rican in
Hawaii. One would like to know _his_ mother, too.
Isabella Bird Bishop has painted a thrilling word-picture of the gulches
of Windward Hawaii in the Hilo District—giant erosions of age-old
cloud-bursts, their precipitous sides hidden in a savage wealth of
vegetation, heavy with tropic perfume. And this day, swinging through
and beyond the coffee and cane of the Hamakua District that adjoins the
Kona, following the patient grades along the faces of stupendous
ravines, descending to bridges over rapturous streams that began and
ended in waterfalls, we remembered how she, long before any bridging, at
the risk of her precious life, forded on horseback these same turbulent
water courses, swollen by freshets. For she was possessed of that same
joy in existence that I know so well, and which, unescorted in a period
when few women braved traveling alone, led her to venture ocean and
island and foreign continent, writing as vividly as she lived.
Only fleeting glimpses we had of the coast—sheer green capes overflung
with bursting waterfalls that dropped rainbow fringes to meet the
blue-and-white frills of surf. “Bearded with falls,” to quote Robert
Louis Stevenson, is this bluffwise coast of the Big Island, and we
envied the _Snark’s_ crew who from seaward had viewed the complete
glory, from surf to mountain head.
Laupahoehoe, “leaf of lava,” was the simple poesy of the
ancient-Hawaiian who named a long, low outthrust at the mouth of a wide
ravine. Weather-softened old houses as well as grass huts stray its
dreamy length, under coco palms etched against the horizon; and the
natives seem to have no business but to bask beneath the blue-and-gold
sky. One lovely thumb-sketch we glimpsed, where a river frolicked past a
thatched hut beneath a leaning coco palm, near which a living bronze
stood motionless—a rare picture in modern Hawaii.
Laupahoehoe, Hakalau, Onomea, each representing a sugar plantation—we
passed them all, and toward the end of day our absurd four-in-hand of
gritty little mules trotted into a fine red boulevard. Just as we had
settled our cramped limbs to enjoy the unwonted evenness of surface, the
driver pulled up in Wainaku, a section of suburban Hilo, before a
seaward-sloping greensward terrace fanned by a “Travelers’ palm,” under
which grazed a golden-coated mare. Here, upon a word sent ahead by
mutual friends in the adorable way of the land, we were again to know
the welcome of perfect strangers—an unequalled hospitality combined of
European and Polynesian ideals by the white peoples who have made this
country their own.
On the steps of an inviting lanai room stood a blue-eyed lady-woman,
sweet and cool and solicitous, with three lovely children grouped about
her slender, blue-Princess-gowned form—Mrs. William T. Balding, whose
husband is connected with the Hilo Sugar Company. Its mill purrs all
hours at Wainaku by the sea.
Refreshed by a bath, and arrayed in preposterously wrinkled ducks and
holoku out of our suit cases, we dined exquisitely with the young couple
in an exquisite dining room hung with fern baskets, the table sparkling
with its perfect appointment, in contrast with the natural wildness of
tropical growth seen through the wide windows.
Shipmans’ Volcano Home, Hawaii, September 7.
Away back in 1790 or thereabout, an American fur-trader named Metcalf,
commanding the snow _Eleanor_, visited the Sandwich Islands on his way
to the Orient, his son, eighteen years of age, being master of a small
schooner, _Fair American_, which had been detained by the Spaniards at
Nootka Sound.
A plot was hatched by some of the chiefs to capture the _Eleanor_, which
was frustrated by Kamehameha, who himself boarded her and ordered the
treacherous chiefs ashore. Following this, a high alii of Kona was
insulted and thrashed with a rope’s-end by Captain Metcalf for some
trifling offense, and vowed vengeance upon the next vessel that should
come within his reach.
The little snow crossed Hawaii Channel to Honuaula, Maui, where a chief
of Olowalu with his men one night stole a boat and killed the sailor
asleep in it, afterward breaking up the boat for the nails. Metcalf set
sail for Olowalu, where, under mask of trading with the natives, he
turned loose a broadside of cannon into the flock of peaceful canoes
surrounding the _Eleanor_, strewing the water with dead and dying.
After this wanton massacre of innocent islanders, Metcalf returned to
Hawaii and lay on and off Kealakekua Bay waiting for the _Fair
American_, which had by now arrived off Kawaihae, the seaport of the
present Parker Ranch, which we had seen when we passed through.
Chief Kameeiamoku went out with a fleet of canoes as if to trade, and
when the eighteen-year-old skipper of the schooner was off guard, threw
him outboard and dispatched the crew with the exception of Isaac Davis,
the mate.
Simultaneously, John Young, the original of the Youngs of Hawaii, found
himself detained ashore, and all canoes under tabu by orders of
Kamehameha, in order that Metcalf should not hear of the loss of his son
and the schooner. The _Eleanor_ continued lying off and on, firing
signals, for a couple of days, and finally sailed for China.
John Young and Isaac Davis were eventually raised by Kamehameha to the
rank of chiefs, endowed with valuable tracts of land; and they in turn
lent the great moi their service of brain and hand in council and war,
though carefully guarded for years whenever a foreign keel hove in
sight.
Small cannon, looted from the _Fair American_ as well as from other
vessels which had been “cut out,” were of priceless worth in the
experienced hands of the white men in enabling Kamehameha eventually to
win his war of conquest, especially over the Maui armies under the sons
of Kahekili.
All of which is preamble to the pleasant fact that we are enviable
guests of Mr. and Mrs. W. H. Shipman, of Hilo, at their volcano
residence, Mrs. Shipman being the granddaughter of the gallant Isaac
Davis. Also we find she is half-sister to our friend Mrs. Tommy White.
Such a healthy, breezy household it is; and such a wholesome, handsome
brood of young folk, under the keen though indulgent eye of this
motherly deep-bosomed woman. Her three fourths British ancestry keeps
firm vigilance against undue demonstration of the ease-loving strain of
wayward sunny Polynesian blood she has brought to their dowry.
The tropic wine in her veins has preserved her from all age and decay of
spirit. During this day and evening I have more than once failed to
resist my desire to lay my tired head upon her breast, where it has been
made amply welcome.
A social and domestic queen is Mrs. Shipman, and right sovranly she
reigns over her quiet, resourceful Scotch spouse, in whose contented
blue eye twinkles pride in her efficient handling of their family.
Although models of discipline and courtesy, their offspring are brimming
with hilarious humor, while ofttimes their mother’s stately,
silken-holokued figure is the maypole of a dancing, prancing romp. Those
holokus are the care of the two elder daughters, who never tire of
planning variations of pattern and richness, with wondrous garniture of
lace and embroidery.
Mrs. Shipman—and again we are in Kakina’s debt—had telephoned our
latest hostess to extend an invitation to this suburban home; and
according to arrangement Jack and I met her on the up-mountain train
from Hilo to the terminal station, whence the Shipman carriage carried
us ten miles farther to this high house in a garden smothered in
tree-ferns.
Today we had our first glimpse of Hilo, the second city of the
Territory, on its matchless site at the feet of Mauna Loa, divided by
two rivers, the Wailuku tearing its way down a deep and tortuous gorge.
Nothing could be more impressive than the pretty town’s background of
steadily rising mountain of sugar cane and forest and twisted lava-flow.
The rivers are spanned by steel bridges, the main streets broad and
clean and shaded by enormous trees, with many branching lanes
over-arched by blossoming foliage and hedged with vines and shrubbery.
Hilo Harbor was once called after Lord Byron, cousin of the poet, who
nearly a century ago dropped the anchor of his frigate _Blonde_ in the
offing, and surveyed the bay as well as the Volcano Kilauea. Captain
Vancouver, that thoroughgoing benefactor of Polynesia, saw the
possibilities of this port, for he wrote:
“Byron Bay will no doubt become the site of the capital of the
island. The fertility of the district of Hilo, ... the excellent
water, and abundant fish pools which surround it, the easy
access it has to the sandalwood district, and also to the
sulphur, which will doubtless soon become an object of commerce,
and the facilities it affords for refitting vessels, render it a
place of great importance.”
It was the _Blonde_ which brought back in that year of 1825, to his
native land the remains of Kamehameha II, Liholiho, and his queen,
Kamamalu, from England, where they had been made much of at court. Both
fell victims to measles—always one of the deadliest of diseases to
islanders throughout the South Seas.
Poor things! Three years before, this favorite queen of Liholiho,
Kamamalu, on the last day of a long revel, had been the most gorgeous
object ever described by a reverend missionary:
“The _car of state_ in which she joined the processions passing in
different directions consisted of an elegantly modeled whaleboat
fastened firmly to a platform of wicker work thirty feet long by twelve
wide, and borne on the heads of seventy men. The boat was lined, and the
whole platform covered, first with imported broadcloth, and then with
beautiful patterns of tapa or native cloth of a variety of figures and
rich colors. The men supporting the whole were formed into a solid body
so that the outer rows only at the sides and ends were seen; and all
forming these wore the splendid scarlet and yellow feather cloaks and
helmets of which you have read accounts; and than which, scarce anything
can appear more superb. The only dress of the queen was a scarlet silk
_pa’u_ or native petticoat, and a coronet of feathers. She was seated in
the middle of the boat and screened from the sun by an immense Chinese
umbrella of scarlet damask, richly ornamented with gilding, fringe and
tassels, and supported by a chief standing behind her, in a scarlet
_malo_ or girdle, and feather helmet. On one quarter of the boat stood
Karimoku (Kalaimoku) the Prime Minister, and on the other Naihe, the
national orator, both also in malos of scarlet silk and helmets of
feathers, and each bearing a kahili or feathered staff of state near
thirty feet in height. The upper parts of these kahilis were of scarlet
feathers so ingeniously and beautifully arranged on artificial branches
attached to the staff as to form cylinders fifteen or eighteen inches in
diameter and twelve to fourteen feet long; the lower parts or handles
were covered with alternate rings of tortoise shell and ivory of the
neatest workmanship and highest polish.”
King Liholiho had a very engaging streak of recklessness that more than
once spread consternation amongst his following. As once in 1821, when
he left Honolulu in an open boat for a short trip to Ewa. The boat was
crowded with thirty attendants, including two women. But when off
Puuloa, he refused to put in to the lagoon, and kept on into the very
lively water around Barber’s Point. Then, with royal disregard of the
fear and protests of his entourage, without water or provisions, he set
the course for Kauai, ninety miles of strong head wind and sea.
“Here is your compass!” he cried to the helmsman, flinging up his right
hand, the fingers spread. “Steer by this!—And if you return with the
boat, I shall swim to Kauai, alone!”
Good seamanship and luck vindicated him, and they arrived safely off
Waimea, Kauai, after a night of peril. And to think that the _measles_
should have had their way with such a prince as that!
From the second station out of Hilo, moored near the main wharf, we
could make out the dear little _Snark_.
The observation car was filled with well-to-do Hilo residents bound for
the week-end at their volcano lodges, and I could see Jack planning two
more island homes.
To Kilauea, at last, at last—my first volcano, albeit a more or less
disappointing Kilauea these days, without visible fire, the pit,
Halemaumau, only vouchsafing an exhibition of sulphurous smoke and
fumes. But living volcano it is, and much alive or little, does not
greatly matter. Besides, one may always hope for the maximum since
Kilauea is notoriously capricious.
For eighteen miles the track up from Hilo slants almost imperceptibly,
so gradual is the ascent through dense forest, largely of tree ferns,
and, latterly, dead lehua overspread sumptuously with parasitic ferns
and creepers. There seems no beginning nor end to the monster island.
Despite the calm, vast beauty of many of its phases, one cannot help
thinking of it as something sentient and threatening; of the time when
it first heaved its colossal back out of the primordial slime. And it is
still an island in the making.
The carriage, sent up the day before from Hilo, was driven by one Jimmy,
a part-Hawaiian, part-Marquesan grandson of Kakela, a Hawaiian
missionary to the Marquesas group, whose intervention saved Mr. Whalon,
mate of an American vessel, from being roasted and eaten by the
cannibals of Hiva-oa. Jimmy’s grandfather was rewarded by the personal
gift of a gold watch from Abraham Lincoln, in addition to a sum of money
from the American Government. “And don’t forget, Mate,” Jack reminded
me, “your boat is next bound to the Marquesas!”
It was a hearty crowd that sat at dinner; and imagine our smacking
delight in a boundless stack of ripe sweet corn-on-the-cob mid-center of
the bountiful table! Among all manner of Hawaiian staples and
delicacies, rendered up by sea and shore, we found one new to us—stewed
ferns. Not the fronds, mind, but the stalks and stems and midribs.
Served hot, the slippery, succulent lengths are not unlike fresh
asparagus. The fern is also prepared cold, dressed as a salad.
The father of his flock rode in late from one of the headquarters of his
own great cattle ranch, PuuOO, on Mauna Kea. These estates, in the royal
manner of the land, often extend from half the colossal height of one or
the other of the mountains, bending across the great valley to the
nether slope of the sister mount, in a strip the senses can hardly
credit, to the sea. This enables a family to enjoy homes from high
altitudes, variously down to the seaside.
The flock as well as its maternal head rose as one to make their good
man comfortable after his long rough miles in the saddle. In a crisp
twilight, the men smoked on the high lanai, and the rest of us breathed
the invigorating mountain air. It was hard to realize the nearness of
this greatest of living volcanoes. Presently Jack and I became conscious
of an ineffably faint yet close sound like “the tiny horns of Elfland
blowing.” Crickets, we thought, although puzzled by an unwontedly
sustained and resonant note in the diminutive bugling. And we were
informed, whether seriously I know not, that the fairy music proceeded
from landshells (Achatinella), which grow on leaves and bark of trees,
some 800 species being known. Certainly there _are_ more things in earth
and heaven—and these harmonious pixie conches, granting it was they,
connoted the loftier origin. Jack’s eyes and mouth were dubious:
“I ha’e ma doots,” he softly warned; “but I hope it _is_ a landshell
orchestra, because the fancy gives you so much pleasure.”
September 8.
Kilauea, “The Only,” has a just right to this distinguished
interpretation of its name, for it conforms to no preconceived idea of
what a volcano should be. Not by any stretch of imagination is it
conical; and it fails by some nine thousand feet of being, compared with
the thirteen-odd-thousand-foot peak on the side of which it lies, a
mountain summit; its crater is not a bowl of whatsoever oval or circle;
nor has it ever, but once, to human knowledge, belched stone and
ashes—a hundred and fifty years ago when it wiped out the bulk of a
hostile army moving against Kamehameha’s hordes, thus proving to the
all-conquering chief that the Goddess Pélé, who dwells in the House of
Everlasting Fire, Halemaumau, was on his side.
Different from Mauna Loa’s own skyey crater, which has inundated Hawaii
in nearly every direction, Kilauea, never overflows, but holds within
itself its content of molten rock. It has, however, been known to break
out from underneath. The vertical sides, from 100 to 700 feet high,
inclose nearly eight miles of flat, collapsed floor containing 2650
acres, while the active pit, a great well some 1000 feet in diameter, is
sunk in this main level.
In the forenoon we visited the Volcano House on the yawning lip of the
big crater, and sat before a roomy stone fireplace in the older section,
where Isabella Bird and many another wayfarer, including Mark Twain,
once toasted their toes of a nipping night.
From the hotel lanai we looked a couple of miles or so across the sunken
lava pan to Halemaumau, from which a column of slow, silent, white vapor
rose like a genie out of underworld Arabian Nights, and floated off in
the light air currents. No fire, no glow—only the ghostly, thin smoke.
And this inexorable if evanescent breath of the sleeping mountain has
abundant company in myriad lesser banners from hot fissures over all the
surrounding red-brown basin, while the higher country, variously green
or arid, shows many a pale spiral of steam.
Rheumatic invalids should thrive at the Volcano House, for this natural
steam is diverted through pipes to a bath-house where they may luxuriate
as in a Turkish establishment; and there is nothing to prevent them from
lying all hours near some chosen hot crack in the brilliant red earth
that sulphurous exudation has incrusted with sparkling yellow and white
crystals.
Having arranged with Mr. Demosthenes, Greek proprietor of this house as
well as the pretty Hilo Hotel, for a guide to the pit later on, Mrs.
Shipman directed her coachman farther up Mauna Loa—the “up” being
hardly noticeable—to see thriving as well as dead koa forest, and also
the famous “tree molds.” A prehistoric lava-flow annihilated the big
growth, root and branch, cooling rapidly as it piled around the trees,
leaving these hollow shafts that are faithful molds of the consumed
trunks.
The fading slopes of Mauna Loa, whose far from moribund crater is second
in size only to Kilauea’s, beckoned alluringly to us lovers of saddle
and wilderness. One cannot urge too insistently the delusive eye-snare
of Hawaii’s heights, because an elastic fancy, continuously on the
stretch, is needful to realize the true proportions. Today, only by
measuring the countless distant and more distant forest belts and other
notable features on the incredible mountain side could we gain any
conception of its soaring vastitude.
For a time the road winds through rolling plains of pasture studded with
gray shapes of large, dead trees, and then comes to the sawmills of the
Hawaii Mahogany Company. Here we went on foot among noble living
specimens of the giant koa, which range from sixty to eighty feet, their
diameters a tenth of their height, with wide-spreading limbs—beautiful
trees of laurel-green foliage with moon-shaped, leaf-like bracts. It was
in royal canoes of this acacia, often seventy feet in length, hollowed
whole out of the mighty boles, that Kamehameha made his conquest of the
group, and by means of which his empire-dreaming mind planned to subdue
Tahiti and the rest of the Society Group. As a by-product, the koa
furnishes bark excellent for tanning purposes.
[Illustration: (1) Alika Lava Flow, 1919. (2) Pit of Halemanman.]
Great logs, hugely pathetic in the relentless clutch of machinery, were
being dragged out by steel cable and donkey-engine, and piled in
enormous and increasing heaps. Jack, who is inordinately fond of fine
woods if they are cut unshammingly thick, left an order for certain
generous table-top slabs to be seasoned from logs which we chose for
their magnificent grain and texture.
In addition to their flourishing koa business, these mills are turning
out five hundred ohia lehua railroad ties per day, and filling orders
from the States. But one can easily predict a barren future for the
forests of Hawaii if no restraint, as now, is enforced in the selection
of trees.
In the bright afternoon, horseback, with a Hawaiian guide, we made
descent into Kilauea.
The morning’s cursory view had been no preparation for the beautiful
trail, on which we were obliged to brush aside tree-branches and ferns
and berry bushes in order to see the cracking desolation of the basin.
Abruptly enough, however, we debouched upon its floor, under the stiff
wall we had descended, now hundreds of feet overhead. Before us lay a
crusted field of copperish dull-gold, where whiffs and plumes of white
rose near and far from awesome fissures—a comfortless waste without
promise of security, a treacherous valley of fear, of lurking hurt, of
extermination should a foot slip.
On a well-worn pathway, blazed in the least dangerous places, we
traversed the strange, hot earth-substance. The horses, warily sniffing,
seemed to know every yard of the way as accurately as the tiny Hawaiian
guide. But I recalled Christian in the Valley of the Shadow, for at
every hand yawned pitfalls large and small and most fantastic—devilish
cracks issuing ceaseless scalding menace, broken crusts of cooled
lava-bubble of metallic dark opalescence; jagged rents over which we
hurried to avoid the hot, gaseous breath of hissing subterranean
furnaces.
Now and then the guide requested us to dismount, and then led, crawling,
into caverns of unearthly writhen forms of pahoehoe lava, weirdly
beautiful interiors—bubbles that had burst redly in the latest overflow
of Halemaumau into the main crater. On through the uncanny, distorted
lavascape cautiously we fared under a cloud-rifted sky, and finally left
the horses in a corral of quarried lava, thence proceeding afoot to the
House of Fire.
Perched on the ultimate, toothed edge, we peered into a baleful gulf of
pestilent vapors rising, forever rising, light and fine, impalpable as
nightmare mists from out a pit of destruction. Only seldom, when the
slight breeze stirred and parted the everlasting, unbottled vapors, were
we granted a fleeting glimpse, many hundreds of feet below on the bottom
of the well, of the plummetless hole that spills upward its poisonous
breath. If the frail-seeming ledge on which we hung had caved, not one
of us could have reached bottom alive—the deadly fumes would have done
for us far short of that.
A long silent space we watched the phenomenon, thought robbed of
definiteness by our abrupt and absolute removal from the blooming,
springing, established world above the encircling palisade of dead and
dying planetary matter. Jack’s comment, if inelegant, was fit, and
without intentional levity:
“A hell of a hole,” he pronounced.
Pélé, Goddess of Volcanoes, with her family, constituted a separate
class of deities, believed to have emigrated from Samoa in ancient days,
and taken up their abode in Moanalua, Oahu. Their next reputed move was
to Kalaupapa, Molokai, thence to Haleakala, finally coming to rest on
the Big Island. In Halemaumau they made their home, although stirring up
the furies in Mauna Loa and Hualalai on occasion, as in 1801, when
unconsidered largess of hogs and sacrifices was vainly thrown into the
fiery flood to appease the _huhu_ (angry) goddess. Only the sacrifice of
a part of Kamehameha’s sacred hair could stay her wrath, which cooled
within a day or two.
Many, doubtless, have there been of great men and women in the
Polynesian race; but the fairest complement to the greatest, Kamehameha,
seems to have been that flower of spiritual bravery, Kapiolani. A high
princess of Hawaii, she performed what is accounted one of the greatest
acts of moral courage ever known—equal to and even surpassing that of
Martin Luther. Woman of lawless temperament, her imperious mind became
interested in the tenets of Christianity, and swiftly she blossomed into
a paragon of virtue and refinement, excelling all the sisterhood in her
intelligent adoption of European habits of thought and living.
Brooding over the unshakable spell of Pélé upon her people, in defiance
of their dangerous opposition, as well as that of her husband, Naihe,
the national orator, she determined to court the wrath of the Fire
Goddess in one sweeping denunciation and renunciation. We have it,
however, that Naihe later cultivated an aloha for the missionaries, and
was buried where are now only the ruined foundations of the first
mission station, established by Ely and Ruggles in 1824 and 1828, mauka
of Cook Monument.
It was almost within our own time, in 1824, when she set out on foot
from Kaawaloa on Kealakekua Bay, a weary hundred and fifty miles, to
Hilo. Word of the pilgrimage was heralded abroad, so that when she came
to Kilauea, one of the pioneer missionaries, Mr. Goodrich, was already
there to greet her. But first the inspired princess was halted by the
priestess of Pélé, Who entreated her not to go near the crater,
prophesying certain death should she violate the tabus. Kapiolani met
all argument with the Scripture, silencing the priestess, who confessed
that _ke akua_, the deity, had deserted her.
Kapiolani proceeded to Halemaumau. There in an improvised hut she spent
the prayerful night; and in the morning, undeserted by her faithful
train of some fourscore persons, descended over half a thousand feet to
the “Black Ledge,” where, in full view and heat of the grand and awful
spectacle of superstitious veneration, unflinchingly she ate of the
votive berries consecrate to the dread deity. Casting outraging stones
into the burning lake, she fearlessly chanted:
“Jehovah is my God!
He kindled these fires!
I fear thee not, Pélé!
If I perish by the anger of Pélé,
Then Pélé may you fear!
But if I trust in Jehovah, who is my God,
And he preserve me when violating the tabus of Pélé,
Him alone must you fear and serve!”
Vision how this truly glorious soul then knelt, surrounded by the bowed
company of the faithful, in adoration of the Living God, while their
mellow voices, solemn with supreme exaltation, rose in praise. One
cannot help wondering if Mr. Goodrich, fortunate enough to experience
such epochal event, was able, over and above its moral and religious
significance, to sense the tremendous romance of it.
Scarcely less illuminating, was the conversion of that remarkable woman,
Kaahumanu, favorite wife of Kamehameha, to whom I have already referred
as one of the most vital feminine figures in Polynesian annals. Far
superior in intellect to most of the chiefs, she had been created regent
upon the demise of her husband, ruling with an iron will, haughty and
overbearing.
At first disdainful of the missionaries, finally her interest was
enlisted in educational matters, whereupon with characteristic abandon
she threw herself into the learning of the written word as well as the
spoken. An extremist by nature, born again if ever was human soul, from
1825 to her death in Manoa Valley, Honolulu, in June of 1832, she held
herself dedicate to the task of personally spreading virtue and industry
throughout the Islands. Her last voyage was to pay a visit to Kapiolani,
after which she lived to receive the fourth re-enforcement of American
missionaries, who arrived in the _Averick_ a month before her passing.
The crowning triumph of her dying hours was to hold in her fingers the
first complete copy of the New Testament in the Hawaiian tongue.
Alexander writes:
“... Her place could not be filled, and the events of the next
few years (of reaction, uncertainty, and disorder in internal
affairs) showed the greatness of the loss which the nation had
sustained. The ‘days of Kaahumanu’ were long remembered as days
of progress and prosperity.”
And yet, according to all research, the ancient Hawaiians were
essentially a religious people according to their lights. As already
said, almost every important undertaking was led by prayer to widely
diverse gods, unfortunately not all beneficent. The “witch doctor,” or
_kahuna_, exerting a disastrous influence in all phases of racial
development, has not to this day entirely ceased to blight the minds, to
the actual death, of certain classes. “Praying to death” is the most
potent principle of kahunaism, and in the past played an important part
in holding down the population of this never-too-prolific race. One
prayer alone, related at length by J. S. Emerson, enumerates eleven
methods of causing death to any subject selected, and illustrates the
unsleeping brain and artistry of the sorcerers, “assassins by prayer,”
who invented it. Still, kahunas were not an altogether enviable faction
in the past, since on occasion they employed their own mental medicine
against one another. A certain class of these metaphysicians bore a
reputation of being more like evil spirits than human beings, so feared
and hated that their practices constituted a boomerang, resulting in
themselves being stoned to death.
All the foregoing, and more, we lazily discussed at length on the
precarious shelf in Pélé’s mansion, though often speech was interrupted
by sulphur fumes that blinded and suffocated. Once more in the pure air,
we agreed that even in the quiescent mood of its least spectacular
aspect, Kilauea is more than well worth a long voyage.
At the Volcano House, Mr. Demosthenes led the way to his guest book in
the long glass sun-room, and showed many celebrated autographs, reaching
back into the years. Jack, upon request, added his own sprawling,
legible signature that always seems so at variance with his small hand.
With a friend, our joint contribution was as follows, Jack leading off:
“‘It is the pit of hell,’ I said.
“‘Yes,’ said Cartwright (another guest). ‘It is the pit of hell. Let us
go down.’
“‘And where Jack goes, there go I.’ So I followed them down.”
Next Day.
This bright, blue and crystal morning, despite the bustle of packing for
the return to Hilo, Mrs. Shipman was found seated amidst cut flowers of
her own tender care, weaving crisp leis for our shoulders and hats. That
in itself was not surprising; but in view of the fact that she was to
accompany us, it seemed the very acme and overflow of hospitality. Jack,
gazing upon this mother-of-many, his eyes brimming with appreciation,
broke out: “To me, Mother Shipman is the First Lady of Hawaii!”
To the garlands were added necklaces of strung berries, bright blue and
hard as enamel, and strands of tiny round rosebuds, exquisite as pale
corals from Naples. It was a custom in less strenuous years to present
these plant-gems laid in jewel cases of fresh banana bark split
lengthwise, the inside of which resembles nothing so well as
mother-of-pearl.
And so, wreathed in color and perfume, we rumbled down the fragrant
mountain, ourselves a moving part of the prevalent luxuriance of flower
and fern and vine. One mile is as another for unspoiled beauty, though
turns in the magical pathway open up pictures that surpass beauty if
this may be. Great trees, living or dead, their weird roots half above
ground, form hanging gardens of strange blooms and tendrilly creepers
imagined of other planets or the pale dead moon. Giant ferns, their
artificial-looking pedestals set inches-deep in moss on fallen trunks,
crowd the impenetrable, dank undergrowth. Climbing-palms net the forest
high and low with fantastic festoons, and star the glistening wildwood
with point-petaled waxen blossoms of burnt-orange luster, while the
decorative _ie-ie_ sets its rust-colored candelabra on twisted trunk and
limb. If you never beheld else in all Hawaii Nei, the Volcano Road would
impress a memory of one of the most marvelous journeys of a lifetime. Of
the thirty miles, the twenty nearest to Hilo wind through this virgin
forest garden, into the picturesque outskirting lanes of the old town.
If I mistake not, Kakina, when Minister of the Interior, was the pioneer
road-builder of this region. Before that, men and women made their way
on foot or horseback; and Mrs. Shipman relates how she carried her
babies on the saddle before her.
When the carriage left the bridge that crosses Wailuku’s roaring gorge
into the Shipmans’ driveway to their castle-white house overlooking
Hilo, a pair of white-gowned daughters, brunette Clara, and Caroline
tawny-blonde, ran to meet mother and father and younger ones as if from
long absence, and lo, also Mary, now Mrs. English, who proved to be an
old classmate of Jack’s in the Oakland High School. Behind them, Uncle
Alec, another hale example of Hawaii’s beneficence to the old, stood
apple-cheeked and smiling under his thatch of vital, frosty hair, and
joined in a welcome that seemed to seal us forever their very own.
Wainaku, September 15.
As often happens, one of our giddiest experiences came through a
remembered suggestion of Mr. Ford, who has long wished to coast the
cane-flumes of the Big Island. Jack made a tentative bid to the Baldings
for this rather startling entertainment, and the pair entered into the
spirit of the idea, which, however, was not altogether new to them.
One of the flimsy aqueducts runs just beyond their rear fence, on the
seaward slope; and any week-day we can follow with our eyes the loose
green faggots slipping noiselessly toward the toothed maw of the sugar
mill, the whistle of which measures the working hours of its employees.
To the right is a gulch, crossed, perhaps two hundred feet in air, by
the flume’s airy trestle; and over this, in swimming-suits, a merry
party of us essayed the narrow footboard that accompanies the flume
elbow high at one’s side.
Each had his or her own method of preserving balance, mental and bodily,
above the unsettling depths. Jack sustained his confidence by letting
one hand slide lightly along the edge of the flume, with the result that
his palm, still calloused from the _Snark’s_ ropes, picked up an
unnoticed harvest of finest splinters that gave us an hour’s work to
extract. My system was first deliberately to train my eyes on the
receding downward lines to the tumbling gulch-stream, and at intervals,
as I walked, to touch hand momentarily to the flume. Martin, of the
_Snark_, debonair stranger to system of any sort under any
circumstances, paced undaunted halfway across, and suddenly fell
exceeding sick, grasping the waterway with both hands until the color
flowed back into his ashen face.
The wooden ditch is just wide enough in which to sit with elbows close,
and the water flows rapidly on the gentle incline. If one does not sit
very straight, he will progress on one hip, and probably get to laughing
beyond all hope of righting himself. With several persons seated a
hundred yards apart, the water is backed up by each so that its speed is
much decreased, and there is little difficulty in regulating one’s
movements and whatever speed is to be had—and mind the nails! Supine,
feet-foremost, arms-under-head, the maximum is obtained; sit up, and it
slackens.
It was capital fun, and, safely on the ground once more at our starting
point, Jack was so possessed with the sport that he telephoned to Hilo
for “hacks” to convey us a mile or so up the road to a point where the
flume crosses. A laughable party were we: the men, collarless, with
overcoats on top of their dripping suits, the women also in wet garments
under dry ulsters.
In a sweltering canefield we were directed how to build small, flat
bundles of the sweet-smelling sugar stems; then still with the fear of
nails, however smoothed and flattened, strong upon us, remembering
tragical cellar-doors of childhood, we embarked upon our sappy green
rafts.
Picture lying on your back, the hour near sunset, in a tepid stream of
clear mountain water, slipping along under the bluest of blue skies with
golden-shadowed clouds, breathing the sun-drenched air; then lifting
slowly to glance, still moving and strangely detached, over the edge, to
canefields far beneath and stretching from timber line to sea rim;
picking out rocky water-courses, toy bridges and houses, and Lilliputian
people going about their business on the verdant face of earth; while
not far distant a gray-and-gold shower-curtain rainbow-tapestried, blows
steadily to meet you in midair, tempering the vivid peacock hues of sea
and sky and shore. In the void betwixt ourselves and the shimmering
green earth, ragged bundles of cane, attached to invisible wires, drawn
as by a spell toward the humming mill at sea-rim, looked for all the
world like fleeing witches on broomsticks, with weird tattered garments
straight behind. You glide in an atmosphere of fantasy, “so various, so
beautiful, so new,” in which every least lovely happening is the most
right and natural, no matter how unguessed before.
Over-edge and on the ground again, at exactly the proper spot to obviate
feeding one’s shrinking toes into the cane grinder, one can only think
of a longer ride next time—perhaps with a ten-mile-away start.
Belike our latest skipper is a better man at sea than ashore. Certain
rumors lead us to this hazard. Perhaps a professional sailor is always
“a sailor ashore”; and doubtless the captain has by now read my
easy-going husband well enough to know that he will not be left to
settle the personal bills incurred in Hilo over and above his salary.
Hilo, October 7.
Tomorrow the dream-freighted _Snark_, carrying only three of her initial
adventurers, Jack, Martin Johnson, and myself, sails from Hilo for the
Marquesas Islands lying under the Line, toward which Jack’s sea-roving
spirit has yearned from boyhood, since first he devoured Melville’s
tale, “Typee,” of months guarded in the cannibal valley on Nuka-Hiva. I,
even, have early memories of the same incomparable record. And soon, by
the favor of wind and current, we shall drop our modern patent hook in
Melville’s very anchorage at Taiohae Bay, which was also that of Robert
Louis Stevenson’s _Casco_ in later years; and together we shall quest
inland to Typee Vai.
Besides the captain, there is a new Dutch sailor, Herrmann de Visser,
delft-blue of eye, and of a fair white-and-pinkness of skin that no
lifetime of sea-exposure has tarnished. The berth of the sorely
regretted Tochigi, who could never outlive seasickness, is occupied by a
brown manling of eighteen, Yoshimatsu Nakata, a moon-faced subject of
the Mikado, who speaks, and kens not, but one single word of English,
same being the much overtaxed Yes; but his blithe eagerness to cover all
branches of the expected service promises well. Martin has been
graduated from galley into engine-room; and Wada, a Japanese chef of
parts, bored with routine of schooner schedule between San Francisco and
Hilo, is in charge of our “Shipmate” range and perquisites in the tiny,
below-deck galley.
We had confidently assumed, after four months’ repairing in Honolulu,
that the new break in the seventy-horse-power engine could easily be
mended, and that in a week or ten days at most we might resume the
voyage. But alas, as fast as one weakness was dealt with another
appeared, until even that long-suffering patience which Jack displays in
the larger issues, was worn to a thread. At times I could see that he
was restless and unhappy, though he worked doggedly at his novel.
Among other exasperating discoveries, the cause of a hitherto
unaccountable pounding of the engine was found to lie in an awryness of
the bronze propeller blades, probably caused at the time the yacht was
allowed to fall through the inadequate ways in the shipyard at San
Francisco. This corrected, something else would go wrong, until we
became soul-sick of sailing dates and hope deferred.
One day, packed and ready for an early departure, Jack, who had answered
the telephone ring, called that the captain wanted to talk to me. As I
passed Jack whimsically remarked: “I hope it isn’t something so bad he
doesn’t want to break it to _me_!”
It was precisely that, and the captain’s opening words made me swallow
hard and brace for the worst.
Some day I may learn that in _Snark_ affairs nothing is too dreadfully
absurd nor absurdly dreadful to occur. This time the five-horse-power
engine that runs the lights had fractured its bedplate, and the repairs
would hold the _Snark_ in port at least a week longer. This engine and
the big one are of different makes, built in different parts of the
United States; and yet each had been set in a flawed bedplate! Jack was
forced to laugh. “I see these things happen, but I don’t believe them!”
he repeated an old remark. We named no more sailing dates for a
while—until to-day, when _almost_ we believe we shall get away
to-morrow at two o’clock. In our cool bathroom lie the farewell leis, of
roses, and violets, mailé and ginger, that the Shipman girls, entirely
undiscouraged by the remembrance of more than one withered supply, have
already woven.
In face of _Snark_ annoyance, our more than kind friends have seemed to
redouble their efforts to beguile us from the not unreasonable fear of
outstaying our welcome. Always the carriage is at our disposal, and
beautiful saddlers.
One day the girls have taken us horseback to see where the latest
lava-flow encroached to within five miles of the town, threatening to
engulf it. This having been in 1881, the inhabitants probably thought
Mother Shipton’s notorious prophecy was coming to pass.
Another fine afternoon, to Rainbow Falls we rode, to which no
photograph, nor even painting, can do justice, because the approach is
impossible to the use of lens or brush. One rides peacefully along a
branch trail from the road, when unexpectedly, into a scene that has
hinted no chasm or stream, there bursts a cataract of the Wailuku,
eighty feet, into a green shaft lined with nodding ferns, where the
fall, on a rainless day, sprays its deep pool with rainbows. Farther up
the Wailuku, reached on foot from the main drive through cane fields,
there is a succession of pools in the lava river-bed, known as the
Boiling Pots from the wild swirling of cascading waters. They form a
close rival to the beauty of Rainbow Falls.
One favorite spot to me will always remain the boat landing at Waiakea
village, at the mouth of the Waiakea river, on Hilo’s southwestern edge.
This little settlement in 1877 was washed away by a wave caused by an
earthquake in Peru. It is an essentially oriental picture, except for
haoles and Hawaiians arriving or departing in ship’s boats. It is a
sequestered nook of Nippon; from the sea approached under a bridge, and
partially bounded by rickety, balconied houses, hung with colorful
Japanese signs and flags and rags. Down the marshy little river, after
turbulent weather, come the most fairy-like floating islets, forested in
miniature with lilac-tinted lilies. Past the bannered buildings and the
brilliantly painted sampans, under the bridge they move in the
unhurrying flood, on and out to sea; to me, following their course,
freighted with dreams.
There came a day of “Hilo rain,” when Mrs. Shipman tucked us into the
curtained rig and haled us about town to observe an example of what the
burdened sky can do in this section. Since Hiloites must endure the
violent threshing of crystal plummets from their overburdened sky, they
wisely make of it an asset. The annual rainfall is 150 inches against
Honolulu’s 35 on the lee side of Oahu. And we must see Rainbow Fall, now
an incredibly swollen, sounding young Niagara born of the hour. Chaney
wrote: “It rains more easily in Hilo than anywhere else in the known
world.... We no longer demurred about the story of the Flood.... Let no
man be kept from Hilo by the stories he may hear about its rainfall.
Doubtless they are all true; but the natural inference of people
accustomed to rain in other places is far from true. There is something
exceptional in this rain of Hilo. It is never cold, hardly damp even.
They do say that clothes will dry in it. It is liquid sunshine, coming
down in drops instead of atmospheric waves.... Laugh if you will, and
beg to be excused, and you will miss the sweetest spot on earth if you
do not go there.” And that is Hilo.
Aboard the _Snark_, October 7.
Half-past one, and early aboard. With the help of moon-faced, smiling
Nakata, all luggage has been stowed shipshape in our wee staterooms, and
we await a few belated deliveries from the uptown shops, and the friends
who are to see us off.
Frankly, I am nervous. All forenoon, doing final packing, I have
startled at every ring of the telephone, apprehensive of some new
message of the Inconceivable and Monstrous quivering on the wire. And
Jack—has done his thousand words as usual on the novel, _Martin Eden_.
He now stands about the shining, holystoned deck, unconsciously lighting
cigarettes without number, and as unconsciously dropping them overboard
half-smoked or dead full-length. He is not talking much, but nothing of
the spic-and-span condition of his boat escapes his pleased blue sailor
eye. And he hums a little air. Over and above the antic luck that has
stalked her since the laying of her iron keel, the _Snark_ indubitably
remains, as Jack again assures, “the strongest boat of her size ever
built”; and we both love her every pine plank, and rib of oak, and
stitch of finest canvas.
* * * * *
Later: We got over the good-byes somehow—even the Shipmans’ Uncle Alec
came to see us off. I hope nothing better than to have a kiss of welcome
from the old, old man years hence when we come again to beautiful Hilo,
which means “New Moon,” fading yonder against the vast green mountain in
a silver rain.
“And there isn’t one of them ever expects to lay eyes on us again,” Jack
laughed low to me as the captain pulled the bell to the engine-room for
Martin to start the bronze propeller, and the little white yacht began
to stand out from the wharf on her outrageous voyage. They tried their
best to look cheerful, dear friends all, and Mrs. Balding’s “Do you
_really_ think you’ll ever come back alive?” would have been funny but
for the unshed tears in her violet eyes. Little convinced was she, or
any soul of them, by Jack’s vivid disquisition on this “safest voyage in
the world.”
Waving our hands and calling last good-byes, we made our way out through
no floating isles of amethyst lilies from the Waiakea River’s marshes,
for Hilo Bay lies clear and blue, in a fair afternoon that gives herald
of a starry night. The captain of the Bark _Annie Johnson_, in port, a
favorite poker antagonist of Jack’s the past week, accompanied us a
distance in the Iron Works engineer’s launch, and the big
American-Hawaiian freighter, _Arizonan_, unloading in the stream, with a
Gargantuan sonorous throat saluted the tiny _Snark_, who answered with
three distinct if small toots of her steam-whistle.
A westering sun floods with golden light the city brightening from a
silver shower, and we know that some at least of her thoughts are with
us happy estrays on the “white-speck boat” adventuring the pathless
ocean.
And one beside me in a hushed voice repeats:
“‘The Lord knows what we may find, dear lass,
And the deuce knows what we may do—
But we’re back once more on the old trail, our own trail, the out
trail
We’re down, hull down on the long Trail—the trail that is always
new!’”
Thus, on our Golden Adventure, we set out to sea once more, answering
its clear call; and it is Good-by Hawaii—Hawaii of love and
unquestioning friendship without parallel. Her sons and daughters, they
have been kind beyond measure.
Great love to you, Hawaii—“until we meet again,” the words of your
sweetest song of parting grief and joyful welcome:
“Aloha oe.”
-----
[2] In 1921—114,879.
[3] One statesman of the old régime, however, tells me this: “But for
her determination to ‘rule’ instead of ‘reign’ as a constitutional
sovereign, Liliuokalani might have lived and died a queen, with no
stronger support than those who deposed her.”
[4] In 1916 a specimen of the yellow-fin tuna sold in the Honolulu
market weighing 287 pounds. The record yellow-fin tuna at Santa Catalina
Island, California, was 51 pounds.
[5] A few weeks after our ascent, one of the Japanese laborers fell 1500
feet in the clear.
[6] Another way has been devised for the traveler who would see the
Ditch Trail: by automobile from Wailuku to Pogue’s, thence on foot
(stopping overnight at a rest house in Keanae Valley), to Nahiku on the
coast, where a steamer calls. It is possible to travel by rail from
Wailuku to Haiku, about nine miles from Pogue’s, and begin the “hike” at
Haiku. The railway terminus is the home-steading settlement, and the
railway ride is of unique interest.
[7] Ours was the last party that ever crossed this bridge. A new one was
hung shortly afterward.
[8] Burned in 1920.
[9] In a late _Pacific Commercial Advertiser_, I notice the following
cable:
“Washington, August 13, 1917.
Favorable report was made to the Senate to-day on the bill to empower
the Hawaiian Legislature to extend suffrage to women and submit the
question to voters of the territory.”
Jack London, Kamaaina
The other day a man stood, uncovered, beside the red bowlder that marks
by his own wish the ashes of Jack London, upon the little Hill of Graves
on his beloved Ranch in the Valley of the Moon. Set in indestructible
cement, about those ashes—for he desired to rest in the ashes rather
than any dust of him—are wrapped two cherished leis of ilima that he
had brought withered from Hawaii.
The man, there among the trees of the whispering ridge, told me how,
only a week earlier, he had been talking with a simple ukulele-player in
a Hawaiian orchestra at one of the San Francisco theaters. The Hawaiian
boy had spoken haltingly, with emotion:
“Better than any one, he _knew_ us Hawaiians... Jack London, the Story
Maker.... The news came to Honolulu—and people, they seemed to have
lost a great friend—_auwe_! They could not understand.... They could
not believe. I tell you this: Better than any one, he knew us
Hawaiians.”
Months before, a friend wrote from Honolulu: “These many weeks, when two
or three who knew him meet upon the street, they do not speak. They
cannot speak. They only clasp hands and weep.”
And another: “Jack’s death has done a wonderful thing. It has brought
together so many of his friends who had not known one another before.
More—it has brought together even those of his friends who did not
previously care-to know one another.”
What sweeter requiem could be his?
It was not an easy nor a quick matter for Jack London to earn his
kamaainaship. Nor did he in any way beg the favor. Time only has been
the proof whether his two stories, “The Sheriff of Kona” and “Koolau the
Leper,” have made one tourist stay his foot from the shores of the
Hawaiian Islands.
And yet, these stories, works of art that had nothing to do with his
visit to Molokai, in no way counteracting, to his judgment, the admitted
benefit of his article on the Settlement, were the cause of bitter
feelings and recriminations from what of provincialism there was in
Hawaii—and was ever island territory that was not provincial?
“Provincial they are,” reads a penciled note of Jack’s: “which is
equally true, nay, more than true, of New York City.”
And untrue things were spoken and printed of Jack. Erect, on his “two
hind legs,” as was his wont, he defended himself. In the pages of Lorrin
A. Thurston’s _Pacific Commercial Advertiser_, following certain remarks
of the editor, Jack and Kakina had it out, hammer and tongs, without
mincing of the English, as good friends may and remain good friends.
Even now, it is with reminiscent smile of appreciation for the heated
pair of them that I turn over the pages of Jack’s huge clipping
scrapbook of 1910, forgotten the grave on the Little Hill, and once more
live in memory of that brilliant discussion and Jack’s hurt and
indignation that he should have been accused of abusing hospitality.
There is no space here for the published letters; and besides, it is the
long run of events that counts.
Kamaaina, desire of his heart, he became, until, in the end, the
Hawaiians offered him that most honored name in their gift. In Hawaiian
historical events, Kamehameha I was the only hero ever designated
“Ka Olali o Hawaii nui Kuaulii ka moa mahi i ku i ka moku,”
which is to say,
“The excellent genius who excelled at the point of the spear all
the warriors of the Hawaiian Islands, and became the
consolidator of the group.”
And to Jack London, this is their gift:
“Ka Olali o kapeni maka kila.”
“By the point of his pen his genius conquered all prejudice and
gave out to the world at large true facts concerning the
Hawaiian people and other nations of the South Seas.”
The First Return
We came back, as we had always known we should.
The _Snark’s_ voyage ended untimely in 1909—because we paid too little
heed to Dr. E. S. Goodhue’s warnings against “speeding up” in the
tropics. Jack’s articles, collected under the title of “The Cruise of
the _Snark_” and my journal book, “The Log of the _Snark_,” tell the
story of the wonderful traverse as far as it attained. To this day,
friend and stranger alike occasionally write from the South Seas that
the little _Snark_, now schooner-rigged, has put in at this bay or that
in the New Hebrides, under the flag of our French Allies—_Snark_ Number
One of a fleet of _Snarks_ trading and recruiting in the cannibal isles.
We came back: and on the wharf at Honolulu that morning of the
_Matsonia’s_ arrival, March 2, 1915, in the crowd we thrilled to meet
the eyes of many friends who had kept us a-tiptoe for days aboard ship
with their welcoming wireless Alohas and invitations.
An amusing incident did much to mellow the pleasure-pang of our meeting.
Nearest the stringer-piece of the pier stood a brown-tanned girl in an
adorable bonnet of roses, her dark eyes searching the high steamer rail.
“Gee! what a pretty girl!” exclaimed a voyage acquaintance at our elbow.
“Wouldn’t you take her for at least half-white?” Jack, following the
directing gesture, enthusiastically agreed that she must be “all of
hapa-haole,” and added:
“Furthermore, I’ll show you something; I’ll throw her a kiss, see? and
I’ll bet you ‘even money’ that she’ll respond. Is it a go?—you just
watch.”
And the conspicuous wafted caress arresting her eye, the young woman
answered with blown kisses and outstretched brown arms.
“Gee!” was the awed whisper. “Are they all like that?”
It was Beth Wiley, my cousin from California—who is as much or as
little Spanish as I, but shows it more. By several months she had
preceded us, and had become well-tanned by unstinted sunning on the
beach at Waikiki.
The malihini’s confusion was almost pathetic when Jack introduced “Mrs.
London’s cousin—I taught her to swim when she was a gangly kid!” and he
continued mischievously, “I’ll leave it to you, Beth, to convince him
that _part_ of that color of yours has been acquired since last I saw
you!”
* * * * *
Tremulous with memory of those hack-drives in the silver and lilac dawns
of eight years gone, we entered an automobile in the crush outside the
wharf’s great sheds, and proceeded to the Alexander Young Hotel for one
night. Kilauea being in eruption, we were to return aboard the
_Matsonia_ next day for the round trip to Hilo.
On this short voyage, for the first time from sea vantage, we saw the
Big Island’s green cliffs, stepped in dashing surf and fringed with
waterfalls, Mauna Kea’s fair knees and lap of sugar cane extending into
the broad belt of clouds—and, glory of glories, Mauna Kea’s wondrous
morning face white and still against the intense blue sky.
At Hilo, we were met by Mr. R. W. Filler, manager of Mr. Thurston’s
concrete dream of a Hilo Railroad, over which, in an automobile on car
wheels, we made the thirty-four miles to Paauilo in the Hamakua
District, and knew it to be one of the most scenically beautiful rail
journeys we had ever had the good fortune to travel. It was hard to
realize the accomplishment of these trestles, one horseshoe of which, we
understood, is the most acute broad gauge in existence. And thus, high
in a motorcar, upon steel tracks, we looked fascinated into the depths
of the same gulches, unbridged and perilous in Isabella Bird’s time, and
laboriously journeyed by ourselves nearly a decade ago. Sections of the
railroad, instead of imitating the bluff coast line, run through passes
that have been sliced deep through the bluffs themselves, the narrow
cuts already blossoming like greenhouses.
Beaching the terminal, Paauilo, a pretty spot on the seaward edge of a
sugar plantation, we lunched in a rustic hotel, before starting on the
return. Part-way back, we left the train, at a station where Mr. Filler
had been especially urged by Kakina to have an automobile waiting to
take us mauka to the Akaka Fall, seldom visited and rather difficult of
access. A muddy tramp in a shower brought us to the fall—a streaming
ribbon five hundred feet long, trailing into an exquisitely lovely
cleft, earth and rocks completely hidden by maiden-hair and other small
ferns. The origin of Akaka is told in a charming legend.
Strange it seemed to speed over the red road to Hilo in a “horseless
carriage,” reminiscent as we were of the four-mule progress of yore.
Good it was to meet up once more with the Baldings, Mrs. Balding
dimpling at Jack’s reminder of her pessimism concerning the _Snark_; and
with Jack’s First Lady of Hawaii, “Mother” Shipman, her Hawaiian curls
perhaps more silvery, but her face beaming as ever. And there was Uncle
Alec, smiling only more benignly.
Next morning, in an unyieldingly new hired machine, up mountain we
fared, noting a lessening of the forestage along the route, due to the
encroachment of sugar cane. In some of the cleared areas we recognized
the familiar ’ava plant of the South Seas. Still remained untouched
stretches, as of a dream within a dream for beauty, and again I could
vision the evanescent minarets and airy spans of the Palace of Truth I
had once liked to fancy growing before my eyes in the delicate tracery
of parasite foliage. Nothing seen in all the _Snark’s_ coming and going
among the isles under the Line had surpassed this enchanted wood.
Saving the Volcano for evening, we spent the day horseback, visiting
Kilauea’s environs of sister craters, some still breathing and others
dead and cold, shrouded in verdure. Kalauea-iki, one of the nearest to
the Volcano House and the new Crater Hotel, is an 800-foot deep sink,
with a diameter of half a mile. The neighborhood is pitted with these
void caldrons, and one could spend wonderful weeks in the jungle trails.
The Thurstons have made a study of the region, and find it one of the
most interesting in the Islands. Into a number of the more important
craters we peered, and our native guide finally led the way up
Puuhuluhulu around whose mellifluous name we had been rolling our
tongues from Honolulu, where Kakina’s last adjuration was not to miss a
sight of this particular blowhole.
Leaving the animals with the sandwich-munching guide, we carried our own
lunch to the summit, where, prone, we lay with faces over the edge of
the bewitching inverted cone. For an hour, like foolish children, we
played with our fantasy, planning the most curious of all contemplated
Hawaii dwellings, this time in the uttermost depths of Puuhuluhulu’s
riotous natural fernery, with a possible glass roof over the entire
crater!
Already, as we returned, low-pressing clouds above Kilauea were alight
with the intense red-rose glow of Halemaumau. And no remembered volcano
of Tana or Savaii made me any less excited at prospect of at last
beholding Pélé’s boiling well.
[Illustration: (1) Kahilis at Funeral of Prince David Kawananakoa. (2)
Kamehameha the Great. (3) and (4) Sport of Kings.]
Not by the old trans-basin trail did we pilgrimage to the House of
Everlasting Fire, but upon a new road graded through veriest
stage-scenery of ohia and tree ferns, a fairyland in the brilliant
headlights. One encircles nearly half of the great sink until, on the
southeastern section, the road winds down westerly and across the floor
to Halemaumau.
It was weird; and weirder still it became when, within a few minutes’
walking distance of the pit, the car, making for a walled parking
circle, ran into a waft of steam like a tepid pink fog. Out of this, or
into it, the eyes of an oncoming machine took form, burning larger and
brighter through the downy smother, and safely passing our own.
A well-defined pathway is worn in the gritty lava to the southeast edge.
Soon we were settled there waiting for the warm mists to incline the
other way and disclose the disturbance of liquid earth that we could
hear hissing softly, heavily, hundreds of feet beneath, like the sliding
fall of avalanches muffled by distance and intervening masses of hills.
Then, suddenly, the mist drafted in a slanting flight toward the western
crags, sucked clear of the inland sea of incredible molten solids.
Open-mouthed we gazed into the earth and saw nothing akin to the colored
representations of Halemaumau, but a tortured, crawling surface of
grayish black, like a mantle thrown over slow-wrestling Titans in a
fitful, dying struggle. Then a crack would show—not red, but an
intensely luminous orange flame-color—a glimpse of earth’s hot blood.
As our eyes became accustomed to the heaving skin of the monstrous tide,
they could follow the rising, slow-flowing, lapsing waves that broke
sluggishly against an iron-bound shore. And never a wave of the fiery
liquid but left some of itself on the black strand, its ruthless,
heavy-flung comb resistlessly imposing coat upon coat of rocky gore that
cooled, at least in comparison to its source, in upbuilding process.
Once in a while a bubble would rise out in the central mass, and burst
info a fountain of intolerably brilliant orange fluid, its scorching
drops fading on the dense black surge.
From the seduction of its merest smoke display to this deep-sunk
eruption of 1915, the House of Fire is all one in its confounding
marvel.
That night, when the first vivid crack broke the oily dark surface,
Jack, with a gasp of delight, seized my hand, lighted a match above it,
and peered closely at a big black opal, precious loot of Australia’s
Lightning Ridge, that I had named “Kilauea” before ever we had seen
Pélé’s colors. Tipping the stone from slanting plane to plane, its
blue-gray dull face cracked into flaming lines for all the world like
the phenomenon before us in the wounded side of Mauna Loa—a truer
replica of Halemaumau than any painting.
Upon our return, Mr. Demosthenes had the old guest book lying open in
the same long glass room, and again we read the page written years
before.
“Be sure, now, Lakana,” had been another final behest of Kakina’s, “to
call up Col. Sam Johnson in Pahoa, when you get to Hilo. I’m writing him
to expect to take you from the Volcano down to Puna. Never saw such a
man for _punch_.”
Next morning the Colonel arrived at the Volcano House, and drove us by
way of Hilo to Pahoa, where he is in charge of the lumber mill.
Nine miles from Hilo, at the mill of the enormous Olaa Sugar Plantation,
we branched off southwest on the picturesque Puna Road. Once clear of
certain beautiful miles of jungle, it crosses an interesting if
monotonous desert of aged lava, supporting a sparse growth of lehua and
ohia, and pasturage for cattle of the Shipmans and others. Mauna Kea and
her sister mountain were good to us that day, for both going and
returning we had fair view of their snowy springtime summits.
The mill at Pahoa demonstrated to us how the forests of lehua, koa, the
ohia, and all the valuable hard timber of the rich woods is converted
into merchantable lumber. And we came away with a handsome souvenir, a
precious calabash of kou wood (now almost extinct, owing to an insect
that deprives the tree of its leaves, heavy and polished like mottled
brown marble), a product of the mill.
After luncheon there were summoned three part-Hawaiian sisters, cultured
and modest-mannered, to sing. And there, my initial time in the District
of Puna—scene of Tully’s “Bird of Paradise,”—quite unexpectedly I
learned something of what these isles of the _Snark’s_ first landfall
meant to me. While the contralto and treble of their limpidezzo voices
sang the beloved old “Sweet Lei Lehua,” “Mauna Kea,” the “Dargie Hula,”
and the heart-compelling “Aloha oe,” suddenly I fell a-weeping, quite
overwhelmed with all the unrealized pent emotion of what I had seen and
felt the preceding days, and the gracious memories that flooded back
from the older past. And _auwé_, murmured the dusky sisters, hovering
about me in solicitude.
Once more at Hilo Harbor, the _Matsonia_, out in the stream, her siren
sounding the warning hour, was reached by launch from the pretty
oriental waterside at the mouth of the Waiakea. Our eyes were more than
a little wistful as in memory we sailed out with the _Snark_. But we did
it! “With our own hands we did it,” thus Jack; and the glamorous voyage
was now an accomplished verity, from which we had come back very much
alive and unjaded.
* * * * *
Back in Honolulu at daybreak, Jack declined to be ousted by any
officious steward until the final period was dotted to his morning’s ten
pages. Eventually he issued upon deck almost into the arms of Alexander
Hume Ford, whom we were no end glad to see, buoyant and incessant as
ever, brimful of deeds for the advantage of Hawaii as ever he had been
of their visioning.
The first responsibility, not to be neglected for a single hour, was the
hunting of a habitation that we might call our own for the time being.
Beth had reported the total failure of her exhaustive search. Honolulu
was chock-a-block with tourists. “Beginning to realize what they’ve
got,” Jack observed with satisfaction, though a trifle put out that his
prophesied appreciation of the Islands by the mainlanders should
interfere with his own getting of a roof-shelter.
We learned from one of the large Trust Companies that a cottage on Beach
Walk, a newly opened residence street not far from the Seaside Hotel,
was to be let a couple of months hence. We found it eminently suitable
for our little household of four, for Beth was to be one of us, and
Nakata, as usual, was our shadow. Next we devoted all our powers to
persuade the somewhat flustered owners that they needed an earlier visit
to the Pan-American Exposition than they had planned; and proceeded to
move in before they could change their minds, while Jack wirelessed to
the Coast for Sano, our cook.
Not a day passed, before, in swimming suits, we walked down Kalia Road
to the old Seaside Hotel, and once more felt underfoot the sands of
Waikiki. But such changes had been wrought by sea and mankind that we
could hardly believe our eyes, and needed a guide to set us right.
The sands, shifting as they do at irregular periods, had washed away
from before the hotel, leaving an uninviting coral-hummock bottom not to
be negotiated comfortably except at high tide, and generally shunned. A
forbidding sea-wall buttressed up the lawn of the hotel while the only
good beach was the restricted stretch between where the row of cottages
once had begun, and the Moana Hotel.
And what had we here? In place of those little weather-beaten houses and
the brown tent, the Outrigger Canoe Club had established its bathhouses,
separate club lanais for women and men, and, nearest the water, a large,
raised dancing-lanai, underneath which reposed a fleet of great canoes,
their barbaric yellow prows ranged seaward. At the rear, in a goodly
line of tall lockers, stood the surf-boards, fashioned longer and
thicker than of yore, of the members of the Canoe Club.
A steel cable, whiskered with seaweed, anchored on the beach, extended
several hundred yards into deeper water where a steel diving-stage had
been erected. Upon it dozens of swimmers, from merest children with
their swimming teachers, to old men, were making curving flights inside
the breakers. Several patronesses of the Club give their time on certain
days of the week, from the women’s lanai inconspicuously chaperoning the
Beach.
The only landmark recognizable was the date-palm still flourishing where
had once been a corner of our tent-house, now become a sheltering growth
with yard-long clusters of fruit, and we were told it was known as the
“Jack London Palm.” For it might be said that in its shadow Jack wove
his first tales of Hawaii.
All this progress meant Ford! Ford! Ford! Everywhere evidence of his
unrelaxing brain and energy met the eye. But he, in turn, credits Jack
with having done incalculably much toward bringing the splendid Club
into existence, by his article on surf-board riding, “A Royal Sport.”
Largely on the strength of the interest it aroused, Mr. Ford had been
enabled to keep his word to Jack that he would make surf-boarding one of
the most popular pastimes in Hawaii. Upon his representations the Queen
Emma estate, at a lease of a few dollars a year to be contributed to the
Queen’s Hospital, which her Majesty had established, had set aside for
the Club’s use this acre of ground, which, with the revival of
surf-boarding, was now become almost priceless.
Queen Emma was the wife of Kamehameha IV, mother of the beautiful
“Prince of Hawaii,” who died in childhood, herself granddaughter of John
Young, and adopted daughter of an English physician, Dr. Rooke, who had
married her aunt, Kamaikui. The Queen owned this part of the Beach, from
which her own royal canoes were launched in the good old days, and where
she also used the surf-board.
“Her estate holds this land,” Ford had said in 1907, “and I’m going to
secure it for a Canoe Club. I don’t know how; but I’m just going to.”
Honolulu had of course altered, and grown. New streets, like this our
Beach Walk, had been laid on filled marshlands at Waikiki, and bordered
with bungalows set in unfenced lawns, while the lilied area of
duck-ponds along Kalakaua Avenue had shrunken to the same populous end.
Beyond the Moana, Heinie’s, an open-air café chantant—and
dansant—beguiled the up-to-date residents and tourists, and a
roof-garden, with like facilities, was bruited for the Alexander Young.
The Country Club, out Nuuanu, boasted what we heard many a mainlander
term “the finest golf-links anywhere.” Diamond Head’s rosy cradle had
become unapproachable as a heavily fortified military position.
Residential districts of beautiful homes had extended well into the
valleys; some of the vernal ridges of Honolulu’s background had
blossomed into alluring building-sites, such as Pacific Heights; and
Tantalus was developing its possibilities. Kaimuki, on the rolling
midlands beyond Kapiolani Park, formed quite a little city by itself.
Kaimuki’s red lands, on the side of the gentle, seaward-tipped bowl that
holds Honolulu, seemed always to be brushed by the raveled ends of
rainbow-opal scarves. Never in the minds of living men, due to the
continuous storms that year, were there such rainbows over Oahu. We lay,
Jack and I, floating on the green hills of water beyond the inshore
surges, and bathed our very souls in heavenly color. To mauka, out of
deep blue skies pearled with magnificent clouds, out of the warm
palpitant chaos of reflected sunset over against the eastern mountains,
came the miracle, the rainbows, formless, generous, streaming banners of
immaterial, loosely-banded colors, frayed with melting jewels that
softly drenched the ruby and emerald vale and foothills. If I should
have to live in a house for the rest of my days, I should call upon my
memory of Oahu’s rainbow-tapestried skies, and dwell within that memory.
* * * * *
Automobile traffic had drawn the island closer together, and a drive
around Oahu, by the route we had formerly traveled, was more often
accomplished in one day. Once we spent a night on Kahuku Plantation, and
visited the huge Marconi Wireless Station near by. Our return to
Honolulu was made by way of the railroad around the extreme western end
of the island. This trip should not be missed, for it shows a remarkable
coast line, and splendid valleys of the mountain ranges, on the slopes
of which one may still see the ruins of stone walls and habitations of
long-dead generations. Automobile picnics from Diamond Head to Koko
Head, and others over the Nuuanu Pali to points on the eastern shore,
like Kailua and Waimanalo bays, together with a visit to Kaneohe Bay and
its wondrous coral gardens, with swimming and sailing in pea-green water
over jet-black volcanic sands, nearly completes the circuit one may make
of this protean isle.
That summer of 1915, during a warm spell in town, bag and baggage we
moved for a week to the little hotel at Kaneohe Bay. Each time we
emerged over the Pali into the valley of the Mirrored Mountains, Jack
would exclaim at the vast pineapple planting that had flowed over the
carmine hillocks below. Instead of bemoaning this encroachment of man
upon the natural beauty of the landscape, Jack hailed it with acclaim.
To those who deprecated the invasion he would cry:
“I love to see the good rich earth being made to work, to produce more
and better food for man. There is always plenty of untouched wild that
will not produce food. Every time I open up a new field to the sun on
the ranch, there is a hullabaloo about the spoiling of natural beauty.
Meantime, I am raising beautiful crops to build up beautiful
draft-animals and cattle—improving, improving, trying to help the
failures among farmers to succeed. _And_, don’t you see? don’t you
see?—there’s always plenty of wild up back. To me the change is from
one beauty to another; and the other, in turn, goes to make further
beauty of animal life, and more abundance for man.”
Indeed, from its small beginnings of but a few years before, the
pineapple industry had risen to the second in importance in the Islands,
giving place only to sugar. The exported product alone, for 1914, had
been valued at $6,000,000.00.[10]
Mr. Thurston took us horseback on one of the most interesting and least
known jaunts on Oahu. From Kaneohe we held east a quarter-mile to the
sandy mouth of the Kaneohe River, across a spit of mountain-washed
debris, through abandoned fishing villages and little tufts of groves;
thence along an arm of the bay, outside the ancient barrier of a fish
pond nearly half a mile in diameter, where the tide washed our horses’
flanks.
We attained to a plain partially covered with sand and sand hills
drifted up out of the ocean, and rode upon a dead coral bed formerly
undersea, which had been elevated several feet by volcanic action.
Northwest to the point at the entrance to Kaneohe Bay, from a small
fishing village we climbed a low cone to see the ruins of an old heiau,
where some seventy years ago a church was erected by the pioneer
Catholics. It is now in ruins, for the inhabitants, numbering several
hundreds, have passed away. The pathetic remains of their little rocky
homes can still be seen scattered about the slopes of the green hills
and upon surrounding levels, where plover run, with skylarks soaring
overhead. And for the first time in our lives, in this lonely deserted
spot we listened to the celestial caroling of those lovely flying
organisms, English skylarks, which our old friend, Governor Cleghorn,
now dead, first imported from New Zealand. Ainahau, auwe and ever auwe,
had been broken up into town lots, and was become the site of a
boarding-house! Never, once, did Jack or I, in passing along Kalakaua
Avenue, glance that way. Too sorrowful and indignant we were, that the
home of Likelike and Kaiulani should not have been held inviolate. A
distinguished architect, later passing through Honolulu, complained:
“One thing regarding Honolulu I would say is damnable: that is the
three-deck tenement on part of the old gardens of the Princess Kaiulani
at Ainahau. This three-deck fills me with amazement, disgust and
apprehension. This class of construction is not desirable under any
consideration and should be stopped in this extraordinarily beautiful
city.” He went on to say: “During my drive around the Island I came to
the belief, after a matter of conclusion extending over thirty-five
years of travel in Europe and Asia, that the Island of Oahu is the most
beautiful place on earth. You have here the home of absolute beauty, and
you should conserve it.”
On the seashore, inside a glorious surf, in view of Namoku manu, or Bird
Islands, where we could see myriad seabirds nesting and flying about in
clouds, we lunched under grotesque lava rocks, carved by the seas of
ages; and Jack and I studied the green and turquoise rollers that
thundered close, driven by the full power of the trans-Pacific swell,
figuring how we should comport ourselves in such waters if ever we
should be spilled therein. Again in the saddle, we let the horses run
wild over a continuous, broad sand-beach, for a mile and a half; to our
right a line of glaring sand hills, called Heleloa. Mounting these,
Kakina led us to the battle field of a century before, where the Mauis,
landing, had fought with the Oahus. The winds had uncovered a scattering
of bleached bones, whiter than the white sand, and we found one perfect
jawbone, larger than Jack’s, with several undecayed molars firm in their
sockets, and, curiously enough, no provision for “wisdom teeth.”
Near the shore at one point we turned aside and dismounted to hunt for
land-shells in the bank of a small gulch. For Lorrin A. Thurston was
become a land-shell enthusiast, and by now had, by personal searching,
amassed a fascinating collection of over 200 varieties, laid out like
jewels in shallow, velvet-lined drawers.
Following the northerly shore of Mokapu Point, the trail mounted the
outer shell of the little mountain, until, entering at the open south
side, we were in a half-crater where cattle and horses grazed. Tying our
animals, we lay heads-over the sea wall of the broken bowl, looking down
and under, two hundred feet and more—“Kahekili’s Leap”—where the ocean
surged against the forbidding cliff, from which our scrutiny frightened
nesting seabirds.
So far, we have met no one who has taken this journey of a day; but it
is easily accessible and more than worth while. Nothing can surpass the
view one has of the blue Pacific, white-threshed by the glorious trade
wind; and the prospect, landward to the Mirrored Mountains, is
indescribably uplifting.
Returning to Honolulu by motor a few days later, after heavy rains, we
thrilled to the sight of those same mountains curtained with rainbowed
waterfalls. Once in the pass, the mighty draft of the trades revealed
fresh cataracts behind torn cloud-masses, and looped and dissipated them
before ever they could reach the bases of the dark-green palisades.
One of the most attractive means of recreation here is under the
auspices of the Trail and Mountain Club of Hawaii, founded by Alexander
Hume Ford. It is allied with the local activities of the Pan-Pacific
Union, and associated with the American Mountaineer Club of North
America, central information offices in New York City. It is proposed to
establish a center of information in Honolulu, to act as a clearing
house so that a member of one Pacific outing club may automatically
become a visiting member of any other similar Pacific organization,
should he travel in other lands than his own. Mr. Ford pursues a
commendable if rather startling course in promoting this branch of his
work for the Islands. When a new trail is required, it is projected,
named for some citizen of means, who is then notified that it will be
his duty to bear the expense of building. Once completed, the Club keeps
the trail in order, the actual labor being done by the Boy Scouts, who
are advised which particular patriotic member of society will pay them
for their work. It is understood that the money goes toward the
equipment expenses of the Scout troop which clears the path and puts it
in order.
The outcome of all this agitation is that there are scores of different
mountain trails on the island of Oahu alone. Officers of the project
have spent thousands of dollars in erecting rest-houses, some of which,
as on the rim of Haleakala, contain bunks and camp accommodations. Mr.
Ford explains his method of drafting money and personal interest by the
fact that the Club’s annual dues of $5.00 are not adequate for its
upkeep and expansion, and so well has he presented his arguments that
his fellow citizens are convinced of the worth to the territory of his
unremitting drive to open up the lofty wonders of its interior to the
world at large.
Auto buses are used to transport hikers to points from which they may
radiate into the fastnesses, and steamers are sometimes chartered to
convey them to other islands, as say to a strategic harbor for the
reaching of Haleakala’s crater.
Occasionally a patron of the Club, alive to the opportunity for
increased health, mentally and physically, in a latitude wherein the
sea-level climate does not induce muscular effort except for water
sports, places funds at the disposal of the officers. And it may be the
Chinese, Filipino, or Japanese branch of the organization that is eager
to cut the trail. The animating spirit among these inter-racial limbs of
the body proper is one of mutual service.
The Associated Outing Clubs of Hawaii have selected Haleiwa—Waialua—as
the location for the first of their rest houses. To the dabblers in
sugar stocks, I have it from Mr. Ford, Haleiwa means little, and Waialua
everything. For Waialua means “two waters,” and the length of the
streams of Oahu that pour from the mountains to the sea at Waialua
spells millions of dividends; for here there is never a drought. So, to
the kamaaina Haleiwa is Waialua. He loves both. Waialua dividends make
Haleiwa, “House Beautiful,” week ends possible for him. On the bank of
the Anahula river, that flows into the sea near by, where the swimming
is so fine, there is left a wing of the old Emerson homestead, built of
coral in a grove of breadfruit. This has been secured by the Outing
Clubs to fit up for a camping place; and none lovelier can be imagined.
A fleet of canoes will be maintained upon the river. At the head of
navigation are the rapids where the natives net the _opae_ which they
use for bait in the ocean a few hundred yards away.
From Waialua there are splendid motor trips. One in especial leads
uphill at an unvarying five per cent grade through canefields to
Opaeula, nearly 2000 feet above the sea on the edge of a great canyon,
in the bottom of which there is a well-ordered rest-house in a tropical
grove by a large natural swimming pool. From this point one may follow
the well-cut ditch trails into the heart of the range. And this is but a
sample of the opportunities offered the visitor to Oahu and its
neighboring isles.
One evening we became acquainted with Colonel and Mrs. C. P. Iaukea,
part-Hawaiian, and looking aristocrats to their finger tips. He had been
Chamberlain to King Kalakaua, and accompanied Kalakaua’s queen Kapiolani
(probably named after the illustrious defier of Pélé), to London at the
time of Queen Victoria’s Jubilee. At present Colonel Iaukea is one of
the trustees of Liliuokalani’s estate. He stated that the Queen had
expressed a wish to meet London, and Jack, pleased that the meeting
should come about in this way, arranged to be present at a private
audience the following Thursday, March 11.
The Royal Hawaiian Band, conducted by the venerable Henri Berger, now in
his seventy-first year, after forty years’ conducting, was in full
attendance in the Queen’s Gardens at Washington Place, which, in this
city of notable gardens, is cited as the finest. Berger, owing to age
and failing health, was later retired upon a pension, and has since
died.
The dignified white mansion is as beautiful in its own way as the
gardens, and tastefully tropical, surrounded as it is by broad lanais,
with large pillars, supporting the roof in Southern colonial style. As
one Kamaaina has it: “The whole has an air of retirement expressive of
the attitude of the Queen herself.”
On the columned veranda, robed in black holoku, tender old hands folded
in her silken lap, Her Majesty sat in a large armchair, at her back
certain faithful ladies—Mrs. Dominis, wife of Aimoku Dominis, the
Queen’s ward, with her cherubic little son; Mrs. Irene Kahalelaukoa Ii
Holloway; and Mrs. Iaukea, all of them solicitous of their Queen’s every
word and gesture. Their veneration is a touching link to the close and
vivid past.
Liliuokalani’s fine face, as we saw it that day, was calm and lovable,
as if a soothing hand had but lately passed over it.[11] She raised
quiet, searching eyes, and upon Colonel Iaukea’s introduction, smiled
and extended her hand, which it is the custom to kiss, and which we
saluted right gladly. A few low-voiced questions and answers concerning
work Jack had done on Hawaii; the listening to a number or two from the
Band; and we were free to wander among the treasures of the house, than
which are no better specimens of royal insignia outside the Museum. At
length, Hawaii’s National Anthem, rising from under the palms, brought
us all to the lanai again, where the men stood uncovered.
Queen Liliuokalani’s own book, “Hawaii’s Story, by Hawaii’s Queen,”
published in 1906, by John Murray, London, should be read not only for
her viewpoint, but also because it is piquantly entertaining in its
lighter humors, and her naive descriptions of travel and characters in
the United States and England are delicious.
Returning from a luncheon given by that vital institution, the Honolulu
Ad Club, Jack burst into the house:
“Guess whom I met today! Two men, both of whom you have known, one here
and one in Samoa—and now risen to different positions and titles. I
give you three chances. Bet you ‘even money’ you couldn’t guess in a
thousand years.”
That was “easy money” for him, and I threw up my hands. Our fearless old
friend, Lucius E. Pinkham, once president of the Board of Health, was
now become Governor of the Territory of Hawaii, appointed in 1913 by
President Wilson, for a term of four years; and the other we had known
in Tahiti and Pago-Pago, C. B. T. Moore, erstwhile Governor at the
latter American port, and Captain of the _Annapolis_, now Rear Admiral,
stationed at Pearl Harbor. Later we exchanged visits with Admiral and
Mrs. Moore, and colorful were our reminiscences of days and nights under
the Southern Cross.
It would require a book in itself to tell of the revolutionary
alterations in Pearl Lochs, now possessed of all the circumstance of a
thoroughgoing naval station. On September 28, 1917, the Pearl Harbor
Radio Station was formally opened. In 1919, the drydock was completed,
at a cost exceeding $5,000,000.00. The opening was attended by the
Secretary of the Navy.
As for the old Elysian acre, we were informed it had changed hands and
the bungalow had been replaced by a more ambitious one. It would be
difficult to express why we never went back. Perhaps it had been a
perfect thing in itself, that experience, finished and laid aside in
heart’s lavender.
So much, briefly, for naval activity on Oahu. As for the Army, in
addition to the older forts, and the new fortifications on Diamond Head,
Schofield Barracks had sprung up, a city in itself, over against the
Waianae Mountains on the table-land, and we could hardly believe our
eyes, motoring from Haleiwa Hotel by way of Pearl Harbor, when they
rested on the modern military post that spread over the grassy plain to
the mountain slopes. Oahu, as if overnight, had become the largest
military station of the United States.
* * * * *
One Sunday we spent outside Honolulu Harbor on the famous racing yacht,
_Hawaii_; and in our hearts and on our lips was the wish that again we
were “down, hull down on the old trail,” with a hail and farewell to
every glamorous link of the _Snark’s_ golden chain of ports, thence on
and on through the years, from the Solomon Isles to the Orient, beyond
to the seas and inland waterways of Europe. “You never did gather all
that lapful of pearls I promised you,” Jack mused regretfully.
Four days after this yachting party, Honolulu and the rest of the Union
shuddered to the loss of the Submarine F-4. They went out merrily in the
morning—F-l, F-2, F-3, F-4—and all emerged but the last. For weeks and
months, during the work of raising, under supervision of the U. S. S.
_Maryland_, Captain Kittelle, there was a subtle gloom over the gayest
life of the capital. Outside the Harbor channel, where the submarine had
eventually slipped off coral bottom into deep ocean, from steamer and
sailer, canoe and fishing boat and yacht that passed in or out, leis
were dropped upon the mournful waters.
With the incursion of gasolene-driven craft and vehicle, the old-time
yachting has nearly lapsed. No more does one see the racing fleets
outside the reef. One can only hope that the matchless sport will be
revived.
Upon the Beach at Waikiki it was seldom we missed the long afternoon.
“I’m glad we’re here _now_,” Jack would ruminate; “for some day Waikiki
Beach is going to be the scene of one long hotel. And wonderful as it
will be, I can’t help clinging, for once, to an old idea.”
Under the high lanai of the Outrigger, we lay in the cool sand between
canoes and read aloud, napped, talked, or visited with the delightful
inhabitants of the charmed strand, until ready to swim in the later
afternoon. One special diversion was to watch several Hawaiian youths,
the unsurpassed Duke Kahanamoku among them, performing athletic stunts
in water and out. And that sturdy little American girl, Ruth Stacker,
with records of her own, could be seen instructing her pupils in the
wahine surf. George Freeth, we heard, was teaching swimming and
surf-boarding in Southern California. Our own swims became longer from
day to day. Still inside the barrier reef, through the breakers we would
work, emerging with back-flung hair on their climbing backs while they
roared shoreward. Beyond the combing crests, in deeper water above the
coral that we could see gleaming underfoot in the sunshafts, lazily we
would tread the bubbling brine or lie floating restfully, almost
ethereally, on the heaving warm surface, conversing sometimes most
solemnly in the isolated space between sky and solid earth.
The newest brood of surf-boarders had learned and put into practice
angles never dreamed of a decade earlier. Now, instead of always
coasting at right-angles to the wave, young Lorrin P. Thurston and the
half-dozen who shared with him the reputation of being the most skilled
would often be seen erect on boards that their feet and balance guided
at astonishing slants. Surf-boarding had indeed come into its own. And
it never seems to pall. Its devotees, as long as boards and surf are
accessible, show up every afternoon of their lives on the Beach at
Waikiki. When a youth must depart for eastern college-life, his keenest
regret is for the loss of Waikiki and all it means of godlike conquest
of the “bull-mouthed breakers.” No athletic-field dream quite
compensates. Surfing remains the king of sports. Young Lorrin, indeed,
at Yale, has captained his swimming team, the fastest that college has
ever put out in the east, to more than one world’s record and several
intercollegiate ones.
* * * * *
One night in early May, Mayor John C. Lane of Honolulu gave a great luau
in Kapiolani Park, where some fifteen hundred sat under a vast tent-roof
and listened to the flowery eloquence of Senators and Congressmen from
Washington. And it was to the venerable but sprightly “Uncle Joe” Cannon
we awarded the triumphal palm for the most sensible, logical
speechifying of the event. This magnificent luau, presided over by the
handsome Mayor, surpassed any in our experience the South Seas over.
“Mayor Lane ought to be re-elected indefinitely,” Jack would say, “to do
the honors of his office!”
The following day we sailed from Honolulu for Hawaii, but on separate
ships. The _Mauna Kea_ was chartered to take the Congressional party
junketing about the Islands, and Jack was bidden to be one of the
Entertainment Committee. Owing to the fact that the _Mauna Kea_ was full
to overflowing, so that many of the Committee bunked on deck, we
resident wives were blandly uninvited. But I, through a timely
invitation from the Big Island, was enabled to come in contact with the
august picnic party.
And so, with “_Aloha nui oe_” one to the other, Jack saw me off for Hilo
on the _Kilauea_, sister of the smart _Mauna Kea_, while twelve hours
later he was headed for Maui. My roommate on the crowded steamer was an
Englishwoman, busily knitting socks for her brothers fighting in France.
She told me how her husband, who had worked on the _Snark’s_ machinery
eight years before, when confronted with difficult or unsurmountable
obstacles or problems, had ever since declared: “This is as hard as
repairing Jack London’s engines!”
On Maui, Jack became much interested in the experiment that had been
made in small homesteading on government land; but he did not foresee
success in the venture. “You can’t turn the clock back,” he said. But
his reasons for his opinion in the matter are set forth in “My Hawaiian
Aloha,” his own articles which preface this book of mine.
And so I next saw Jack at Napoopoo, on Kealakekua Bay, with the Blue
Flush for background, and we agreed warmly that never anywhere had we
seen anything like it, and nothing to surpass. Here the Congressional
party disembarked to see the Cook Monument, and from Napoopoo were
whirled south and around through the Kau District, over a new, lava
highway, to the Volcano House. It was during this day’s ride, at
luncheon by the way, that the wires flashed to us the stunning news of
the sinking of the _Lusitania_, and a stricken look was upon the faces
of all for a time.
The machine carried a full and very jolly cargo back to Pahoa on the
Puna coast, for in addition to its driver, the exuberant Colonel, and us
two, there were Senator and Mrs. Warren, Mr. Roderick O. Matheson, long
a figure as editor of Kakina’s paper, and “Bob” Breckons, Hawaii’s
brilliant attorney and a unique personage in Islands affairs.
Again on the sulphurous brink of Halemaumau, Jack, who cared
comparatively little for spectacles of this ilk, remarked to me after a
long gazing silence at the increased flow and disturbance of the
mountain’s internal forces:
“I’m coming personally to understand your fondness for volcanoes—I
myself am getting the volcanic habit. I shall come here every time there
is a chance; and in future, if this pot boils up and threatens to boil
over, and we’re in California, we’ll take the first steamer down to see
it!”
The fame of Mrs. Johnson’s house party the next twenty-four hours, given
to her allotment of members of the junketing crowd and their
Entertainment Committee, is still talked in Hawaii. Among others from
Washington, besides Senator and Mrs. Warren, there were Senator and Mrs.
Shafroth and Mrs. Hamilton Lewis. Our two steamers arrived back in
Honolulu within an hour of each other. Mr. Thurston, who was aboard
mine, carried me up Nuuanu for breakfast on the well-remembered and
ideal lanai over the rocky stream; and I was led down into a magnificent
fernery connected to the lanai, roofed over a grotto hewn in great
bowlders on which the house rests—delightful and feasible arrangement
which I can well recommend to new residents. While still at breakfast,
we spied the _Mauna Kea_ entering harbor from Kauai 90 miles away, and a
taxicab delivered me on the dock exactly as my man, beaming at my
precise calculation, descended the gangway.
Shall I ever see Kauai? I had planned to do so; for this 1915 visit to
Hawaii I had expected to make alone, returning with my cousin. Meanwhile
Jack, for an eastern weekly, was to sail on a battleship with President
Wilson, attended by the Atlantic Fleet, through the Panama Canal to the
Exposition at San Francisco. But Jack repeatedly complained: “If you
knew how _much_ I’d rather go to Hawaii—but I need the money, if I’m to
carry out my schemes on the ranch!”
The official cruise being abandoned on account of war developments, he
contentedly declared:
“_Now_ I can go to Hawaii with you for a few weeks. And I’ll write a new
dog book while I’m there. And we’ll see Kauai, too.”
The few weeks became five months, and “Jerry of the Islands” was begun
and finished, to be followed by “Michael, Brother of Jerry.”
So it came to pass that Jack alone of our small family saw Kauai, the
“Garden Isle,” with its exquisite Hanalei Valley and bay, one of the
most beautiful in Hawaii; and Waimea Canyon, which he said beggared
description in grandeur and coloring, only comparable with the Grand
Canyon of Colorado. Jack came back promising that next trip to the
Islands we should together visit Kauai.
The president of the Board of Health, Dr. John S. B. Pratt, being absent
from the Territory, Governor Pinkham, always full of aloha toward us,
sent to Mr. D. S. Bowman, Acting, his earnest kokua (recommendation)
that we be granted a permit to revisit the Leper Settlement. We had long
since heard from Jack McVeigh, who affectionately assured us of his
personal welcome. He had lately asked Jack to give a lecture in
Honolulu, the proceeds to be applied toward erecting a new
motion-picture theater at Kalaupapa; but shortly the means came from
some other source, and the lecture did not take place.
Jack always disliked repeating even the most desired experience in
exactly the same manner; so this time, for the sake of variety, we were
to _descend_ the Molokai Pali. To this end, we landed from the
_Likelike_ one midnight, bag and saddle, at Kaunakakai, where waited
Henry Ma, a wizzled, clever little old Hawaiian, sent all the way from
Kalaupapa with horses. Miss Myers, a sister of Kalama of hearty memory,
going home from Honolulu, accompanied us up-mountain.
[Illustration: (1) Jack and Charmion London, Waikiki. (2) A Race around
Oahu. (3) Sailor Jack Aboard the Hawaii. (4) Pá-u-Rider.]
Thus, under a full moon, we retraced the road descended eight years
earlier in the heat of midday. The moonlight bewitched the remembered
landscape, and silvered the receding ocean floor; and very tenuous and
unreal it all seemed, as the eager horses forged lightly up, mile upon
inclining mile, into chill air, for which I, for one, was unprepared. To
Jack’s insistence that I wear his coat I refused to listen, until,
riding alongside, he pressed his warm hands to my cheek. “See—how warm
I am—you know _me_!” His circulation was always of the best, and never
have I known his hands to be cold. Even on frosty days, tobogganing or
sleighing, or long, damp hours at the _Roamer’s_ winter wheel up the
Sacramento or San Joaquin rivers, it was the same; “See—how warm my
hands are!”
Ten very short miles to ourselves and the home-bound animals lay behind
when we-reached the Myers’ house-gate. I shall always blame-sweet
Hawaiian backwardness that set a silence upon Kalama’s red lips. No word
she spoke except “Aloha,” as smiling she led the flagged way to the
guest-cottage. And how were we to know that this imperial-bodied,
full-blossomed Juno was molded on the frame of that tall, slim,
strapping cow-girl we had met nearly ten years ago? There was something
only vaguely familiar about her, and I dared to ask: “We knew you here
before?” Oh, shades of night, protect and hide! “Why, yes,” quietly, “I
am Kalama—don’t you remember?” Kalama! Kalama! Will you ever forgive?
Why were you so gorgeously, amply different that we knew you not?
“Do you know where you are?” this, when, after three hours’ sleep, Henry
Ma had tapped upon the begonia-screened window, and we had breakfasted
and mounted and were galloping over green pastures to Molokai’s great
falling-off place. Almost, as one hesitates to unlock a long-sealed box
of letters and pictures, I drew back from the imminent verge. How I
should like to have been the first who ever came suddenly upon this
unexpected void of disaster and gazed upon the incredible lapse of the
world below! We had yet to search for its equal.
A very different trail from the one we had never forgotten was that we
now descended—wider, and so depressed in the middle that the earth was
raised at the outer edge. Man nor beast could fall off the palisade
except he went out of his way to do so. But the action of water had on
the steepest declivities exposed large bowlders that were exceeding
disconcerting to horse and rider. Still hanging with hind-hoofs, while
feeling below with fore-, a grunt from the cheerfully alert buckskin
pony would advertise that its unprotected belly had come in contact or
impact with an equally rounded if less yielding object. Several times
our saddles slipped so far over-neck that the beasts almost overbalanced
to a somersault.
“It would be far simpler to walk and lead them,” Jack giggled. “But I
rode up the trail without getting off, and I’m going down the damned
thing the same way! What do you say?” And we did not dismount, save when
necessary to set back our saddles.
Once at the doubly luxuriant kukui cluster at the feet of the pali, we
saw a rider urging his flying steed in our direction—Jack McVeigh,
could it be? It was; and the handclasp and voice were the same, if more
than ever cordial. One of the first remarks was: “I wish you were going
to be here for the Fourth. We’re going to whoop it up in grander style
than ever. The Fourth you saw won’t be a patch on what’s going to happen
this time.”
Dr. Will Goodhue, a little heavier, and if anything more benign if that
could be, with his beautiful Madonna, in her arms their newest babe,
waited at the arbored gate to welcome us of the wayward feet. Dr.
Hollmann was now with the indefatigable Dr. George W. McCoy, at the
Kalihi Receiving Station in Honolulu, where subsequently we renewed
acquaintance.
The huge Belgian dairyman of old memory, good Van Lil, now a patient,
had married another, and the pair lived happily in a vine-hidden cottage
near Kalawao, making the most of their remaining time on earth. Beyond a
fleeting embarrassment in his vague blue eye, he met us on the Damien
Road with the undimmed buoyancy of other years, and our eyes could see
no blemish on his face. Probably we were the more affected, for in the
main the victim of leprosy is as optimistic as he of the White Plague.
Emil Van Lil was not the only one whom we saw who had perforce changed
his status toward society in the intervening eight years. The little
mail-carrier who had led us up out of the Settlement, we found in the
Bay View Home, cheerful as of yore, though far gone with the malefic
blight. And, auwe!—some of the men and women we had known here before
as extreme cases still lingered, sightless perhaps, but trying to smile
with what was left of their contorted visages, in recognition of our
voices. Others, whose closing throats had smothered them, breathed
through silver tubes in their windpipes. Strange is this will to
persist—tenacity of life!
To light the almost desperate gloom of pity that could not but overwhelm
me, Jack, with the shadow on his bright face too often there since the
Great War commenced, said:
“Dear child—awful it is; but awful as it is, think of how thousands of
healthy, beautiful human beings are making one another look in the
shambles of civilized Europe right now while we stand here looking at
these.”
Annie Kekoa, we were cheered to hear, had been discharged years before,
all tests having failed to locate further evidence in her of the
_bacillus lepræ_. Its depredations had ceased with her slightly twisted
hand.
With pardonable pride the Superintendent showed us through the new
“McVeigh Home,” for white lepers; and next forenoon, while Jack finished
writing a chapter of “Jerry,” I visited the Nursery, also new. There
behind glass, mothers may see their babes once a week until the tiny
things are removed to the Detention Home in Honolulu. Born as they are
“clean” of the disease, they are taken from their mothers immediately
after birth, since further contact is a peril most strictly to be
avoided.
Probably not one remained of the Bishop Home girls who had wrung our
souls with their plaintive singing; but for Mother Marianne, wraith-like
in her frail transparency, with blessings in her blue-veined hands and
old eyes that seemed to look through and beyond us, we endured, as in
the past, a concert. And it was no easier for them and for us than it
had been for us and those who had gone before. Again were the tender
things more sorrowful for my unconcealable grief than for their own.
But facts are facts, and joyous ones must overbalance the sorrowful. By
stern and sterner segregation, as was done in Europe, leprosy is slowly
being stamped out of the Hawaiian Islands. Eight years before, on
Molokai, there were nearly a thousand lepers, and the _Noeau_ made four
yearly trips to carry the apprehended victims of the Territory; now
there are a trifle over six hundred, and but one human cargo in the
twelve months disembarks at Kalaupapa. This diminution of roughly thirty
per cent of patients led Jack to prognosticate that fifty years hence
the good rich acres of the Molokai Peninsula will be clean farmland for
the clean, and moreover an accessible and unparalleled scenic wonder for
the travelers of the world.
“I am happier about this place than I ever hoped to be,” he imparted to
me. “Oh, don’t think for a moment that I minimize the dreadfulness of
leprosy. But I am certain now of the passing of it, if the Islands
persist in this rigid segregation.”
Jack ever stood reverent before the beyond-price work of Dr. Will
Goodhue toward freeing the inhabitants of the Settlement from their
thrall. Let me quote from his article, requested by the _Advertiser_
upon our return to Honolulu:
“I insist that I must take my hat off in salute to two great,
courageous, noble men: Jack McVeigh ... and Dr. Will Goodhue...
My pride is to say that I have had the vast good fortune to know
two such men. McVeigh, sitting tight on the purse-strings of the
one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year appropriated by
the Territory, sitting up nights as well, begging money from his
friends to do additional things for the Settlement over and
beyond what the Territory finds itself able to-day to
appropriate, is the one man in the Territory to-day who could
not be replaced by any other man in his job. Dr. Goodhue, the
pioneer of leprosy surgery, is a hero who should receive every
medal that every individual and every country has ever awarded
for courage and life-saving... I know of no other place, lazar
house or settlement, in the world, where the surgical work is
being performed that Dr. Goodhue performs daily... I have seen
him take a patient, who, in any other settlement or lazar house
in the world, would from the complications of the disease die
horribly in a week, or two weeks or three ... and give it life,
not for weeks, not for months, but for years and years, to the
rounded ripeness of three score and ten, and give to it thereby
the sun, the ever changing beauty of the Pali, the eternal wine
of wind of the northeast trades, the body-comfort, the
brain-quickness, the love of man and woman—in short, all the
bribes and compensations of existence.”
But that is not all. Jack London’s hopeful prophecy did not take into
account the discovery of a positive cure for leprosy. Alas, that he
could not have read with me the glad, almost incredible tidings that
meet my eyes in newspaper and periodical. The latest is a quotation from
the lips of Dr. William J. Goodhue himself, speaking to members of the
legislature visiting Kalaupapa in 1921. Said he:
“With two years’ chaulmoogra oil treatment, I believe sixty-five per
cent of the chronic cases of leprosy on Molokai can be cured.” And
within ten years, he added, all cases should be cured, and Kalaupapa be
abandoned as a leper settlement. That same day, Dr. F. E. Trotter,
president of the territorial board of health, announced to the lepers
assembled in their amusement hall, that within a period of two years
probably not twenty-five of their number would be compelled to stay on
Molokai.
The feelings of those in the audience undoubtedly varied. To the
majority, the hope held out for a return to the outside world must have
been received with solemn thanksgiving; but there were some, I am sure,
who, suffering little, have been happy in the harmoniousness of life on
the peninsula, and who look with dismay upon being torn from its care
and kindness.
The astounding revelation, after many centuries, is based upon results
obtained at Kalihi, under Dr. J. T. McDonald, Director Leprosy
Investigation Station, from the use of chaulmoogra oil. The history is
brief. In 1918, the distinguished chemist, Dr. Arthur L. Dean, president
of the University of Hawaii, and head of its chemistry department, was
asked by the United States Public Health Service to add to the college
research work some scientific problems in relation to chaulmoogra oil,
which had enjoyed a good reputation with experimenters in different
parts of the world. Chaulmoogra, according to my Standard Dictionary, is
an East-Indian tree (Gynocardia odorata) of the Indian plum family, with
a succulent fruit yielding a fixed oil.
It seems that the ethyl esters of the fatty acids of the oil had been
reported by observers elsewhere to be ineffective on leprosy. Dr. Dean,
however, succeeded in producing a form of that derivative of the oil,
which in its curative effects on the patients of Kalihi Hospital has
surpassed, so far as known, anything ever attained in the line of
leprosy therapy.
It was in the beginning of the reign of Kamehameha V, Prince Lot, that
compulsory segregation was established by law and the process of
isolation commenced. And now, over half a century later, in no equal
period of the history of segregation in the Hawaiian Islands have there
been so many voluntary surrenders as since the “Dean Cure” has been
known to make headway. Not only have adults asked to be taken for
treatment, but children have been brought freely as soon as the nature
of their disease was guessed by parents and guardians. This is in
striking contrast to the necessity in past years of arresting suspected
lepers through deputy sheriffs.
The Kalihi Station is flooded with letters from all over the world,
requesting its remedies. The reply must perforce be that these are still
of an experimental nature, and not yet commercially available; also that
they are for hospital treatment, where the patient is under observation;
that they do not lend themselves to the practice even of the family
physician; and that they are impossible of self-administration.
Dr. Goodhue is using Dr. Dean’s derivatives of chaulmoogra oil at
Kalaupapa; and out of the five hundred and twelve patients, one hundred
and seventy-five have been taking regular treatment. Lack of oil is the
sole reason that all were not sharing in the capsules or the hypodermic
injections; but a full supply has been promised. At the meeting in
Kalaupapa, above referred to, Senator L. M. Judd, commenting upon the
willingness of the legislature to do everything possible for the
patients, remarked that the board of health budget is larger in 1921
than the territorial budget was eight years ago. Dr. Dean, called to
speak, was not to be found in the hall. Summoned from outside, he spoke
briefly, saying that the laboratory of the University of Hawaii, its
force supplemented by workers furnished by the board of health, is
working to turn out the oil in sufficient quantities for all needs.
But it was our friend Charles F. Chillingworth, president of the senate,
who brought up the problem of finding homes for the patients who would
be paroled after they had made Kalaupapa their home for years. He
suggested the homesteading by them of lands on Molokai, and voiced his
intention of taking the question before the governor and the
legislature. The Hawaiian Annual, issued by the Hawaii Tourist Bureau,
and the yearly Report of the Governor of Hawaii, trace the progress of
the Cure.
For those who have been measurably happy on that verdant cape, and are
loth to bid it farewell, how ideal it would be if their homesteads
eventually could be chosen from its grasslands, and the yielding valleys
of the pali, no longer a barrier to outside intercourse.
But to return:
In a machine, by way of a new boulevard on the coast, we sped to
Kalawao, and saw the faithful Brother Dutton, alert as ever among his
pupils; then passed on to the imposing Federal Leprosarium on the
windswept shore in view of the lordly front of promontories with their
feet in the deep indigo sea. This Leprosarium had been built at a cost
of $300,000, and was now abandoned and falling into the swift decay of
disuse in the tropics. Such a Leprosarium was never known. Jack McVeigh
almost wept as he fingered the full equipment of blankets molding in
their original wrappings: the beds, the washstands, the endless costly
paraphernalia of a hospital, lying inutile and deteriorating, which he
was unable to put into needful circulation in the Settlement. Even the
fine dynamo, which a caretaker was paid to keep from rusting—“Think how
this could furnish my people with electricity!” he mourned. O red, red
tape—what a curious institution dost thou create!
Jack London very shortly got himself into trouble by airing his views in
the _Advertiser_, which stirred up a tidy tempest of protest in
Washington, D. C.; but he was, after much hot correspondence in the
press, the means of Jack McVeigh finally getting his selflessly covetous
hands on the outfit of the ambitious edifice.
Eight months after Jack’s death, the _Pacific Commercial Advertiser_
contained a column stating that the Federal Leprosarium would probably
be torn down and the material used for building cottages in the
Settlement, which, J. D. McVeigh is quoted as saying, “it would be a
God-send to secure.” In that column Jack London is mentioned as having
been first to suggest such action.
For some reason the edifice has not been touched; and I notice that Dr.
Goodhue in 1921, has offered to use it as a hospital for the treatment
of patients taking chaulmoogra oil.
By a strange fatality, writes Dr. J. T. McDonald in the Journal of the
American Medical Association, of the four principal scientists who have
resided and worked in the Settlement, three are dead. But not of the
disease which they were investigating. One succumbed to pneumonia, two
from nephritis. The fourth, Dr. George W. McCoy, is now director of the
Hygienic Laboratory at Washington.
Mr. Thurston had long planned a Japanese sampan trip from Honolulu to
the non-leper valleys of windward Molokai, which lie between those
stately promentories beyond Kalawao. And so, early on Sunday,
“Decoration Day,” according to prearrangement by wireless and telephoned
to the Settlement, a smart blue sampan hove in sight around the pali
headland, and lying off-shore sent in a coffin-shaped tender with an
alarming freeboard that made it appear topheavy. Kakina possessed no
permit and therefore did not so much as step on the Kalaupapa
breakwater-landing.
Aboard the outlandish power-boat, we found Mr. W. L. Emory, an architect
of Honolulu, and his son Kenneth, and, to our hearty delight, Mr. Jack
Atkinson, who had not yet decided whether or not he would be seasick. We
decided for him, if unwittingly. A rainbow-and-silver sickle of an aku,
bonita, was presently seen tripping the wave-tops at the end of the
Japanese sailors’ trolling-line. This, promptly dispatched and prepared
with Japanese soyu—to Jack and me more toothsome than any raw
oysters—proved the last straw, not to mix metaphors, to Mr. Atkinson’s
camel of control.
Oh, the rich life we lived on our _via regia_ of happiness! Here were we
again, in a small boat, sixty feet over all—“Only five feet longer than
the _Snark_, Mate-Woman!” running before the big coastwise seas that
heaved and broke in jeweled fountains almost over the fleeing stern.
Again the “stinging spindrift” was in our faces, and I could have cried
for joy at being on even so small a portion of “the trail that is always
new.”
Skirting the black lava-bound peninsula, with its combing surf, we were
soon in calmer water off the mouth of the riotous valley where we had
ridden that long-ago day, its walls rising thousands of feet into the
blue. It gave us an adventurous, alert feeling to skim the glassy swell
under those overtowering somber cliffs, in the passes between shore and
the three dark-green abrupt islets, fragments left from old convulsions
of the riven island. The largest, Mokapu, over a hundred feet high, is
crowned with mosses and shrubs, and a species of stunted palm tree found
nowhere else in the world save, perhaps, on Necker, another islet of
Hawaii.
The air rustled with wings, around and overhead, and Jack and I thrilled
again to the call of the bosun bird, koae, and watched rapt its flight,
high, high, and higher, above the pure white waterfalls that, spent in
the wind, never reached the sunshot dark-sapphire brine.
Two miles or so beyond the last valley we had known, the sampan rounded
into Pelekunu, unknown to the tourist, and visited by no one we had ever
met. No vessel can approach the beach of its U-shaped bay, which shelves
steeply out of deep water, bluer than the staring-blue sampan. “Why, the
valley ran into the ocean,” Kenneth observed.
No possible landing place could we detect, and followed the slant eyes
of the Nipponese skipper and his men while the oriental launch chugged
steadily into mid-bay, presently making in closer to the beetling cliff
on our right. A ledge of volcanic rock, jutting into the ocean-deep
water, was indicated as the landing; but slow-surges swept rhythmically
across it. “Can’t help being glad we know how to swim,” Jack remarked,
every sailor-sense of him on the _qui vive_. Our problem lay in gauging
the leap from the top-heavy marine coffin at the exact right moment.
Only in quiet weather can any sort of connection be effected. If it be a
trifle rougher than on this day, a basket on a derrick is lowered into
the boat for passengers to climb into.
I decided to try both ways, and, once safely on the ledge, indicated to
several native youngsters who had run the half mile from the village at
the head of the U, to send down the rattan car. Swinging up in the air,
the cable manipulated by two mere children, I had a decided if
precarious advantage over my companions who clutched their way up a long
vertical ladder.
Our slight luggage disappeared villageward in the arms of the natives,
and we followed at leisure the tropic trail. It is a story in itself,
that night and the next day in the isolate valley of Pelekunu. The sea,
and this at rare intervals, is its sole egress, except by way of a
precipitous trail that attains to a height of nearly 4500 feet, and it
is accessible only to those who have clinging abilities second to none
but wild goats. The few inhabitants, living in weather-grayed houses
almost as picturesque as their hereditary lauhala huts, welcomed us with
wide arms, and, like souls of grace we had known so sweetly in the South
Seas, gave us their best. A Hawaiian pastor and a Belgian priest vie in
kindness to their limited flocks, and all proffered us the freedom of
the place.
Up wet and steaming paths we strove through hot-house plants that shook
perfumed raindrops upon us, into the short, mounting vale; and I, while
the men went landshell-hunting with and for the eager Kakina, idled in
deep grass like that remembered of Iao and Tantalus. I tried hard to
realize the earthly actuality of this amphitheater of greenest green
swishing with water-courses and long falls, and the intense inshore
peacock-green of the precipitously walled bay, turning to intenser
peacock-blue outside, clear to the low white wool-packs on the intensest
indigo horizon.
“We’ll return here some day, when we needn’t hurry; and then we’ll go
into Wailau, too,” Jack, who had been especially happy on this little
side-voyage, endeavored to compensate my regret in passing the next
lovely rent in the shore Wailau, “four hundred water-falls”—lovely as
Pelekunu, with an almost impregnable partition between the two. What we
saw from the resumed sampan trip, young Kenneth Emory, in Ford’s
_Mid-Pacific Magazine_, later on described too happily to omit:
“With each revolution of the propeller, scenes were laid open
whose magnificence and beauty surpassed all that we thought
impossible to surpass the day before. A plateau three thousand
feet high and a mile long ended in one vast pali—cut down as if
by a knife. Waterfalls, peaceful vales, lagoons hidden under
dark caverns, tropical birds floating above, vines swaying in
the wind, every form and color of beauty lay revealed upon the
grand precipice above us.”
Some of the finest scenery in this island, Molokai nui a Hina, “The
Lonely Isle,” is to be found in the valley of Halawa. “The traveler,”
wrote “A Haole,” in 1854, “stumbled upon its brink unawares.” At a depth
of nearly twenty-five hundred feet below, there spreads out a panorama
of exquisite beauty. Several large cascades spring hundreds of feet into
the valley. These, and scores of taro beds, with a scattering of native
dwellings, can all be seen in a sweeping glance. “It seems,” the old
writer said, “as if one leap would lodge the visitor at the foot of the
enormous walls which bound this earthly Eden.”
He tells how the scenes in Pilgrim’s Progress had stayed in his
consciousness since childhood, and how that “matchless allegory” welled
up in memory as here on Molokai he came upon the Delectable Mountains,
and the Land of Beulah, and explored their wonders.
Halawa is little changed in this day, they say, and is quite accessible.
Hawaii is awakening to the possibilities of this island so little known
by travelers; and hotels are planned at strategic points to enable the
visitor to reach novel sights in the “Paradise of the Pacific” which
have so far been unheard-of. I, for one, shall make my pilgrimage to
that Molokai, I have not seen; and I shall tarry at leisure until I have
known it all.
A correspondent writes me from Pukoo, on the southeast rim of Molokai:
“I live here in my house by the sea, as isolated as if I were in Tonga.”
But the years are few ere “the horn of the hunter,” to say nothing of
the honk of the gas-car and the strident explosion of aeroplane enginery
will daily contest the supremacy of the birds in the utmost fastnesses.
Regretfully enough, one must remember that the swarming of the white
sojourners means the gradual disappearance of the last indigenes, until
now practically undisturbed in their lovely retreats on the edge of the
world, by the gruelling march of events outside in that world.
Next we voyaged to Maui. How strange to ascend Haleakala in an
automobile!—oh, not to the summit, but even to the Von Tempsky’s and
some miles above.
Kahului had fulfilled its promise and become a lively young town.
Wailuku remained as if unchangeably serene; and fabulous Iao transcended
all recollection of it. Then we heard the voices of the Vons over the
telephone from Wreath of Surf, Kaleinalu by the sea, and next from their
smart motor car—the same debonair Von, and the two elder girls grown to
splendid womanhood. Lorna, thirteen, brought up as a girl in Hawaii may
gloriously be, to the free life of saddle and range, could rope cattle
with the best. At the races in Kahului, we saw Jubilee’s colt, Wallaby,
carry off honors for Gwendolen.
During the weeks spent there, I noticed with surprise and faint
misgiving that Jack stayed rather close to the house. “Oh, you girls run
along... I thing I won’t ride to-day. There’s so much to read—I can
never catch up. Perhaps I’m lazy; I’d rather lie around and read. We’ll
do Haleakala next time we come.” But he never looked into Haleakala
again. Even then the Shadow was upon him.
-----
[10] Report for 1918 showed an export of 20,000,000 cans of pineapple.
In March, 1920, the estimated pack for that year was 6,000,000 cases.
All this in face of certain discouragements, such as “pineapple wilt,”
“Kauai blight,” and the objection of large areas of plants to flourish
in manganese soil.
[11] During the World War, for the first time since her abdication, the
American flag floated over Washington Place, indicating the Queen’s
sympathy with our entry into the fight against Prussianism. On November
11, 1917, Liliuokalani, last sovereign of the Hawaiians, passed away.
The Second Return
Voyaging back to California in time for Jack to attend the High Jinks of
the Bohemian Club at their Grove, which is within a few miles of the
Ranch, we spent a gay summer and fall, with a continuous house party
making merry upon Sonoma mountain-side. Jack’s 7,000,000-gallon
reservoir impounded behind his new dam, of summer-warm water encircled
by redwood and madrono forest, made it possible to keep up our Waikiki
swimming condition. Too often, however, I could not but notice that he
sat and watched the rest swim, or, in bathing-suit, paddled guests about
in the canvas canoe or the larger skiff—items of _Snark_ outfit that
had never got aboard.
As the autumn wore, again he turned to Hawaii. “Why not spend our
winters there?” he suggested. “We’ll take the whole household down.” He
thereupon set the wires vibrating, to the end that when we arrived in
Honolulu, December 23 of the same year, 1915, on the _Great Northern_,
by way of Hilo and the volcano, we went right into a delightful house,
2201 Kalia Road, around the corner from our former cottage on Beach
Walk.
Our place at Waikiki, adjoining the grounds of the quiet Hau Tree Hotel
of old, now the Halekulani, had once been the property of one of the
Castles, and next of Judge Arthur Wilder, cousin of James and Gerrit
Wilder, whose suicide at the Beach in the fall of 1916 shocked the
Islands. It was now owned by a Chicago millionaire.
Mr. Ford met us at the wharf, but before getting away, we must shake
hands and condole with our old friend Mr. Kawewehi, of Keauhou memory,
just returning to the Big Island from burying his sweet life-partner.
Jack, so frequently and viciously misrepresented, found he had dived
full tilt into a cool wave of hostility in Army and Navy circles, due to
the recrudescence of a canard which for years he had vigorously denied,
and which had occasioned endless annoyance at most inopportune moments.
This canard, “The Good Soldier,” purported to be an address by Jack
London to the youth of America who might have a mind to enlist,
exhorting such, in no uncertain terms, to avoid military service.
“If the Army and Navy men would only take the trouble to read their own
official sheets,” Jack would fume. “But they don’t know their own
papers. How am I going to tell them all, separately, that I didn’t write
a word of the thing! I deny, and deny, and deny, until I am tired, and
what good does it do, when they don’t see the denials?” For in the _Army
and Navy Register_, as well as the _Journal_, and in the general press,
he had repeatedly disclaimed authorship of the canard.
Also I found a silly impression persisting among the Army women:
“Your husband does not like us,” they voiced their belief. “He made
derogatory remarks about Army women in ‘The House of Pride.’”
Jack fairly sizzled, with despairing arms flaying the air: “Don’t mind
my violence—I always talk with my hands—it’s my French, I guess.—But
these people make me tired. If they’d only really read what they think
they’re reading. Because I have a bloodless, sexless, misanthropic,
misogamistic mysogynist disapprove of décolleté and dancing, and all and
every other social diversion and custom, I myself am saddled with these
unnatural peculiarities. A merry hell of a lot of interesting characters
there would be in fiction if they all talked alike and agreed with one
another and their author!—What’s a poor devil of a writer to do,
anyway?” he repeated his wail of nine years earlier, at Pearl Lochs when
“The Iron Heel” had been rejected of men. “Of course I like Army
women—just as I like other women!”
On New Year’s Eve, we attended a reception in the Throne Room of the old
Palace, where Queen Liliuokalani sat at Governor Pinkham’s right hand.
“And it’s the first time in over twenty years that Her Majesty has
received in this room,” he whispered his satisfaction with what he had
been able to bring about.
Followed a great military ball in the Armory, dinner and dance at the
Country Club, and a wild night of fun at Heinie’s. Nowhere in the world
could there be such a New Year as in this subtropical paradise. Rain it
did, and bountifully—a tepid torrent of liquid jewels in the
many-colored lights of the city streets, which kept no Pierrot nor
Pierrette indoors. The very gutters ran colored streams, what of the
showers of confetti.
“Can you surpass it?” Jack murmured when, at dawn, the machine threshed
hub-deep in water down our long driveway under vine-clambered
coco-palms, to the ceaseless rhythmic impact of a big gray surf upon our
sea wall.
Carnival Week was in February—a succession of pageantry opening with
the Mardi Gras. No one with steamer-fare in pocket should forego
Carnival season in Honolulu. It grew originally out of Washington’s
Birthday observance, and has become an institution.
Polo, the best in the world, automobile races, equine races, took place
at Kapiolani Park, with Diamond Head spilling unwonted waterfalls down
the unwontedly green truncations of its steep flanks; and there were
aquatic contests at the harborside, where Duke Kahanamoku added more
emblems to his shield than he lost, and where Mayor Lane’s slim
kinswoman, Lucile Legros, won over Frances Cowells from the Coast. And
Jack and I could not refrain from working, with every nerve of desire,
on behalf of our Hawaiians in their own waters!
The military reviews were especially imposing. The showing of the
national guard, rated as second to none in the union, surpassed that of
the regulars; while it was declared that the cadets of the Kamehameha
School for Hawaiians, founded by Mrs. Bernice Pauahi Bishop, put both
regulars and militia in the shade. The work that had been done with the
Boy Scouts was evidenced by the orderly discharge of their Carnival
duties in maintaining order. That fabled red hill, Punch Bowl, sprouted
with verdure, its shallow crater now become the cradle of Boy Scout
encampments, their staunch khaki bringing together unnumbered
nationalities into the fine automatic usefulness and courtesy of a
discipline one dreams of some day belonging to civil rather than
military procedure.
In Punch Bowl, I must say in passing, has been found an excellent
potter’s clay; and this, combined with the founding of an Academy of
Design in Honolulu lends still a new allure to the Paradise of the
Pacific.
Pa’u riders turned out in full panoply, as did floats of wondrous
construction and significance; and there were historical pageants at
Kapiolani Park that left little to be desired in illustration of old
sports. Especially impressive was the spear-throwing done by descendants
of warriors, who had not allowed their valorous traditions to rust. And
at Aala Park, in another part of the merry metropolis, an excellent
“Midway Pleasance” furnished entertainment that was anything but
historical, but enjoyable nevertheless.
In train came a succession of balls, civic as well as military, in the
enormous Armory. Every moment was filled and packed down, and little did
Honolulu sleep that week. Jack relinquished all work and accompanied me
throughout the whole gay rout, sitting the long night sipping soft
drinks and an occasional “small beer,” while he talked with our many
friends and shed his ever benignant, bright approval upon my delight in
dancing.
Hawaii’s mixed population, aided and abetted by her romantic climate,
are the means of encouraging out-of-door exhibitions of various kinds,
bearing upon historic events. Balboa Day, September 25, 1916, observed
in many Pacific lands, in Hawaii was combined with the first great
Pan-Pacific Union celebration, which lengthened into several days of
veritable carnival, with pageantry that surpassed any that Honolulu had
ever before carried out. Guests from every country of the western
hemisphere attended. And each adopted nationality in its own way of
picturesqueness took part in the colorful entertainment. The
preponderance of Oriental talent along the lines of decoration insures a
magnificence of display in the matter of floats and processions. But of
deeper interest, and no less beauty, is the stately resurrection of
old-time Hawaiian custom and costuming. These must be correct in every
detail, and an afternoon spent in watching the dramatic revival of
savage royalty, its ceremonial and its sports, as well as of humbler
occupations, is worth a voyage to the Islands.
That their forefathers and the rich old traditions may not be forgotten
by descendants and the world at large, associations have been formed,
such as Daughters of Hawaii, Daughters and Sons of Hawaiian Warriors,
and others. These commemorate certain historic dates or events. The most
conspicuous and general of these is Kamehameha Day, a national holiday,
when the several native societies join in decorating their mighty hero’s
imposing statue, and conducting musical exercises in the palace park,
now the executive grounds. A grand parade is a feature. The day is
participated in by many other orders, such as the mystic Shriners and
the fraternal body of Foresters, to say nothing of the Ad Club and the
Rotary Club.
The program of Kamehameha Day also includes an exciting regatta in the
harbor, and horse-racing at the park.
Kamehameha’s second son, Kauikeouli, who reigned as Kamehameha III, also
has his day, which falls on St. Patrick’s March 17. He is remembered for
his unselfish patriotism, the liberal constitution granted his people,
and for his gift of the right to hold lands in fee simple. Alexander
says: “While there were grave faults in his character, there were also
noble traits... He was true and steadfast in friendship. Duplicity and
intrigue were foreign to his nature. He always chose men of tried
integrity for responsible offices, and never betrayed secrets of state,
even in his most unguarded moments.”
I cannot refrain from diverging once in a while, to point out the
qualifications of such a man, whole-Hawaiian, of whom one may speak
lightly as a savage!
A week in April, 1920, saw the celebration of the Hawaiian Missions
Centennial, which was attended by many distinguished guests from the
mainland and from foreign countries. On the second day H. R. H. the
Prince of Wales dropped in, off the _Renown_.
[Illustration: (1) Queen Lydia Kamakaeha Liliuokalani. (2) Governor John
Owen Dominis, the Queen’s Consort. (3) A Honolulu Garden—Residence of
Queen Emma.]
Although this memorable week saw all the pageantry and sport that was
possible to crowd into it, to many minds the greatest charm of it was in
the more specific services devoted to the Centennial itself, one of the
most beautiful exercises being the song contests of the churches from
the different islands. The Hawaiians take the keenest interest in this
expression of themselves.
Lavish entertaining, after the manner of Honolulu, we did that spring
and summer in the old house at Waikiki—luncheons, dinners, dances,
card-parties, teas under our hau tree, with ever the swimming between
whiles. Sometimes, after the day’s round of social events, winding up
with dancing, our guests and we trooped out of the spacious, half-open
bungalow, through the great detached lanai roofed with a jungle-tangle
of blossomy hau trees old in story; across the lawn bordered with young
Samoan coco-palms planted by Arthur Wilder; and along the sea-wall
right-of-way to a tiny beach two gardens away toward Diamond Head. Here
we slipped into the sensuous lapping waters under a rust-gold moon, or
the great electric-blue stars, and swam for a wonderful hour.
“The Southern Cross rides low, dear lass... and the old lost stars wheel
back,” Jack would paraphrase softly while we timed our strokes for the
diving float in the channel. “What shall it be, Twin Brother? The house
over there is for sale. Shall I buy you it, now, for the first of our
string of island homes?—or a sweet three-topmast schooner after the
War, to do it all over again, only better—though never more sweetly
than in the dear little old tub—and sail on round the world as we love
to plan?”
What other choice for me, who had heard and answered “the beat of the
offshore wind”? The three-topmast schooner, by every wish, with all it
implied of resumed adventure overseas. Our dreams had been rudely cut
midmost by ill health. But those we had realized, instead of seeming
true, were still wrapped as in a blue and rose glamor of untried
desires. “Which way I feel goes to prove,” I wound up somewhat of the
above to Jack, “that the becoming of them, as far as they went, was in
excess of the anticipation.” And he, to withhold me from the verge of
sentimentality, made the shocking rejoinder: “You mean to say—am I
right?—that the young fuzz has not worn off your enthusiasms! Never did
I see woman who wanted to go to so many places!”
Ah yes, Jack had learned full well to “loaf” in the tropics. With his
comprehensive knowledge, mastery of his implements, and his alert sense
of form and color, those inexorable thousand words a day consumed little
energy; and there was scant exertion in his habit of life in the
palm-furnished, breezy bungalow of wide spaces, and the deep gardens of
hibiscus and lilies. Too little exertion. Too seldom was the
blue-butterfly kimono changed for swimming-suit or riding togs; too
often, from the water, I cast solicitous eyes back to the hammock where,
out of the blue-figured robe, a too white arm waved to show that he was
watching me put to use the strokes in which he had coached me. “Oh,
yes—no—yes—no, I think I’ll hang here and read,” he would waver
between two impulsions. Or, “No thank you—I’ll read instead—all this
war stuff I want to catch up on. I’m glad you asked me, though,”
half-wistfully, “—you forgot, yesterday, and went in alone.” Forgot,
no! Never once did I forget. I was avoiding all approach to the
“nagging” we still never permitted in our family of two.
And ever the Great War pressed upon spirit and brain and heart. But this
is a book on Hawaii, not a biography; and besides, I have written and
published the Biography proper, which relates all the inwardness of the
last phases of Jack London’s life.
All during those last months, there was in Jack the widening
gratification that he was advancing in his conquest of the heart and
understanding of Hawaii’s people, Hawaii-born Anglo-Saxon and
part-Hawaiian, and the all-Hawaiians themselves.
Then, one day, we met Mary Low—Mary Eliza Kipikane Low—a connection of
the Parker family. At a midday luau in a seaside garden at Kahala, on
Diamond Head, we came together with Mary and, as if it had been
foreordained, were forthwith adopted by her capacious heart. Like a
devoted elder sister, she assumed a sort of responsibility for us twain
with her people. Only an eighth-Hawaiian, no malihini would be competent
to detect her Polynesian affinity. But, to us, the royal arches of the
black eyebrows on her broad forehead, and the high aquiline nose and
imperious lift of her small, fine mouth, expounded the quintessence of
Polynesian aristocracy as we had come to know it here and under the
Equator.
Already Jack was in the way of becoming ineffaceably associated with the
interests and affections of Hawaii—was there not more than a hint of
intention to enshrine him in the inner circle of that seclusively
exclusive lodge, Chiefs of Hawaii?—and he was bound in good time to
come into his own with them all; but Mary, bless her forever, hastened
the day, else he might have faded back from the world ere he had known
the “Kamaaina” that had begun to form upon their lips.
At this poi-luncheon, as a noonday luau is now called, demand was made
of Jack for a speech. “My Aloha for Hawaii” was his topic, and he gave a
glowing brief résumé of the history of that aloha nui in his life. And
then Prince Cupid, in a brilliant and logical address, delivered a
tribute to the gifts Jack had brought to the Islands with his discerning
brain that had interpreted to the world much of the true inwardness of
misunderstood aspects of the country and its life and people.
Upon a later occasion, a luau at the home of the Prince and Princess,
Mayor Lane humorously declared, to hearty applause, that he should like
to nominate Jack London to succeed him in office. For often Jack, rare
genius of previsioning, and with the added advantage perspective, had
thought a step in advance of the dwellers in the Islands, and had
fearlessly expressed his earnest convictions. A few Hawaiian-born
Americans have realized this. One or two have even gone the
extraordinary length of consulting his opinions upon how best to apply
their millions to benefit their sea-girt land which they love better
than mere personal gain. In time; as in case of Jack’s protest on the
idleness of the Federal Leprosarium, his ideas and protests had been
substantiated; and none so ready as these people to proclaim him right.
A Progress Around the Big Island
“Why can we three not go around Hawaii together? I will take you to some
Hawaiian homes, and you will love them and they you,” urged Mary Low,
perhaps the third time we met.
“Why not?” Jack brightly took her up. “I’m ready as soon as I finish
‘Michael, Brother of Jerry,’ When shall it be? Set the date. Any time
you say—_eh?_ Mate?”
So it came to pass that on the Big Island we spent six weeks going from
house to house of the Hawaiians, some strangers to us, some old
acquaintances, in a round of entertainment and hospitality that set us
on tiptoe with the unstudied human beauty and wonder of it all.
“I question—_do_ you really get what this means to you and me, in our
present and future relation to Hawaii?” Jack would reiterate with that
adorable eagerness that I share in his vision. “I have read more,
listened to more, than have you, of the ways of the people in the past
generations—of the royal progresses of their princes, their kings, and
their queens. This way of ours, led by Mary Low, is of the nature of a
royal progress, but with the difference that, not being born into the
honor, it is up to us to be worthy of its being thrust upon us. Do you
_get_ me?—Oh, pardon my insistence,” he would relax his high, sparkling
tension, “but I do so want you, my sharer, to enjoy with me the
knowledge of what all this means for you and me.”
Ah, I did, I did. And I do. My own heart and intelligence, further
quickened by his still more sensitive divination, lent to the otherwise
vastly interesting experience an appreciation that will abide for all my
days. The imperishable charm of what it meant and means has come back a
thousandfold, pressed down and overflowing, his share and mine
together, to me in my singleness.
“Mary Low is a wonder, I tell you!” Thus Jack, elate. “She is a mine of
interest and information. Her mind a kingdom is. I haven’t talked with a
woman in Hawaii, of whatever nationality or blend of nationalities,
whose brain can eclipse Sister Mary’s for vision of the enormous
dramatic connotations of the race as it has been and is being lived out
right here on this soil which you and I love. Listen here,” breaking off
to read me his scribbled notes, “think of the story this will make—why,
I want to write a dozen yarns all at once. I become desperate with my
inability to do so, when, any hour of the day, Mary chats about say the
Parker Ranch history, or, for that matter, almost any big holding on
this isle of ranches. She might, with her memory and adjustment of
values and her imagination, have been a great writer of fiction.”
In such company, we disembarked one morning before daylight on the wharf
at Kailua, Hawaii, where, far cry to the old time Goodhue surrey, in the
thick darkness we made our way toward an electric-lighted 1916 motor
that had cost its owner, Robert Hind, Mary’s brother-in-law, some eight
thousand dollars to land here from the East.
Effortlessly we surmounted the familiar road, to a point where our way
turned to the left. In a gray car in a gray-and-silver dawn we passed
the home of the Maguires, and with Mauna Kea’s icy peak flushing in our
eyes, pursued the drive toward Parker Ranch. Bending off to the right
for a remembered sugar-loaf hill, Puuwaawaa, we came to the home of the
Hinds, and there spent a fortnight with Robert Hind and his wife,
Hannah, whose eyes and smile Jack more than once preserved, for what
time may be, in written romances. Their sons and daughters were absent
in eastern colleges. Here in terraced gardens of lawns and every flower
and plant that will grow at this 2700-foot elevation, we worked and
played; and each morning, before breakfast, Jack and I made it a point
to attend the toilette of a kingly peacock, whose absorption in the
preening of his black-opal plumage was little disturbed by our admiring
scrutiny and conversation. And there were horseback rides, and long
motoring trips. One of these picnics was to the great heiau of Honaunau,
south of Kealakekua Bay.
To reach this Temple of Refuge,—which also served as a court of
Justice—one was obliged to leave a vehicle and take to the saddle.
There has since been made a good automobile road.
We descended upon horses lent by Miss Ethel Paris, an energetic young
woman capable of running her cattle ranch unaided should need arise. She
entertained us with the unobtrusive, faultless hospitality of her
Hawaiian strain, combined with the Caucasian blood that attains, in this
gentle tropic, to something nearly equal in warmth and generousness.
Honaunau is one of the most imposing of Hawaii’s relics, and covers
nearly seven acres. Its walls, still intact, measure a dozen feet in
height and eighteen in thickness, and in olden times protected uncounted
fugitives from the wrath of their fellows. Those of the Tower of London
dwindle into comparative insignificance before this savage architectural
triumph.
The heiau forms a lordly man-made promontory upon a low cape of lava,
relieved by towering coconut palms that wave their plumage at entrancing
angles for one who would sketch. It is a mammoth pile of mystery, every
stone, small and great, a secret laid by the hands of men who were born
of woman and who loved, and fought, and worked, and now are cosmic dust.
The Bishop Museum is conducting further investigations into this broken
edifice that piques the imagination far beyond its available legend.
Umbilical cords were placed in interstices of the stones and sealed with
small rocks. To this day, many a modest Hawaiian maiden of Christian
beliefs could admit, if she would, that her parents had dedicated to the
huge altar of their forefathers such souvenir of their pride and
lingering sense of romance and reverence for hereditary custom. I
wonder, left to themselves in this lotus land, how long it would take
the Hawaiians to revert. I wonder, equally, how long we dominant
white-faces, given that same dreamy environment, would need to attain
the same retrogression. Jack London played with this theme in “The
Scarlet Plague,” but in California climate. He gave them about a
generation.
A racy episode in the pre-Christian stage of Kaahumanu’s career, when
she fled the consequences of Kamehameha’s rage following an amorous
escapade, is still whispered half-laughingly by hapa-haoles. They point
out, in the great inclosure, the tilted, roof-like stone under which the
fascinating and capricious lady took sanctuary.
That night we slept at the Tommy Whites’, after a luau at their house.
Here, to our joy, we found Mother Shipman, carrying on a little
“progress” of her own; and her greeting was: “My own son and daughter!”
Next day there was still another luau, mauka at the old Roy place,
Wahou, where again we met the Walls. Mrs. Roy, mother of both Mrs.
Shipman and Mrs. White, had passed away several years earlier. Her
garden remained, more beautiful than ever in its fragrant riot of roses
and blumeria and heliotrope, and the begonias had surpassed all
promising.
Kiholo, seaside retreat of the Hinds, was enjoyed for a night and a
day—miles down-slope over the lava. And again we drove to Parker Ranch,
guests of Mary and Hannah’s Aunt Kalili, Mrs. Martin Campbell. The great
holding, nearly doubled in acreage, is now the fortune of one
part-Hawaiian lad, Richard Smart. For Thelma Parker had sacrificed
herself for love in a tragic marriage, and died untimely, survived by
but one of her children, who, the father shortly following his
child-wife to the grave, became sole heir to the estate. On the side of
Mauna Kea, in the family burial ground walled with sepulchral cypresses,
rest the ashes of beautiful Thelma, taken there with all fitting pomp,
mourned by every Hawaiian heart born on her lands. Standing beside her
grave, we tried to vision that long funeral cortège winding up the
grassy leagues she had so often galloped wild in her childhood. Poor
little maid—one is thankful that at least she had that wonderful
maidenhood.
Near the cemetery is Mana, old deserted home of Parkers, rambling in a
great courtyard. The main body of the building is called _Kapuaikahi_;
the right wing, _Waialeale_; the left, _Evahale_. Mary wept amidst the
ruined fountains, for here her early years had been spent with her
sisters and cousins, and Princess Kaiulani had been a familiar visitor.
An Hawaiian caretaker let us in, and through the koa rooms we wandered,
touching almost reverently the treasures of generations—furniture,
pianos, china, and moldy albums of photographs. One curio especially
appealed to Jack, who uses a similar incident in “Michael, Brother of
Jerry”—a whale-tooth, sailor-carven, with an inscription referring to
the sinking of the Essex by a cow-whale. Coincidentally, a man, claiming
to be a survivor of the _Essex_, died in Honolulu about this time of our
visit to Mana.
It was a distinct pleasure to learn that Frank Woods, of Kohala, had
lately bought the old place for his wife, Eva, who is a daughter of the
famous Colonel Sam Parker, Minister of Foreign Affairs during the reign
of Liliuokalani, _bon vivant_ and familiar of King Kalakaua. Mr. Woods
later acquired the house at Waikiki, Honolulu, in which Robert Louis
Stevenson once lived and wrote. The early home of the original Parker,
Mana Hale, built with his own hands, stands in a corner of the
inclosure. One aches with the romance of it all, and would like to write
an entire volume upon the history of the Ranch that started on this
spot.
At the historic old port, Kawaihae, where the Ranch does its shipping,
we were shown Queen Emma’s home, eloquent with decay, still dignified in
the age-wreck of its palm gardens. It was off Kawaihae, in a gale, that
Captain Cook’s _Resolution_ sprung her foremast, which caused him to put
in at Kealakekua Bay for repairs, to his doom. Only the heat prevented
us from making an effort to walk to the ruins of the important heiau of
Puukohala, erected upon advice of the priests, to secure to Kamehameha
the Kingdom of Hawaii.
Upon our final leave-taking of Puuwaawaa, the Hinds’ open-handed
hospitality sent us in one of their cars to Hilo. On the way, Mrs. Tommy
White ran out with an addition to our lunch—a marvelous cold red fish,
the _ulaula_, baked in ti-leaves, and a huge cake, compounded of
fresh-grated, newly plucked coconut and other delicious things we could
not guess. Of course we visited the Maguires, as well as the Goodhues
down their lovely winding lane. And we must slip in for a moment to the
wide unglassed window-ledge, to gaze once more, from that vantage
through the needled branches of imported ironwood trees, across the long
void of lava, upon the divine Blue Flush.
South we passed beyond the Blue Flush of Kona, and sped over the road
traveled by the Congressional party the year before, through the
tranquil village of Pahala, and on up Mauna Loa for an all-too-short
stopover, which included a sumptuous luau, with Mr. and Mrs. Julian
Monsarrat, on Kapapala Ranch in the Kau District, before pushing on to
the Volcano.
Different again from other volcanic deserts of the island is this of
Kau, made up of flow upon succeeding flow from Mauna Loa, in color black
and bluish-gray. Vast fields of cane alternate with arid stretches, and
west of Pahala is a sisal plantation and mill, the most extensive on the
Island. Mauka of the road one sees a fertile swath of cane growing on a
mud-flow of Mauna Loa at an elevation of 1200 feet. This mud-flow was
originally a section of clay marshland which, in 1868, was jarred loose
by an earthquake from the bluff at the head of a valley. In but a few
moments it had swept down three miles in a wet landslide half a mile
wide and thirty feet deep. Immediately afterward a tidal wave inundated
the entire coast of Kau, while Kilauea, joining the general celebration,
disgorged lava through underground fissures toward the southwest.
Full majestic lies Kau under the deep-blue sky, and as majestic moves
the deep-blue, white-crested ocean that washes its lava-bound feet. From
the Monsarrats’ roof we made a side-trip to the coast, where in the
black sands of Ninole beach we gathered the “breeding-stones,” believed
by old inhabitants to be reproductive, and which were sought after as
small idols. Being full of holes, these large pebbles secrete smaller
pebbles, which roll out at odd times, thus furnishing grist for the
fancy of simple folk. Jack, immensely taken with the conceit, in no time
had several brown urchins earning nickels collecting a supply which, he
declared, he was going to turn loose on the Ranch at home to raise stone
walls. Another curiosity in the neighborhood is a fresh-water pool just
inside the high beach where the Pacific swell breaks. But to the hunter,
Kau’s prime attraction is its wide opportunity for plover shooting.
A pretty legend is told of a small fishing place, Manilo, near Honuapo
on the coast. A trick of the current eternally brought flotsam of
various sorts from the direction of Puna into the little indentation at
Manilo. Over and above the driftage of bodies of warriors who had been
slain and thrown over the cliffs along the coast, the inlet became
famous as a sort of post office for the lovers of Puna, whose messages,
in the form of hala or mailé leis, inclosed in calabashes, could
dependably be sent to their sweethearts in Kau.
Near Punaluu, the landing place for East Kau, are the remains of a
couple of heiaus—Punaluunui and Kaneeleele, said to have been connected
in their workings with the great Wahaula heiau, of Puna. Scientists are
continually on the hunt for old temples and sites, and in 1921 the total
for all of the Islands reached five hundred and seventeen. Dr. T. A.
Jaggar, Jr., recently stumbled upon a most interesting discovery—an old
heiau in the Pahala section of the Kau district, of which the
neighborhood professed to have no knowledge. The ruins differ from all
others known, in that the stones bear many rude carvings, or
petroglyphs, in crescents and circles, with and without dots. These may
be similar to the petroglyphs that may be seen on the rocks of the Kona
shore.
And thus we merely glanced through a District rife with treasures for
the explorer into the past, making mental notes for a return. That day
we were to see evidence of the high attainment of the Hawaiians in the
science of massage. An old woman, still handsome, with an antic humor in
her black eyes from which the fire was yet to be quenched, noticed that
I had a severe headache. Enticing me, with benevolent gestures and
moans, to an ancient sofa, she laid rude but shrewd hands upon the
tendons of the inner side of the legs below the knees. Nothing availed
my shrieks of agony. Those powerful fingers, relentless as the bronze
they looked, kneaded and _twanged_ those cords until, lo! in a mere ten
minutes or so the headache, accumulated in hours of motoring under the
brassy sky, was charmed away—charmed not by any means being the best
word for such drastic method. In this manner we thenceforth did away
with headaches in our family of two.
The Monsarrats’, on Kapapala Ranch, is another of the homes that
quaintly combine the lines and traditions of prim New England
architecture with a lavish charm of subtropic treatment of interior and
garden compound. In the latter, high-edged aloofly with cypress and
eucalyptus from the winds of the surrounding amplitude of far-flung,
treeless mountain areas, one feels bewilderingly lifted apart and set
aside, amidst an abandon of flowers, from the rest of the kingly island.
Julian Monsarrat, with keen appreciation of Hawaii’s turbulent history,
filled Jack with valuable material for fiction.
From this Ranch, one may ride to the summit of Mauna Loa, which is
overtopped by its sister peak only by 150 feet height of small cones in
Mauna Kea’s immense crater. But Mary Low’s time was limited, and there
was still so much ahead of us, that this venture, too, was set forward
into the ever receding allure of future returnings.
Still another sumptuous luau, at which we came in contact with some of
the Pahala neighbors, and we set out for Kilauea. There, in broad
daylight, at last we beheld the bursting, beating wonder of her heart of
lava quite as blood-red as all its painted or sculptured imagings. Thus
it must have been when a churchman half a century ago wrote:
“Wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture
into the cup of His indignation.”
We amused ourselves trying to believe that this manifestation was the
reward of certain offerings, of flowers and tid-bits brought purposely
from the Monsarrat abundance, which Mary and ourselves cast into the
burning lake.
From Hilo, where our Shipman family once more enfolded us, even to Uncle
Alec, we made another flying trip down the Puna Coast, leaving Pahoa
behind on our second quest into idyllic Kalapana by the turquoise sea.
Here the natives are still “natives” in simple mode of life and attitude
toward the same; and here one finds, at the village of Kaimu, what is
said to be the largest grove of coconut palms in the Islands. On the
high-piled crescent of sand, overrun by a blossoming vine, under the
angled plume-tossing pillars of the grove lolled a scattered group of
Hawaiians. From the noble silvered head of one of the benevolent old men
Jack bought me a coral-red lei, one of a sort seldom seen these latter
days in Hawaii—a solid cable full an inch in diameter, made by
laboriously perforating, below the center, hard red berries or seeds,
resembling the black-eyed Susan, but smaller, and sewing these close
together around a cord.
The village of Kalapana, farther south, supports quite a large
population, and is very lovely with its fine growth of coconut, puuhala,
and monkey-pod trees. Near by are to be seen the _niu moe_, or
sleeping-coconuts—palms such as are bent, when young, by visiting
chiefs, and thereafter called by the names of the chiefs. These in
Kalapana were bent by Queen Emma, wife of Kamehameha IV. The day has now
gone by when Hawaiian travelers observed their telic and beautiful
custom of planting a coconut wherever they chanced to rest. I call to
mind an exquisite cluster of five green coco-palms beside a spring, on
the Peninsula, near Pearl Harbor, Oahu. They were planted by John F.
Colburn on his own estate, in the stormy days of Liliuokalani’s
accession to the tottering throne, to commemorate her appointment of
himself and four other ministers to serve in her cabinet. Every mile in
the Territory of Hawaii is fraught with keen human interest, if one
could only recognize the signs.
Kalapana landing has become so rough that it is used only for canoes,
and not far off rises a cliff from out the ocean. From an inshore dell
we labored up a gigantic litter of bowlders to the plateau of this
bluff, and looking down from the top could detect shoals of large fish
directly below in deep water. Jack, bargaining for raw fish at a native
hut, missed this side-diversion, which included the exploring of a
century-old tunnel beginning midway of the plateau, its mouth surrounded
by broken old stone fences. Reached by this eerie passage is a large
chamber once used as a place of refuge. The tunnel, made winding so that
spears might not be cast after the fleeing, snakes out from the main
chamber to a place on the cliff, high above the deep water. There is
also, in this neighborhood, the remnant of the Niukukahi heiau. From
Kalapana runs a native trail to the Volcano, but no road farther than
the village itself. Also near Kalapana lies the heiau of Wahaula, “Red
Mouth,” that being a feature of the idols it contained. Here idolatry
was most extensively, and last, practiced. It is the largest and best
preserved of the heiaus, supposed to have been built by Paao, a powerful
priest, in the eleventh century. Wahaula, by the way, is the original of
that restored model in the Bishop Museum, at Honolulu. The natives still
tell the story of the temple’s destruction. The tradition runs that a
wrestler lived near by, whose habit it was to slay pilgrims to the
sacred grove of pandanus and coconut. On guard in a cave in the bluff
where the trail strikes mauka toward Kau, lived a blood-thirsty maiden
whose pleasure it was to signal the wrestler when wayfarers approached.
The inference is that she ate the flesh of those he slew; but this,
unlike the incident of the Wahiawa, Oahu, ogre, is not authentic.
A Kona chief had a friend who had been sacrificed in the heiau. This
friend’s spirit appeared and bade his friend go and recover his bones
from the temple inclosure. But first he must anoint his body with
kukuinut oil; and by this slippery strategy he withstood the attack of
the wrestler, whom he killed. He entered the heiau by daylight, the
spirits, _akuas_, being then off duty, and hid beneath the picked bones
of his friend. When the akuas returned at dusk, they suspicioned the
presence of a human, but were reassured by the spirit of the Kona man’s
friend, who, at midnight, crowed like a cock, and the akuas departed,
thinking it was dawn. Before the rescuer of his friend’s bones made his
own escape, he destroyed the great grass temple by fire. The tabu
(_kapu_) of Wahaula was fire, and any person upon whom rested the shadow
of smoke from the ghastly rites, was sacrificed.
Farther along the trail, on the makai side, is shown the footprint of a
demigod of old, Niheu, as well as the mark of an arrow which he sent at
another demigod who came to fight him. Following west, makai of where
the trail turns mauka, is Kamoamoa, and there one may see a natural
arch, of which there are several in the islands. A few interesting
rock-carvings have been found here.
That night we slept in Kapoho, to the north, the beautiful old home of
Henry K. Lyman, whom we had known for some time, Road Supervisor of the
Puna District, and part-Hawaiian, descended from the old missionary
stock, and a most interesting personality. At the Chicago Convention of
Delegates, he was affectionately known as Prince of Kapoho. And right
princely does the tall, suave-mannered gentleman live in the lovely
house of his childhood.
Not far away is a famous spring in the lava-rock, always at blood heat,
which forms a bath sixty feet long by thirty wide, and twenty-five deep.
Also near Kapoho is Green Lake, a “bottomless” pond in a volcanic
emerald cup, in which it is said the bodies of swimmers under water show
brilliant in shades of blue and green.
Many lava trees are to be seen in the Puna District—trees once
surrounded and preserved by upstanding lava—great vases sprouting from
their tops with living growths of fern or parasite. Certain deep-green
hills seen from the lanai showed as if sculptured by the hand of man;
and it is not considered unlikely that they were fortifications in their
day. This Puna coast is packed with beauty and historical interest.
Sitting on the fragrant lanai at dusk, listening to a serenade by the
plantation boys after their day in the canefields, Jack assured me we
should come back to explore Puna to heart’s content.
In the morning we drove to Hilo, in a steady downpour that almost made a
motorboat of the automobile. The loops of that old road that wound over
the aged lava through the magnificent jungle into Hilo’s suburbs, are
now cut across by a perfect highway, carved through stone and solid
tropical forest that does its best to encroach upon the asphalt. Rolling
along, one who remembers the old leisurely way cannot help casting
regretful glances upon the rambling lane that now and again comes into
view, fast falling into decay.
At the same time, let no malihini think that the straight-away
engineering of the modern motor track is an innovation in the old
Kingdom of Hawaii. I have traveled, horseback, many miles on the Shipman
holdings along Puna’s ironbound coast, from their beach retreat Keaau,
to Papae, a sheep camp, upon a road straight as a moonbeam, that was
built by hands dust this hundred years and more. It was Kamehameha’s
edict that it be laid in a direct line across the turbulent surface of
rotting a-a lava, so his fleet runners might lose no dispatch in
carrying his commands and news. Where caverns from cooled bubbles were
encountered, masonry of the same lavish material was reared from the
depths to support that unswerving, level pave which was to bear the feet
of him who did the great monarch’s bidding.
At Hilo we boarded the train for Paauilo, the end of the railroad, and
were confirmed in our belief that it is one of the world’s wonder
routes. An observation-car, carrying a buffet, has since been added for
the convenience of tourists.
From Paauilo, the young manager of two big sugar plantations took us to
Honokaa above the sea, whence we had ascended to Louissons eight years
before. Next day we journeyed on to the second plantation home at
Kukuihaele, an enormous house, sedately paneled the height of its walls,
and set in a terraced park of lawns and umbrageous trees. We wondered at
such an inappropriate structure in this sub-tropic land, and were told
that the original happy bungalow, built by a Scotch architect, had been
demolished by a later German manager, who preferred the present stately
pile. But the gravest architecture could not dampen our spirits, and a
contented time we had in the sober interior playing cards by a large
fireplace of an evening, and working by day, meanwhile delaying for the
unobliging weather to clear, that we might visit Waipio and Waimanu
valleys near at hand.
From the deck of the _Kilauea_ the previous spring, I had been pointed
out these grand clefts, which by old travelers have been called the Eden
of the Hawaiian Islands; and I was urged, rather than enter by trail, to
surf in from seaward in canoes. This we had hoped to do; but the natives
reported too great a swell from the continued rough weather. Moreover,
the trail up the pali out of Waipio into Waimanu was little safer than
the beach. But one day, riding in a drizzle, Jack and I happened upon
the broad, steep trail of the 2500-foot eastern scarp, into Waipio, and
mushed through its mud down into a sunnier level, meeting strings of
ascending mules laden with garden produce. An old chronicler referred to
the condition of the “roads” hereabout as “embarrassing.” Our horses
tried very fractiously to refuse the descent.
This was one of the prettiest little adventures we two ever had
together, dropping into the sequestered vale that opened wondrously as
we progressed to the lovely banks of a wooded river that wound to the
sea, widening to meet the surf that thundered upon a two-mile shingle.
On the banks of the stream we could see wahines at their washing, and
hear the ringing sweet voices of children at play—survivors of a once
thick population, as evidenced by remains that are to be found of
fish-ponds, taro-patches, and the like. Here the last Hawaiian _tapa_
cloth was made. That same chronicler says: “There was something about
that valley so lovely, so undisturbed ... it seemed to belong to another
world, or to be a portion of this into which sorrow and death had never
entered.”
At the head of this great break in the coast nestles the half-deserted,
half-ruined village of Waipio, and behind it there wedges into the floor
of the valley a tremendous rock bastion veiled in waterfalls to its
mid-hidden summit. A second river curved from beyond its feet, and
joined the one that flowed into the sea. We rode on across reedy
shallows to a pathway once sacred to the sorcerers, kahunas, the which
no layman then dared to profane with his step. Only approaching twilight
held us back from the beach trail that leads to a clump of tall
coconuts, marking the site of a one-time important temple of refuge in
this section of Hawaii, Puuhonua, built as long ago as the thirteenth
century by a Kauai king. There is reason to believe that there were
several lesser temples in the neighborhood. They do say that Kamehameha
the Great was born here in Waipio. One would like to think that first
seeing the light of day in so superlatively grand and beautiful a vale
might make for greatness!
That day, moving along the bases of the cloud-shadowed precipices, we
planned happily how we should some day come here, restore one of the
abandoned cottages and its garden, and live for a while without thought
of time. What a place for quietude and work! For once Jack seemed to
welcome the idea of such seclusion and repose. Little as he ever
inclined toward folding his pinions for long, Hawaii stayed them more
than any other land. “You can’t beat the Ranch in California—it’s a
sweet land,” he would stanchly defend, “but I’d like to spend a great
deal of my time down here.”
We bemoaned the weather that prevented us from climbing the zig-zag
stark above our heads into Waimanu.
An accession of the storm began tearing out the road to Honokaa, and
even a section of the plantation railway along the seaward bluffs. That
repaired, we heeded the warning of the manager, aware of our schedule,
that we might not be able to leave for weeks if we did not avail
ourselves of this route. In a heavy downpour and wind that turned our
futile umbrellas inside-out, we made the several miles in an open
roadster on the track, and the spanning of rain-washed gulches recalled
the flume-coasting of 1907.
After an automobile passage over the roads of our journey of years
earlier, we arrived once more at Waimea, on the Parker Ranch. Here,
turning off into North Kohala, the machine emerged into better weather
and dryer roads along the flanks of the Kohala Mountains, which are over
5000 feet in elevation. Carelessly enough, we had somehow pictured the
North Kohala District as in the main a wilderness of impassable gulches.
And to be sure this feature is not lacking, for the district embraces
some splendid country that is a continuation of the gulch and valley
scenery of which Waipio and Waimanu form part.
Imagine our surprise to find ourselves, at the Frank Woods’ home, Kahua,
on a gigantic green-terraced sweep from mountain top to sea rim, in the
midst of a ranch or conglomeration of ranches covering many thousands of
acres, whose volcanic rack had been rounded by the ages and clothed with
pasture. The laying out of the grounds had been guided by the natural
lines of the incline. From the house, where the living-room extended
full width overlooking the vast panorama, it was hard to discern, except
by the finer grass of the lawns, where garden and wild ended and began.
Never have I seen Jack so pleased over any gardening as with the
undulating spaces of Kahua. And in this house of valuable antiques we
slept in a high koa bedstead, crested with the royal arms, that had
belonged to Queen Emma.
Motoring across to the northwest coast, our surprise grew. A perfect
road traversed an ordered landscape that was unescapably English in its
general trimness as well as in the architecture of its buildings. Of
course, there was everywhere a waving expanse of the fair green cane,
and near the oceanside were ranged the sugar mills of Kohala. At the
town of Kohala, where Kamehameha began his conquesting career, one
happens suddenly upon the original Kamehameha statue, spear in hand,
helmet and cape gilded to simulate yellow feathers. This figure, by T.
R. Gould of Boston, cast in Italy, was lost coming around Cape Horn. The
exact duplicate, which stands before Honolulu’s Court House, was made
and set up previous to the salving of the original from the wreck, which
was sold to the Hawaiian Government.
The rich plantations formerly depended upon rainfall for irrigation; but
in 1905 and 1906 they became independent of this more or less sporadic
source by constructing the Kohala Ditch on the order of those of Maui
and Kauai. The indefatigable M. M. O’Shaughnessy was chief engineer of
this nine miles of tunnel-building and fourteen of open waterway, that
supplies five plantations. He was assisted by Jorgen Jorgensen, whose
own remarkable Waiahole Tunnel and ditch on Oahu, aggregating nearly
19,000 feet, we had seen; and P. W. P. Bluett, whom we visited at Puuhue
following our stay at Kahua.
Mr. Bluett took us horseback up the mountain to show us this Kohala
Ditch, and also the second great engineering feat, of his own designing
and supervision, the Kehena Ditch, consisting of fourteen miles of
tunnel and ditch line, some of it through rank jungly swampland. This
ditch supplements the Kohala viaduct by conserving storm-waters which
had heretofore been wasted. Along the Kehena we rode at an elevation of
thousands of feet, through some of the most gorgeous country of the
whole Territory of Hawaii, culminating in that of the valley Honokane
Nui, into which we peered while our host described the perilous building
of a trail we could see scratched oh the almost perpendicular wooded
side of the great gulch, this being the line of communication for the
O’Shaughnessy system.
Jack, with his unquestionable love of natural beauty, was ever impressed
with man’s lordly harnessing of the outlaw, Nature, leading her by the
mouth to perform his work upon earth.
“Do you get the splendid romance of it?” he would say. “Look what these
engineers have done—reaching out their hands and gathering and
diverting the storm wastage of streams over the edge of this valley
thousands of feet here in the clouds.
“Look what man has accomplished, and he isn’t shouting very loud about
it, either. Do you remember Jorgensen, what a modest, unassuming fellow
he was?—and Peter Bluett here—look at him: Anglo-Saxon, big, strong,
efficient—you have to draw out such men to learn what they’ve done in
making the world a better place to live in.... And yet,” he would lapse
sadly, “just such men are devoting their brains to producing destructive
machinery for making anarchical chaos out of Europe, where there should
be only constructive work ... all because a crazy kaiser and his lot
want a place in the sun, and the whole earth to boot, and the rest of
the earth objects.”
The story of this Ranch alone, and the old headquarters, Puuhue, of its
original owner, James Woods, an Englishman who married a sister of
Colonel Sam Parker, is inextricably woven with the golden age of the
Parker Ranch. Puuhue is a house of connected as well as detached houses,
strung over a terraced green court high-hedged from the Trades and
shaded by fine trees. The whole premises are a-whisper with gentle
ghosts of the past.
Again is the compulsion strong within me to expatiate upon the place of
our blissful tarrying; but my book would needs start a yard-shelf of
books—none too long to do the subject justice—were I to let pen stray
among the unwritten stories that Mary Low’s active memory, impelled by
her untrained sense of artistry, spun for us on the way to and from
charming social functions given by the hospitable dwellers of the
English countryside, from Kahua and Puuhue to Kohala and beyond.
There was an afternoon in an entrancing British garden on a Hawaiian
hillside. And once, after tea in a quaint garden lanai past Kohala, on
the beautiful Niulii Plantation, its little gulches choked with ferns
and blossoming ginger, we were taken to inspect a less modern ditch,
tunnel and all, that still irrigates a large tract of taro—another
striking ebullition of the constructive genius of Kamehameha.
There is a prehistoric chart, eloquent of long-forgotten affairs of men,
laid upon the long incline of the Woods Ranch. It resembles the map of a
vast scheme of town-lots, the rocks, overgrown with green, windrowed
into age-leveled partitions. An explanation which has been offered is
that this was not a continuously inhabited district, but the chance
halting place of chiefs, who, ever migrating with their retainers, were
wont to settle down for months and even years, raising their produce as
well as depending upon the commoners of the invaded soil. These
miles-broad checkerboards of windrowed stones are also to be seen in
Kona and Waianea, both sections being, like this portion of Kohala, more
or less dry in certain seasons, where sweet potatoes were of old the
principal crops, growing abundantly in the wetter months.
This location was the point at which Kamehameha I from time to time
converged his great armies, for the invasion of Maui, Molokai, and Oahu.
Several years, for example, were consumed in assembling his legion of
18,000 fighting men and a fleet of war canoes to transport them to the
conquest of Oahu alone. It is likely that many of these troops
practically supported themselves in and around this area, which would
account for the large operations in rock-gathering that fenced and
divided their myriad plots.
“And they, too, whispered to their loves that life was sweet—and
passed,” Jack would muse upon their disappearance from the face of the
earth; “and we, too, shall pass, as they passed, from the land they
loved.”
Mr. Woods lent me a chestnut horse that had been in training for his
wife, absent in Honolulu. She had not yet seen her husband’s surprise
gift, and I was the first woman to ride the splendid creature, while the
Hawaiian cowboys who had broken him stood about waiting for whatever
might happen. For be it known that Eva and Frank Woods are notable
specimens of Polynesian “physical aristocracy,” despite their slight
Hawaiian blood; and this animal, his dam a cow-pony and his sire a
thoroughbred race-horse belonging to Prince Cupid, had been chosen for
size and power to carry his Amazonian mistress about the mountain ranch,
and trained by heavy men. Little was he held down to the springy earth
by my light weight, and we spent much time in mid-air, for he touched
ground as seldom as possible in his leaping uphill or down, over the
high lush grasses, as if conquering a never ending succession of
hurdles. This is a paradise for one who rides.
It was from Mahukona, after a luau, that our truly royal progress around
the royal island came to its end. Laden with the leis of our friends, we
embarked in boats for the _Mauna Kea_ anchored outside the bight. And
while the steamer edged along the southerly coast before squaring for
Oahu, stopping off several familiar landings, over again we lived what
Jack vowed were six of the happiest weeks he had ever spent in the
Islands.
Back at Waikiki, the spreading bungalow seemed home indeed, with our own
servants, always adoring of Jack, smiling welcome from the wide lanai.
“Almost do we feel ourselves _kamaaina_, Mate Woman,” he would say, arm
about my shoulders, while we greeted or sped Honolulu guests, or
watched, beyond the Tyrian dyes of the reef, smoke of liners that
brought to us visitors from the Coast. “Only, never forget—it is not
for _us_ to say.”
One thing that earned Jack London his kamaainaship was his activity for
the Pan-Pacific Club, with its “Hands Around the Pacific” movement.
Under the algarobas at Pearl Harbor, in 1907, one day he and Alexander
Hume Ford had discussed socialism—upon Ford’s initiative. “Well,” the
latter concluded, “I can’t ‘see’ your socialism. _My_ idea is, to find
out what people want, help them to it, then make them do what you wish
them to do; and if it is right, they _will_ do it—if you keep right
after them!... Now, I’m soon leaving for Australia and around the
Pacific at my own expense, to see if there is a way to get the peoples
to work together for one another and for the Pacific.”
“That’s socialism—look out!” Jack contentedly blew rings into the still
air.
“I don’t care if it is,” retorted his friend. “That won’t stop me.
Walter Frear has just been appointed Governor of Hawaii, and I’ve
interested him, and carry an official letter with me. Hawaii, with her
mixture of Pacific races, yet with no race problems, should be the
country to take the lead. I’m going to call a Pan-Pacific Convention
here.”
“Go to it, Ford, and I’ll help all I can,” Jack approved.
“All right, then,” the other snapped him up. “Address the University
Club next week!”
“Sure I will, and glad to, though you know how I despise public
speaking.” And Jack kept his pledge, while Mr. Ford was presently off on
his mission to Australasia.
On the day of our return from California to Honolulu in 1915, while
helping us find a house at Waikiki, Ford recounted the expansion of his
venture, which he declared needed only Jack’s further co-operation to
carry it through to success. “It’s big, I tell you; it’s big!” Weekly
dinners were given by Ford in the lanai of the Outrigger Club, at which
occasion there were present a score of the leading Hawaiians, or
Chinese, or Japanese, Koreans, Filipinos, or Portuguese, to exchange
ideas with the leading white men who were behind the movement. The
speeches and discussions were of vital interest, all bent toward
bringing about a working in unison for the mutual benefit of Pacific
nations.
Out of these affairs sprang up interesting friendships between ourselves
and these foreigners and their families, resulting in social functions
in our respective homes and at the foreign clubs, and also at the
Japanese theaters. Would that all the international differences of the
Union might be handled as harmoniously as they are in Hawaii. During
that sojourn in Honolulu, more than one Japanese father assured us: “My
sons were born under your flag. I should expect them to fight under your
flag if need arose.”
One evening, at the Outrigger Club, Jack spoke the Pan-Pacific doctrine
before the Congressional visitors and three hundred representatives of
the various nationalities in Hawaii, all of whom responded
enthusiastically through their orators. One of our friends, Mr. S.
Sheba, of the Japanese paper, _Hawaii Shimpo_, and an early director in
the Pan-Pacific Union, has since bought the _Japan Times_, an English
daily in Tokyo, and placed in charge a former American editor of
Honolulu. Another American editor of Hawaii is connected with the
_Transpacific Magazine_ in Tokyo, and is also on the staff of the _Japan
Advertiser_. An ex-Honolulu newspaperman owns a daily in Manila, while
in Shanghai several Hawaii-Americans do their bit for Pan-Pacific
sentiment by their editorial writings.
While the rest of the world writhes and struggles, Hawaii forges ahead,
using its best brains to further the means of international peace; and
the Pan-Pacific Union grows apace. It is incorporated as an
international body of trustees, the consuls in Honolulu from all Pacific
lands are on its board of management, and the heads of all Pacific
governments, from President Harding to the king of Siam, are among its
officers and active workers. Among its branches may be named those in
Japan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the Philippines; and the zeal
of its members is steadily creating new branches. Its first official
housing was in the University Club, in the room where Jack London first
spoke to its nucleus. And in this room, on Balboa Day, 1917, Finn Haakon
Frolich’s bust of Jack London, modeled from life in 1915, was unveiled;
while at Waikiki, beneath the date palm that marks the site of our brown
tent-cottage, a Jack London Memorial drinking-fountain is talked of.
Although Alexander Hume Ford was the discoverer of this new Pacific, and
founder of the movement whose name now rings from shore to shore around
the Western Ocean, humbly he insists that without his friend’s help and
moral support it would have been a longer, stronger pull to bring about
the present situation. Which is:
That Honolulu, Oahu, Territory of Hawaii, at the very crossroads of the
Pacific, has become what might be called the racial experiment station
of the Western Hemisphere. In place of the weekly pan-race luncheons
established years ago by Mr. Ford and Mr. Thurston, to further
co-operation to the common weal of all countries represented, and that
of the adoptive one Hawaii, now monthly dinners are attended by leaders
of the Chinese, Japanese, and American races, twelve picked men from
each, comprising editors, consuls, and other officials of the Territory.
The discussions are understood not to be for publication, and therefore
are of a freedom and frankness, to quote Lorrin A. Thurston, never
before experienced. One triumphant consequence of this policy of
uninterrupted conference was a settling, by the Japanese themselves, of
the delicate and long-troublesome question of the Japanese
language-schools in Hawaii. After one of these Pan-Pacific Union
meetings, they drew up a bill which was introduced into the legislature
and has become a law.
Another burning topic touched upon has been the treatment of citizens of
Oriental parentage born under the Stars and Stripes, who are Americans.
Wise adjustment of the relations among the many peoples whose territory
margins the Pacific is a task for statesmen, nay, for seers. The
attitude of the Union is that recognition of reciprocal rights and
duties toward one’s alien neighbor, and a general desire on the part of
the rank and file of different nationalities to live in harmony, will
accomplish wonders. The Pan-Pacific Union and the Y. M. C. A. of Hawaii
are fostering a movement to make the passport of an American worth one
hundred per cent of its face value regardless of the slant of a man’s
eyes or the color of his skin; to devise methods, by amendments of laws,
regulations or instructions, as may be found expedient, and to make sure
of enactment, of securing to American citizens of Oriental descent the
same rights and privileges enjoyed by other citizens, and protect them,
when traveling, from unreasonable technical delays and annoyances from
officials, such as have been suffered by known characters, of proven
loyalty and good business and social standing; to become familiar with
our laws and those of other countries, for the purpose of enabling
naturalized citizens of the United States, and those of American birth
but foreign ancestry, to free themselves from the claims of the
governments to whom they or their fathers owed allegiance, and establish
their status as American citizens; to devise means to prevent the
language press from aggravating racial antipathy, but rather to promote
harmony and Americanization of aliens and citizens of alien descent; to
organize evening schools for adults, for education in English, in
Americanization, and general knowledge; to seek the remedying of living
conditions in tenement houses, and improving of the surroundings of the
rising generation in their individual homes; to create children’s
playgrounds.
Aside from the humanitarian aspect of these intentions, to quote from a
report of the Committee of Nine, of which Mr. Thurston is chairman,
“public policy demands that we bind these citizens to us and encourage
their loyalty and co-operation in the solution of the many puzzling
problems that face us, for which task they are peculiarly fitted. They
are not subjects for ‘Americanization,’ They are already American by
birth, by law, by inclination, by sentiment, by residence, by service,
by participation in the burdens and responsibilities incident to
American citizenship.... Our fellow citizens of Oriental descent proved
during the late war to be as loyal and patriotic in all respects as
those of other race origin in service in the army, participation in Red
Cross and other services and contributions. We then freely accepted
their services and contributions and voluntarily recognized their
loyalty to the government and their value to the community. To
discriminate now against them in any manner, upon the sole ground of
their race or their ancestors, is ungrateful, contrary to basic American
principles of justice and fair play; humiliating alike to the subjects
of the discrimination and to other American citizens who feel that
American honor is thereby being impugned.”
But the Union branches out from this direct drive to promote a mutually
beneficial inter-racial amity. There is, for instance, the Pan-Pacific
Scientific Council, an outgrowth of the first conference in Honolulu in
August, 1920. This was called by the Union, and made possible by Mr. A.
H. Ford, who secured a territorial appropriation of $10,000, then a
Congressional appropriation from Washington of $9,000, and, next,
appropriations from Australia, New Zealand, and China. The Pan-Pacific
conference headquarters, through the courtesy of Governor C. J.
McCarthy, are the throne room and senate chamber of the Executive
building, the Iolani Palace of the monarchy. Two or three times a year,
Pan-Pacific conferences of some sort are held there.
These conferences, the resolute dream of Mr. Ford, have been
materialized by the aid of Director Herbert E. Gregory, of the Bishop
Museum, who, with a few co-workers, organized the Conference body, and
sent out over a hundred invitations to prominent scientists and research
institutions, for delegates to consider the desirability, and ways and
means, for exploration of the Pacific area on lines of Anthropology,
Biology, Botany, Entomology, Geography, Meteorology, Seismology and
Volcanology, and allied subjects. Some of the main purposes of the
Scientific Research Council are: To organize, create and conduct an
institute of learning that will gather and disseminate information of a
scientific character; acting for and co-operating with the Pan-Pacific
Union in conducting its scientific conferences. To correspond with
scientific bodies throughout the world, but more particularly with those
interested in the solution of the scientific problems connected with the
Pacific region. To co-operate at all times with the Union in obtaining
from the legislature, and commercial bodies, as well as from
individuals, appropriations and funds necessary for carrying on the
scientific research approved by the Union.
The call to the first conference was responded to in person by
ninety-six delegates, scientists all, hailing from the United States,
British Columbia, Australia’s various provinces, China, Japan, England,
Philippines, Samoa, New Zealand, Tahiti, and other remote quarters. Such
scientific Conferences are to be followed by others. It is considered
that the next gathering should be on a far broader basis than the first,
which was but preliminary to the series the Pan-Pacific Union pledged
itself to call. Each class of scientific men now desires a section under
its direction—the agriculturists, the medical brothers, the
entomologists, and so through the roster.
That the activities of the Pan-Pacific Union have not been hid under a
bushel by her publicity agents, is seen by the fact that the state
department, represented by Dr. P. P. Claxton, U. S. Commissioner of
Education, awakening to the importance of Hawaii as the central
information outpost at the crossroads of the Pacific, has co-operated
with the Secretary of the Interior, Thomas Barton Payne, in preparing
the program for a great Pan-Pacific Educators’ Congress at Honolulu in
August, 1921, and issuing a summons thereto to more than a score of
countries encircling the globe. The scope of interests for the attention
of such a Pan-Pacific educational Congress are best indicated by certain
tentative questions suggested by the state department, such as:
What are the outstanding educational problems of each country?
What should be the ideals of education in each country?
(_a_) As to preparation for citizenship?
(_b_) As to preparation for the vocations?
(_c_) As to preparation for individual development, including health?
How are these ideals affected by forms of government and by the social
ideals of the respective countries? How affected by geographical
conditions, including natural resources?
What elements should be included in the education of these countries to
serve international relations?
(_a_) Commercial relations.
(_b_) Political relations.
What is taught in the schools of each country in regard to the other
countries of the group—as to resources, industries, commerce, people,
civilization, ideals, government, etc.?
(_a_) What does a child know about these matters at the end of the
elementary school period? At the end of the high school period? At the
end of the college period?
(_b_) What attitude of mind toward the other countries will the child
have as a result?
(_c_) To what extent is it desirable to teach the language and
literature of given countries in the others?
By what means may the schools and other educational agencies assure the
continuity and still further strengthen the cordial relations existing
among the countries of this group?
The adult element is taken account of with regard to the extension of
education through community activities and otherwise; also looking
toward research from the standpoint of practical results in agriculture,
home-making, industry, commerce, and so forth.
That the purely commercial consideration is not lacking in the schemes
of the Pan-Pacific leaders, is borne out by plans which enlisted the
interest of Franklin K. Lane, first honorary vice-president of the
Union, in a Commercial Conference at Honolulu. “Good fortune to you,
brave man of big visions,” he wrote, shortly before his death, to
Alexander Hume Ford, whose official status is that of
secretary-director. “What an interest there is now in the South Seas,”
Mr. Lane goes on. “Never before have I seen anything like it. Get people
to your islands—boat service—that’s all you need. Then they will
become the focus of Pacific progress.” And in furtherance of publicity
for the manifold ambitions of the Pan-Pacific Union, a mammoth Press
Conference has been called, as a department of the Press Congress of the
world. In fact, that World Congress, representing forty nations,
convened at Honolulu in the autumn of 1921.
One tangible result of the Scientific Conference has been that every
state bordering the vast bowl of the Pacific has been aroused to the
conserving and furthering of the world supply of sea-food. This means
the stimulation of the fishery scientists to resume a definite study of
the migrations and habits of fish, that they may in turn counsel the
various governments what laws should be enacted for the protection of
young food fish, looking toward supplying the world. The establishment
of fish universities has become a hope of the Pan-Pacific group; in
fact, there is already an institution in Seattle along these lines. And
a merchant prince of Osaka, Japan, Hirabayashi by name, has offered to
found and finance an extensive educational plant in a peninsula park on
the Inland Sea. It is to include an aquarium, a library on Pacific
Research, a laboratory for the observing of fish culture, a building to
house students, and all other departments consonant with the purpose of
such an establishment, from which will be sent out scientists to garner
knowledge of fish and their habits, as well as the methods of fishing,
canning, and distribution pursued by different lands.
It sometimes happens that government appropriations to the Pan-Pacific
Union are in blanket form, the Union to appropriate the funds to cover
expenses of either educational or commercial conferences, the scientific
coming under the latter head, though scientists may be invited to attend
the commercial councils. And at the Legislative Pan-Pacific conference,
those scientists who are familiar with the depredations in Pacific
waters by unscientific commercial fishermen, may be sure of warm
welcome; for the various conferences are fashioned to overlap and
co-operate as much as possible one with another. It is prophesied that
the sages of the Pan-Pacific Union will not rest until they have set in
operation international fishery laws for the whole Pacific area.
The Union was for a time at home in that white caravansary dear to many
a by-gone voyager to Honolulu and beyond, the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, with
its shaded spaciousness and its flying balconies. But it has now come to
rest at the Alexander Young Hotel, while plans are in progress for the
erection of a great Pan-Pacific Palace that will house the commercial
and art exhibits that are now being collected from every Pacific land.
Here will convene the Conference; and the scope of the building includes
an open air Greek theatre to seat five thousand.
Professor Pitkin of Columbia University has urged the Union to summon a
conference of heads of Pacific governments, to consider the formation of
a Pan-Pacific League of Nations. President Warren G. Harding, in his
letter of acceptance as an Honorary President of the Pan-Pacific Union,
cautions a gentle approach to this subject. He writes:
“I feel the policy of the Union should be one of proceeding for the time
being in an unofficial fashion.... as a wise one. I should hope that in
due time such an organization might secure the co-operation and support
of the governments which have interests in the Pacific; for I can
realize that it has possibilities of very great usefulness.”
President Harding has been invited to attend one of the Conferences this
summer of 1921. “Why not make Honolulu the summer capital of the United
States?” the Pan-Pacific heads propose. Indeed, their boundless ambition
points out that it is the logical National Capital. For Honolulu in
truth lies halfway between Maine and Manila; half-way between Alaska and
Samoa. It is literally the central city of the United States of America,
as it is of the Pacific Ocean, tributary to which dwell two-thirds of
the population of the globe!
Why not?
Amongst the many social events we attended, that are the life of the
Island metropolis, there were days and nights when we met Prince Cupid
and our First Princess, at Sam Parker’s. The old Colonel’s devoted
girls, Eva Woods and Helen Widemann, entertained informally, and we saw
the gallant spendthrift host of other days failing, failing.... It was
the year before, one of the last days he ever left the house, that in
our Beach Walk cottage we had Colonel Parker for luncheon, together with
his life-long friend, that good Bohemian and gentleman, Frank Unger,
both old comrades, since dead. The two wore about their Panama hats
orange leis of ilima, now so rarely seen in these days of careless paper
imitations, which they presented to Jack and me. And it is these
cherished garlands of wilted flower-gold that now wreathe their friend’s
ashes in the Valley of the Moon.
A fine gentleman was Colonel Samuel (Kamuela) Parker, if ever I saw
one—courtly in manner yet bearing himself with that careless, debonair
sweetness we so rarely have the privilege of knowing. He combined all
the geniality and large-heartedness of his double heritage. He died on
March 19, 1920. Less than a week before, he had pressed my hand in
farewell.
The seven days in which the body lay in his house in Kapiolani Park,
where he had peacefully slipped into unconsciousness, was characteristic
of the stately observance attending Hawaii’s distinguished dead. The
spacious living-room was banked with orchids and roses, its walls
entirely covered with the floral tribute. Four-hour watches, by daylight
and dark, were kept by members of the Chiefs of Hawaii, who first sent
the Tabu Stick of deep yellow chrysanthemums to stand at the head of the
bier. At the foot hung the faithful replica of a feather cape, made of
the same royal-hued blossoms, with a pattern traced in blood-red
carnations.
For one night, in regal splendor of real yellow-feather mantle,
_Ahuala_, and feather-lei upon her blue-black hair, there sat Princess
David (Abigail) Kawananakoa, a picture of mourning, at the head of her
friend’s coffin. Behind her was a young Hawaiian maiden; and to right
and left two helmeted Warriors, each with upright spear in hand, stood
motionless. Between these and two similar impressive figures at the foot
of the dead chief, were ranged on either side in full regalia the
highest in rank of the Daughters of Warriors.
Certain ancient men and women, with rigid discipline in the matter of
chiefly precedence, maintained the ceremonial of that splendidly somber
week of honor to the alii. The music, chanted, or played upon ukulele
and guitar, that wove softly into the spirit of the occasion, was mostly
old meles of the days of the monarchy.
In high contrast to these traditional rites was one day of service by
the Church of Christ, Scientist, in whose faith this man had gone to
sleep. His Masonic Chapter also held its ceremony.
Colonel Parker’s body was taken “home” to Mana on the Parker Ranch.
There, beneath the cypresses of the quaint family graveyard, his casket,
swathed in the choicest blooms that grow, was laid in the vault with his
first wife, Panana, and their daughter, Hattie.
So ended one of the monarchy’s most picturesque careers—that of a man
once accounted remarkable by those of more than many countries, for his
extraordinary good fellowship, the gracious kindliness of his heart, and
his grandeur of physique and address.
A little story, and I am done. It is too gentle a thing, too simple and
illuminating of the past and present of Polynesia and all mankind, to
lay aside with the countless notes no book of reasonable length can
encompass. It comes to me through one who accompanied the funeral party,
composed of representatives from the different branches of the Parker
family, from Honolulu to Mahukona on Hawaii. There they disembarked with
the coffin, en route to Mana.
The passage through Oahu channel and Molokai channel was extremely
rough, and the _Mauna Kea_ “labored woundily.” The woman fell asleep,
and dreamed that she saw Kahaleahu, once valet to Sam Parker; a cultured
Hawaiian who had traveled about the world with the Colonel, and who,
when the young folk of Parker Ranch had their vacations from school in
Honolulu, would be dispatched to escort them home to Mana. The dreamer
addressed Kahaleahu:
“Ino maoli ke kai!” (The sea is so rough!)
Kahaleahu replied:
“It will be calm in a little while, for the guide of the night is the
mother of the Boy.”
Awakening, in Hawaiian she told her cabin-mate the dream. “But it was a
vision, a sign,” she believes. “Do you not see?—Kilia, a chieftess of
Hana, Maui, Sam Parker’s mother, was lost in the channel between Hawaii
and Maui. She had come from Hana in a canoe, to marry Sam’s father, Eben
Parker, at Kawaihae; and when she was old, in her was a great longing to
see again her old home in Hana, and her people. And she must go in a
canoe, as she had come forty years before. She set out in the canoe, and
was never heard from.... She was guide of that night, and sent Kahaleahu
to give me the sign that The Boy, _ka keiki_, her boy, should come
safely ashore at Mahukona.”
Now Sam Parker to his retainers had never been Sam (Kamuela), in the
usual native way, but was always referred to as _ka keiki_, The
Boy—even at forty years and over; that being, in their etiquette, a
mark of attention to superior birth.
To the prophecy of the vision: The _Mauna Kea’s_ pitching and rolling
began speedily to abate, and in due course she came to anchor off
Lahaina in an unrippled calm, to send ashore and take aboard passengers
and freight. This calm, under a cloudless sky, continued clear to
Mahukona, where the landing from ship’s boats is habitually made
difficult by a heavy swell, and passengers must watch their chance to
avoid a ducking when leaping from boat to jetty. Never, in all the
dreamer’s interisland voyaging, girl and woman, had she known the water
of this open roadstead so like a millpond. It was a sign.
Up the long acclivity, at Kahua, Frank Woods had a great fire burning,
and fine mats spread to receive the casket of his father-in-law; while
in another room an abundant feast of “funeral baked meats” was
spread—pig, and fowl, and fish, and all that goes therewith in this
goodly land. After partaking of it, the mourners sat out the night,
amongst the flowers, with their dead; and with the morning started upon
the day-long journey over Kohala’s mountains to Waimea, on up Mauna
Kea’s giant flank to Mana and the house of death.
“It was a vision, not a dream,” they believe. And why not? “Sam died,”
they say, “on the anniversary of the birth of Panana, his youth’s bride.
And was not that nineteenth day of March also the anniversary of the
death of their first daughter?”
What would you?
There were times when we twain were included in affairs that were solely
Hawaiian except for the few who had married into the families—as at
Charles W. Booth’s beautiful house, Halewa, one night in Pauoa Valley.
There a hundred sat down to a great banquet, with a dance to follow in
the vine-screened lanai to music from instruments invisible in the
fragrant shrubbery; from which one could see up the valley the hundreds
of tended acres that were as a back-garden of the estate. Mrs. Booth,
herself part Hawaiian, and daughter of a Maui chief, let us roam about
the absorbing apartments, each a veritable museum of treasure trove
inherited from her aunt, Malie Kahai, a celebrated beauty—feather leis,
tapas, calabashes, finest of mats, and, prize of all, a feather cape
that had belonged to her princely father. Some of the furniture had come
from the palace of the king and from Queen Emma’s residence. Here we met
Stella Keomailani, Mrs. Kea, “Stella” to her intimates, last living
descendant of the high chiefs of the Poohoolewaikala line—a sort of
royal Hawaiian clan descended from kings. Blue-blooded pure Hawaiian,
she is a remarkable type—tall, slender with brown hair and hazel eyes
and a skin as of ivory washed with pale gold. On her father’s side she
is cousin to Queen Emma, and one of the heirs mentioned in the Queen’s
will.
But there—to mention all who blessed us with their friendship would be
almost to quote our Honolulu telephone directory, which hangs now at my
elbow, with its markings desolately reminiscent of the roof under which
Jack London dwelt those seven months on Kalia Road.
Eager for the criticism of Honoluluans upon certain stories he Was
writing at this period, “On the Makaloa Mat,” “The Water Baby,” “When
Alice Told Her Soul,” “The Bones of Kahekili,” Jack often had me
telephoning for a party to come for luncheon or drop around for tea
under the hau, for the reading, with a swim to follow. Other new stories
he wrote and read aloud—“The Kanaka Surf,” “The Message,” “The
Princess,” and “Like Argus of the Ancient Times.” With the exception of
“The Kanaka Surf,” which was a haole tale placed in Honolulu, none of
these latter are Hawaiian fiction. The next novel he contemplated
settling down to was to bear the title of “Cherry”—a Japanese heroine
with an Islands setting and a potent racial motif. And this work,
“Cherry,” was the broken thing he left behind when he died on November
22.
One morning Jack was obliged to have me call in Doctors Herbert and
Walters, for he had been seized with the agonies of kidney stone.
Shortly before, he had been very ill all night, as if from ptomaine
poisoning. “Don’t worry,” he would usually brush aside attempts to
diagnose or to call in medical advice. “It will pass—look at me: I am
in good weight, and shall live many happy years, my dear.” But there was
that in his face which brought me white nights, and caused his friends
to ask, “What ails Jack? He looks well enough, but there’s something
about him... his eyes...”
And so the gay wheel turned in Honolulu, as the golden days and
star-blue nights came and went. And yet, for all Jack courted more or
less excitement—I quote from my pocket diary, and the date is June 14,
1916: “Mate said to-night that this has been the happiest day he ever
spent in the Islands. And what did he do? Write, read me what he had
composed; and we lunched and dined conjugally alone together, with a
little swim in between whiles; and in the evening he read to me from
George Sterling’s latest book of poems, ‘The Caged Eagle,’ just received
from George, and broke down in the reading before the deathless beauty
of the poem called ‘In Autumn.’”
Before we sailed for home, which was on July 26, that Jack might attend
the Bohemian Jinks, we put our heads together with Mary Low’s for the
planning of a luau, just before our departure, under our own roof and
hau tree for our own Hawaiian friends, with a night of dancing and music
and cards to follow. The only haoles to be bidden were their close
connections. Forty they sat at the great board that was entirely covered
with deep layers first of ti-leaves and then ferns, strewn with flowers
and fruit of every description, native and imported. It was a feast
served by Hawaiian women whose business it was to see that every detail
was in the most approved native fashion.
To Mary Low must be given the praise for the success of this occasion,
for under her superintendence it was produced. And upon her unerring
wisdom and tact the place-cards, bearing embossed the royal coat-of-arms
of Hawaii, were laid. The ends of the enormous table were seated in this
wise: Jack center, with Princess Cupid to his right, and Mrs. Stella Kea
left. Myself at opposite end, with Prince Cupid on my right, and Mayor
Lane at my other side, while his wife, Alice, sat at the Prince’s
right—she of the beautiful hands that are her husband’s pride,
exquisitely modeled by a mother’s early manipulation, lomilomi, after
the charming Hawaiian practise. A characteristic of many well-born
Hawaiians is the straight, high back-head; and the mothers here, as with
the hands, have exercised their patient modeling. Full thighs were also
deemed a mark of superior beauty, and much attention was given to
massaging and developing the limbs of the young wahines.
Our friends will not, I am sure, be offended if I mention a laughable
incident that all took in jovial good part. Next the Princess, Senator
“Bob” Shingle, best of toastmasters, had concluded his opening speech,
and sat down amidst hearty applause. But his sitting was not of a
permanence that was to be expected, being in fact an entire
disappearance to those at my end of the long table, and alarm widened
the eyes of Muriel, his wife, sister to Princess David Kawananakoa.
Alack, the floor of the aged lanai had not upborne such weight of
Polynesian aristocracy these many years, and the hind-legs of even this
medium-sized haole’s chair had gone incontinently through the rotten
planking.
Hardly had the bubble of merriment subsided when, to my speechless
horror, Prince Cupid vanished from my side in a clean back-somersault.
He was on his nimble feet almost before he struck the sand nearly a foot
below the lanai-level—not for nothing had he learned football tactics
in his university days. His good-natured mirth put all at ease, and the
alert nervousness of Senator Charles Chillingworth and others of his
stature and avoirdupois called forth much funning. There were
fortunately no more accidents, and the speech-making in appreciation of
Jack and his services to Hawaii was gratifying in the extreme.
I can see Jack now, as he rose, all in white save for his black soft
tie, hesitating half-diffidently with the fingers of one hand absently
caressing the flowers on the ti-leaves, before lifting his eyes,
black-blue and misted with feeling. At first his voice, low and clear,
shook slightly, but gathered, with his beautiful, Greek face, a
solemnity that increased as he spoke his heart to these people among
whom he loved to dwell.
Secondarily to the pure aloha motive of this luau, we had assembled our
friends for the christening of the Jack London Hula, chanted stanza by
stanza, each repeated by Ernest Kaai and his perfect Hawaiian singers
with their instruments. Mary Low was the mother of this _mélé_, for in
her fertile brain was conceived the idea of immortalizing, for Hawaii,
Jack London himself and more specifically his progress around the Big
Isle of Mounts, as was done for the chiefs of old by their bards and
minstrels.
The Hawaiian woman best fitted, in Mary’s judgment, to recite the saga,
was Rosalie (Lokalia) Blais-dell, who had helped in the versifying; and
all Lokalia asked in return for the long evening’s effort, which with
lofty sweetness she assured us was her honor and pleasure, was a copy
each of Jack’s “Cruise” and my “Log” of the _Snark_.
Thus, during the eating of the hundred and one tropic delicacies that a
swarm of pretty girls prepared and served from the kitchen, never was
the gayety so robust that it did not silence instantly when Lokalia’s
voice rose intoning above the lilting wash of reef waters against the
sea wall thirty feet away, followed by the succession of Kaai’s lovely
music to the mele. Each long stanza, carrying an incident of the
progress around Hawaii and those who welcomed Jack, closed with two
lines:
“Hainaia mai ana ka puana,
No Keaka Lakana neia inoa.”
“This song is then echoed,
’Tis in honor of Jack London.”
Listened critically all those qualified to judge, and now and again a
low “Good,” or “Perfect,” or “Couldn’t be better, Mary,” or “All honor
to Mary Kipikane!” would be forthcoming from Prince or Mayor or Senator.
And there was in the mélé a swaying Spanish dance song for Lakana
Wahine—Kaikilani Poloku, which is myself; for kind hearts gave me that
name of a beloved queen of the long gone years, whose meaning is passing
sweet to me.
Laden to the eyes with no false leis by the hands of Hawaii, we looked
down from the high steamer deck into the upturned faces of the people of
our Aloha Land, standing ankle-deep in flowers and serpentine. The
_Matsonia_ cast off hawsers, and, moving ahead majestical-slow, parted
the veil of serpentine and flowers woven from her every deck to the
quay.
“Of all lands of joy and beauty under the sun...” Jack began, the words
trailing into eloquent silence. He had approached Hawaii with gifts of
candor and affection in hands, and eyes, and lips. And real Hawaii,
impermeable to meanness or harboring of grudge over franknesses that had
but voiced a grave interest in her, has been the greater giver, in that
she granted him the joy and satisfaction of realizing that they had not
known each other in vain.
HAWAII, 1920.
I went back, alone, and in that aloneness there was something very
solemn. Of course I went back. One who knows Hawaii always goes back.
The old lure abides; nor does it abate when the vessel’s forefoot,
spurning the silver flying-fish, is heard _thripping_ into the azure
silken sea-level which betokens nearness to remembered isles. Again “The
old lost stars wheel back”; again the yard-arm of the Southern Cross
leans upon the night-purple horizon; again, the old, lovely approach to
Oahu, with Molokai sleeping to the southeast.
It was the _Maui’s_ first sailing for Honolulu since her war service in
the Atlantic. Long will sound in the ears of her passengers the mighty
conching of her deep-sea siren, as the battle-grey hull warped in to the
quay. Every brazen throat, every clangorous bell of Honolulu joined in
swelling the deafening, triumphal paean. Never had the many wharves been
so obliterated by waving, flower-bedecked throngs. It must have been a
proud and happy day for Captain Francis Milner Edwards. The approximate
number of men under arms in Hawaii during the war, as given by the
American Legion, was 8,500. This included practically every nationality
represented in the Islands, and included army and navy. A large
proportion of this total were in the federalized national guard, which
took over the local garrison and released the regular troops for service
on the mainland or over-seas.
How strange, to be arriving alone in Honolulu! Not a soul in the city
knew that I was aboard. Sheltered by a life-boat, I waited, watching the
concourse as it welcomed, and bound with embraces and cables of
blossoms, its disembarking friends. There is no welcome so rare as
Honolulu’s. Do I not know? But on that day, not a familiar face could I
pick out in the vast bouquet of upturned faces, though in it were a
score of old friends.
I have since wondered at my lack of emotion. Nature, as if to bear me
across a void, seemed to have congealed all thrills and tears. What I
remember is a sense of almost creeping, half-diffidently,
half-curiously, between two walls of humanity that formed a lane through
the sheds to the street.
“But aren’t you Mrs. Jack?”
Startled, I looked up into a fresh, young face.
“Joe!” It was Alexander Hume Ford’s ward. Never before had I beheld in
him any striking resemblance to an angel. Assuring me he was not meeting
any one, into his car he tucked me. I hardly had to explain that I
wanted to drive about the city, and to Waikiki, before letting any one
know I had come. I would have it all over with first; I would acquaint
myself thoroughly with the event—that I had returned to Jack’s
Loveland. Before I had gone to the hotel, I had dared to look into my
long garden on Kalia Road; at the Beach Walk cottage of earlier memory;
once more at the Outrigger Club, had again shaken hands with David and
Duke Kahanamoku, and met two other champion sea-gods, Norman Ross and
Rudy Langer. Then I had been whirled up Honolulu’s incomparable
background, upon a new and perfect serpentine of road, in and out of the
canyons that opened enchanting vistas in every direction. The last dash
was out to Nuuanu Pali, to marvel afresh at the undisappointing grandeur
of Oahu’s windward sea-prospect, Oahu’s dimming miles of green
pineapples upon rolling, rosy prairie, Oahu’s eroded mountains, my
Mirrored Mountains, their bastions like green waves, frothing and
curling with kukui foliage that flooded cliff and gorge.
For that one day and night I went in the same lightly frozen state,
observing the world in a detached way. I telephoned surprised
acquaintances, and gradually oriented myself. One never knows what
factor will thaw the ice. Next morning, upon the breakfast tray it was
the golden sickle of the papaia that cut my controls and loosed the gate
of tears. Why the papaia? Why not the coco palms, the fragrance of the
plumeria, the clinging caress of the ilima lei, the sight of the long
garden beneath its palms, or, above all, the wet eyes of Jack’s friends
and mine? Why the mild breakfast melon from the carven papaia tree? I do
not know. But thence on I was myself again, myself in my own Hawaii,
aware of the compensations of life.
After the tears, the joy of knowing more than ever surely how kind are
the hearts of Hawaii. Haole, hapa-haole, and all-Hawaiian, they flocked
to me, dear friends all, and gave me to know that I “belonged,” that I
was kamaaina, not less but more—in double measure for myself and our
lost one.
I had made Honolulu my first port because of the uncertainty of post-war
sailings from San Francisco for Hilo. I was tired, body and soul, from a
year spent in writing my Book of Jack London. The gaieties of Honolulu
were not for me. Hilo, and the arms of my Mother Shipman, and a quiet
winter upon the Big Island, should precede my stay on Oahu. So I planned
to continue the next day on the _Maui_ to Hilo. But Mother Shipman
happened to be in town, and I delayed for a week. For old sake’s sake,
after a night in the Alexander Young, I put up at the Seaside Hotel, in
one of its white cottages beneath the lofty coco palms. My rooms were
soon full of flowers; and there were no paper leis among these.
Conspicuous upon the lanai was a basket of sweet peas and maidenhair
from Yoshimatsu Nakata, nine years our domestic familiar, on land and
sea; now prosperous dentist, a man of family.
I lunched purposely by myself in the well-remembered lanai circle at the
Seaside, looking out across the rainbow reef where the mad, white-maned
sea-horses tore beachward as of yore. Memories of twelve years marched
across my vision—a lovely pageantry in which the white sails of the
doughty small _Snark_ appeared most often and vividly. Many brown
peoples were in the procession. Then the salt savor of the warm spray
upon my lips invited me to breast at least the wahine surf, the little
inshore breakers. But when I had passed the shallows, to where the
Bearded Ones reared, green and menacing, I did not find myself as
courageous as once with my Strong Traveler at hand.
Thursday was my birthday, and on Thanksgiving for the first time in many
years. There was a lovable rush of my Hawaiian family to gather native
kaokao for me. Mary Low had been the first to hear my voice over the
wire. Her sister, Hannah Hind, and Aunt Carrie Robinson, saw to it that
I lacked not for the peculiar delicacies than which in long wanderings,
I had found nothing more to my taste. Aunt Carrie’s home on the
Peninsula, near my one-time acre of Paradise, was the scene of a feast
the like of which is seldom known in these degenerate days. Senator
“Robbie” Hind and I vied in attention to the greatest number of viands.
I won. Nor can I be ashamed of the fact. Which leads me to believe that
the most complicated luau in these friendly isles is a “balanced ration”
for my otherwise sensitive organism! Midway of the repast, I noticed
across the flower-mounded table that one sylph-like maiden gazed out of
window with the far-away look of repletion. “Weakening?” I queried
scornfully. “Oh, no; I should say not!” amiably she disclaimed. “Only
resting!”
But here I am, again writing about Hawaiian food. In conclusion, I must
repeat that he or she who fails to approach with open mind and appetite
a Sandwich Islands (no pun intended) banquet, misses the ultimate of
normal gustatory blessings. For the casual sojourner there are special
tourists’ luaus, tickets for which can be purchased at the news-stands
of the large hotels. These native feasts include a hula dance.
* * * * *
Very softly I went down the red road, to pass through the little wicket
into our old Elysian acre, for the first time since 1907, when our white
ketch had swung at anchor in the jade tide off the jetty. Oh, the pity
of it! A storm of a ferocity seldom before known in this part of the
ocean, had snapped short the giant algarobas; while a new owner had
elevated by a whole story the once low bungalow. The world, for a few
moments, seemed as out of joint as the proportions of tree and house. I
grieved that I had come. Miss Frances Johnson, across the way, was very
full of years; and I thought, as I responded to her emotion, that it
might be our last meeting. She has since died.
In these days there is much talk, by way of book and periodical, about
the South Seas; South Seas meaning, for the most part, Tahiti, Samoa,
Tonga, and other Polynesian isles, with little reference to the still
raw and adventurous Melanesian region farther west, familiar to us of
the _Snark_. But many who long to step upon the coralline sands of the
east South Pacific, and cannot go that far, forget our own sub-tropics,
whose spell works so wonderfully within five or six days’ sail from
California. For one who would see Oahu in short order, the great
Kamehameha Highway is well under way. “Hammer on federal aid for roads,”
is the slogan of those interested in publicity for the Territory.
Hawaii, they saw, has contributed vast sums to the federal government
since annexation, but has never been included in federal appropriations
for roads. Yet millions are being spent by the government in Alaska for
this purpose. President Harding is hopefully regarded in this
particular. A glance at the week-end automobile sections of Honolulu’s
leading papers leaves no doubt of the charms of motoring about the
group.
I was overjoyed to note that work was projected upon the red leagues to
Waimanalo on windward Oahu. There, besides other indestructible glories
of God, is that great beach, once before mentioned, the finest in all
Hawaii.
One day, returning from Waimanalo, we angled aside to the old Irwin
place, Maunawili, in an enchanting pocket on a mountainside. Here, long
years ago, Queen Liliuokalani composed her sweet and simple song, now so
widely known and associated with Hawaii, “Aloha Oe.” James Boyd,
hapa-haole, and a close friend of the royal family, had then been the
owner. With one who knew of the old days, I wandered about the original
house, now occupied by a caretaker, where the alii had journeyed merrily
over the Pali from Honolulu to rest and play; when there was no thought
of time; when the heady air trembled with fragrance, and melody from
happy, care-free throats. It was a quaint experience, stepping up or
down from one built-on room to another; peering into musty wardrobes;
contemplating the vast hikiés that had lulled long rows of Hawaiian
noblemen to child-like slumber; musing above the remnants of furniture
brought by clippers around Cape Horn. All the time in my ears the rich
lore of a generation now silent in death.
Another day I was again at Refuge of Birds, Ahuimanu, hard against the
Mirrored Mountains. Old as it had seemed before, now it looked far more
than thirteen years older. Then it had been an inhabited and tended
decline. Now the mossy roofs lay unrepaired beneath sun and star, cloud
and rain, silent, deserted. But the few hours in which we awakened the
echoes in that long dining-room and remembered chambers, and in garden
and swimming pool, brought out the hospitable spirit of other days.
Beside my own California mountain-side, there is one place above all
others that I should love to have and cherish. It is Ahuimanu, Refuge of
Birds.
* * * * *
I have descanted upon the outdoor sports of Hawaii. And if you would
have the fever of city life in a rigorless climate, no city so gay as
Honolulu. The hotel life is a dream of leisure, dining, teas, bridge,
bathing, canoeing, and dancing in the immense lanais to the swooning
Hawaiian strains or the latest mainland jazz, from stringed instruments
and native voices.
One new activity I noticed was by way of well-coached companies in
Little Theatres. The Lanai Players and the Footlight Players are notable
among these. Talent is recruited from both amateur and professional
material, even some of the older and most exclusive kamaainas taking
enthusiastic part now and again in the excellent plays that are
produced. Musical instruction and entertainments are kept at high
standard in Honolulu. It is hardly necessary to mention that there are
the best of moving picture houses throughout the islands.
In these latter days of the South Seas proper, one’s heart is wrung by
the decadence of the natives through the ills of white civilization; and
the influenza reaped its ghastly harvest everywhere. But Hawaii fared
not so ill from the dread scourge. The all-Hawaiians, though not holding
their own in fecundity, are far from presenting a puny appearance—the
splendid creatures! Thus, the traveler who would gaze upon the pure
Polynesian in his native haunt, may still have curiosity gratified. If
he be in San Francisco, New York, or Los Angeles, he may step out and
secure steamship reservations at branch offices of the Hawaii Tours
Company. And here let me say it is in sheer good will that I pass along
this information, unbeknown to said Tours Company. My pleasure it is to
share My Hawaii with the whole world. Many is the letter that weights my
morning mail, telling me _Our Hawaii_ has sent the writer out upon the
blue Pacific. Never was I more gratified in this connection than upon a
day when we went to meet Princess David Kawananakoa and her children,
arriving from New York. Stepping from the gangplank to the wharf, a
bright-faced woman made straight for myself, stretching out her hand:
“You are Mrs. Jack London? Charmian London? Well, I want to tell you I
am here to-day because I read your book, _Our Hawaii_. Oh, yes, and your
_Log of the Snark_, too. I fully expect to get to the South Seas because
of _that_! And there are others aboard who can tell you the same story.”
It saddens me to read the cold, hard figures of the official census of
1920. The only race registering a decrease is the native. The total
pure-Hawaiians are given as 23,723—a decrease of 2,318 in ten years.
The Asiatic-Hawaiian has doubled, However; and the Caucasian-Hawaiian
risen from 8,772 to 11,072. Total population of the Territory, 255,912,
of which 109,274 were Japanese.
Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalananaole has announced that at the end of his
present term he will end his service as Hawaii’s representative in
Congress, which began twenty years ago.
“I can best serve the ends of my own people by acting as a member of the
Hawaiian Rehabilitation Act Commission,” he says. “I feel that I have
done my duty to my country and my people in the past twenty years in
Washington. I want to use what knowledge and influence I have in making
the Hawaiian home laws a success. I succeeded in getting the
Rehabilitation Act through Congress, and will continue to work on the
successful carrying out of the law. The rest depends on the Hawaiian
people.”
The Rehabilitation Act provides homesteads on the islands for people of
Hawaiian blood as an aid to the rebuilding and perpetuation of the race.
The act was passed on the ground that foreigners were taking up all
available land and crowding out the natives.
When Princess David returned that winter of 1919-1920, she said it was
to stay. For years she had lived in the eastern capitals, or sometimes
in California, more especially San Diego, where once I visited her. She
has made good her intention, busying herself with affairs in Honolulu.
Vividly there arises the memory of the great reception staged at her own
house on that day of her landing. Owing to another engagement, I arrived
in the latter part of the festivities. The sumptuous beauty, in a
princess-like holoku of black charmeuse and lace, crowned and garlanded
with golden ilima, sat in state near one end of her enormous lanai,
still receiving the homage of her people. All official Honolulu dropped
in during the afternoon. The orchestra played incessantly but
unobtrusively, its haunting airs threading into the universal loveliness
of low laughter, fragrance of jasmine and plumeria, exquisite tints of
hibiscus, and the gentle pomp and happiness of the occasion.
Between the welcoming formalities, wahines, from young maidenhood to
wrinkled age, approached wreathed in smiles and flowers, and made brief
vowelly speeches before their princess. Not so brief, however, were
those of one or two aged dames, who intoned the mele of their royal
mistress. Some knelt to her, invoking blessings; some kissed her hands;
others danced little hulas, archly chanting words that brought merry
laughter to the lips of the princess.
“They love all this so,” she said, holding my hand with her own
beautiful one. “And I love it, too. It makes them so happy. I am never
going away again to live. Other times I have come home, this has lasted
far into the night; and perhaps two hundred Hawaiians brought their mats
or coverings and slept right here on this lanai. They will do the same
to-night—sleep under my roof, you see.” I caught the unstudied
regalness of her slight inclination to an old courtier, as she answered
a question I had put:
“Am I tired? I am not. I rested all the way from San Francisco to
Honolulu, in preparation for this day and night!—Ah, I want my children
to know you—Kalakaua!” she raised her voice a little toward a tall
youth, “bring your sisters!”
They are representative Hawaiians in appearance, the brother and two
girls. Kalakaua, about sixteen, had the seeming of other dusky princes I
had met in the world of Polynesia, with a lofty sweetness of expression
and manner, and erect ease of carriage that made one’s eyes follow him
as he moved about. The sisters, Kapiolani and Liliuokalani, were equally
attractive. Despite their Caucasian blood and training in fashionable
schools, and their latest word in summer modes, there was preserved an
elusive wildness in their unfathomable eyes. I had seen the same
untamable thing in the old Queen’s look of a dozen years before—though
they were not related. The very pose of their young heads, from which
rebellious curls seemed continually springing out of bonds, bore out
this wholly charming island effect.
* * * * *
It had been my privilege at different times to have with me on the Jack
London Ranch certain girl friends from Hawaii. And now I was again to
meet some of these in Hilo in their own house—the Shipmans. Here I made
home for the winter. A right royal welcome was mine, as always. Tranquil
Hilo was what I most needed, and the days and nights were not long
enough in which to rest, write letters, and drive about the country.
“Come—you’ve been quiet long enough for one day!” a bright voice would
call, and Margaret, or Caroline, in summer lawns, stood beaming from the
lanai through the French window. “Come on down to the Yacht Club for tea
and a swim.” Or, “We’re off for Keaau—come with us; and we’ll swim and
have supper there!” Keaau, as before mentioned, being their seaside
retreat, and headquarters for the lower reaches of their cattle lands.
It is pronounced Kay-ah-ah’-oo—quickly Kay-ah-ow’.
Such tropic jungle on the winding way! But first, last, and always, the
cane, a jungle in itself, high above the big car: and often one had to
be wary of the slicing thrusts of living green blades where the stalks
had bent down the wire barriers which protect the road. Once at shady
Keaau, Mother Shipman, knowing what I like, has a nimble Hawaiian
scaling one of her fine palms for nuts. A clever swash of the heavy
knife, and the chalice of fragrant cool water is ready to quaff. One
lolls in hammocks on the high lanai, until an irruption of young things
carrying bathing suits stirs one’s delicious languor.
Swimming at Keaau is inside a surf-pounded lava-rock barrier. The high
breakers spill over and through crevices into this sheltered
play-ground. We descended steps in a stone wall, to frolic on the sand,
across which a fresh stream, never by the same route, finds its way to
the sea. One has to hunt for places to swim among lava hummocks, and at
high tide it is lively work battling with miniature currents that wash
in and out the crevices. For a thorough swim, we would afterward wind up
in a large fresh pond on the higher ground.
It was from here we made that ride on Kamehameha’s arrow-straight
highway to the cowboys’ camp, Papae. Our supper was steak roasted on
coals by lantern light. The native boys at first would not credit that I
wanted raw fish, which I repeat is estimable above oysters. But after a
little parleying among themselves, they prepared for me a morsel
fresh-caught off the iron-bound coast. The night was far from tropic.
Resting after supper, it was from under blankets where we lay in the
moonlight on a cool swirl of age-old pahoehoe, that we watched the
Pacific spouting high in gleaming spires against the lava cliffs. It was
so beautiful, following the racing cloud-ships across an illumined sky
where hung the few enormous stars the full moon let shine. Under the
blanket, in the crook of my arm, a blooded young fox terrier moaned with
the joy of white caresses—a white man’s dog, tolerated kindly enough by
the cowboys.
We slept on a broad platform in the Japanese goat-herd’s hut. It did not
look tempting. But noting that the Shipman girls were nothing loth, I
made myself at home in the small, earth-floored room hung with quaint
rags. Coming to examine these and the rest of the windowless apartment,
I found it all immaculate, everything “sweet as a nut,” as if fresh
laundered. The crisp night-wind flowed through the open doorways, and at
intervals a pink glow suffused us from far Kilauea. We slept like
children to the organ music of the surf; and there was a poignancy in
the pleasure of awakening to the sunrise, an enormous orb, clear-cut as
a harvest moon, red as wine, lifting out of a slate-blue, heaving plane.
Then the snows of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa blushed from rose to fervid
crimson above the fathomless mist-blues of their towering bulks.
* * * * *
Naturally, I had been eager to see the great eruption of Mauna Loa’s
crater, Mokuoweoweo, down the Kau side of Hawaii; but it had ceased
before my arrival. Kilauea, too, had joined in the general outburst,
Halemaumau overflowing into the main crater, clear to the foot of the
bluff below the Volcano House. The day before I landed, the lava had
suddenly lapsed several hundreds of feet, carrying with it large
sections of the pit walls. Before I had left Hilo, however, mine was the
good fortune to see it risen to within twenty feet of the rim.
It was away and beyond all imagining from former views. Night after
night I stood upon the crusted margin of the boiling shaft, prickly with
Pélé’s strands of spun-glass hair, and ever the wonder accumulated. The
circle of lava wall that had fallen in was raised by the powerful tide
into the wreath-form of a south sea atoll, supporting tiny hills as does
the surrounding reef of Bora-Bora in the Societies. Upon one arc the
island bore a rugged miniature mountain with the silhouette of a castle
on the Rhine. Inside this black lava circlet there moved and fountained
a lake of fiery liquid, while between the ring and the crater walls
there flowed and exploded a molten torrent. This would gradually sink a
few feet, disclosing awful caverns at white heat along the lower edges
of the island. The fountains, first bubbling up in domes of exquisite
rose and lambent yellow, would swell to bursting point, and fling high
into the burning night tons of molten fire-gold, which fell in great
drops heavily back into the restless, roaring, hissing flood.
When one first leaves his car in the parking place, there is heard the
peculiar soft-grinding, avalanching sound of the milling chaos. The sky
is painted red above the pit, and clouds of pink steam rise and bend
back and forth in the wind, or float away. But this illumination is no
preparation, even to the very brink, for what impinges upon the eye when
it looks over into the House of Fire. The brilliance is of an intensity
so terrific that all the white-hot furnaces of the world could give
little intimation of this glare that seems, like the eye of God, to
pierce and light the innermost convolutions of one’s brain, rob the very
spirit of its vain secrets.
By day the brilliance is more one of color, as if the solar spectrum
dyed the earth-substance and vapor with fervid rose, red, and orange,
and sulphurous greens and yellows.
Pélé has played fast and loose the past several years; and no man can
count upon his pilgrimage being rewarded by her most spectacular
performances. Although I continue to maintain that her serenest
vaporings are worth the voyage.
In March of 1921, the big steamer _Hawkeye State_ made her first
Baltimore to Hawaii trip, bringing a large list of eastern passengers to
visit the volcanic marvel. The campaign of publicity which landed them
at Hilo had been based more than all else upon the prayer that the fire
goddess might be in wrathful mood. As the _Hawkeye State_ neared port,
there was a disheartening lack of glow upon the side of Mauna Loa. The
hopes of the promoters were faint when the hotels at Kilauea were
reached, and grumbling arose at the insufficient accommodation and
lethargic aspect of Halemaumau in the distance. This continued until the
procession of motors was well on its way through the forest, bound for
the pit.
And then it happened.
Abruptly, as if ordered for their benefit, Pélé broke loose upon the
starry night; and by the time the excited scores had reached the verge
of her dwelling, the ponderous surge, urged from beneath, was lashing
tremendously against the battlements. These capitulated to the
onslaught, and crashed into the molten mass, driving the tourists
hastily to their cars and the safety and sight-seeing vantage of the
bluffs around the main crater. I quote from an eye-witness:
“The lake broke through crevices and rushed with express speed out over
the old lava surface, where flowing lava had not been known for forty
years. A river formed on the side toward the Volcano House, plunged down
the incline, covered the old horse corral where Professor Jaggar’s
instruments were stored, sealing them forever. On and on the river
spread until it stopped at the foot of the cliffs just below the Volcano
House. All night and on St. Patrick’s day, which was also the birthday
of Kamehameha III, the lava found new openings. It poured like a Niagara
over the south side. A new fountain formed near the bluff southwest of
Halemaumau and sent incandescent rockets into the air. Another fountain
formed over toward the Kau road.”
Never in the history of personally conducted excursions had the volcano
presented such a spectacle on schedule time. All discontented murmurings
ceased. The goddess was surely working for the promotion committee; and
a new hotel and enlargement of all present facilities, both there and in
Hilo, were promptly on the way. To say nothing of improvements on the
volcano highway.
Late tidings from this section of the territory augur that it will not
in future be regarded as a mere amusement park. Its Titan energies are
to be put to work. Professor Thomas Augustus Jaggar, Jr., volcanologist
in charge (U. S. Department of Agriculture, Weather Bureau), has
submitted that borings in search of heat for transformation into
electric energy be made in the valley that lies between Kilauea—which
he has found to be an independent mountain—and Mauna Loa. The idea, it
seems, was suggested by John Brooks Henderson, zoologist from
Washington, D. C., who backed up the proposal with a contribution of
$1,500.00. These holes should be sunk at the base of the west bluff of
Kilauea crater, in the bottoms of Kilauea and Kilauea Iki, and in the
outer slopes of Kilauea and Mauna Loa. The Hawaii Volcano Research
Association has approached the territorial legislature with this
project, and funds have been appropriated. The borings are to be deep,
to determine temperature, mineral and gas conditions, earthquake
phenomena, and water underground at the volcanoes.
It is a fascinating thing to contemplate. Far more so than the invention
of fast-obsolete war enginery and the squandering of dizzying billions
on the same, while the victims of the infernal machines beg for bread
and bed, or turn to crime. And think of the child-brains dulling in the
factories of the land of the free and the home of the brave, because a
time-dishonored law has been found constitutional in this day. Who knows
that any one of these young brains might not be such an one as those of
Henderson and the volcanologist on the slopes of Kilauea, who open up
this vista of scientific romance for young and old. Not for nothing did
Jack London, dying before the United States stepped into the “fight for
democracy,” picture his native land “on her fat, helpless, lonely,
unhonorable, profit-seeking way.” We got into the fight, wastefully, to
be sure, but quickly and magnificently, and helped the rest of the
world, temporarily, out of it. But look at us now, without conscience
toward our educators, our children, our “heroes,” our “democracy.” One
is tempted to indorse Shaw’s remark: “The longer I live, the more firmly
I am convinced that the other planets use our earth as their lunatic
asylum.”
But this is a book on Hawaii, and I have digressed—yet have I? This
work of Tom Jaggar’s, on his heights geographically, creatively, head
thrust forward into a golden age of scientific research for the good of
man, stings one into swift realization of the cruel, wanton loss of
strength and money that makes for destruction of body and mind, when it
might be turned to account for the beautiful emancipations of life.
In July, 1921, Kilauea National Park, comprising a large area of
Hawaii’s mountain land, including the fire-pit, was dedicated. The
picturesque exercises included the recitation by a lineal descendant of
a priest of Pélé, of a prayer to the fire goddess. This invocation,
delivered in the full-toned chant of the old Hawaiians, was succeeded by
an impressive recitation of the first Christian prayer delivered at the
same brink by the spirited Kapiolani in olden days.
In connection with this National Park a road is to be built to the
crater Mokuaweoweo at the summit of Mauna Loa. Owners of the land
required for this highway are willing to donate the property. The
possibilities of this road are set astir in one’s imagination by the
popular watchword, “From Surfing to Ski-ing.”
The greatest volcanic event in Hawaii for the year 1919 was the activity
of Mauna Loa itself. It was no surprise to the unsleeping keeper of
Kilauea and the Long Mountain. That autumn, with its unruly flock of
seismic disturbances, was a busy one for Professor Jaggar, who made more
than one lofty ascent to the flaming pastures of his charge.
Back at Kilauea observatory, it was at 1:45 on the morning of Monday,
September 29, that he noticed the fume and glow from Mauna Loa’s
13,675-foot crater, Mokuaweoweo, spreading to the southward along a
route he knew well. By telephone he warned Kapapala and the other
districts in the course the flow would take. Many is the account I have
listened to from residents of those sections who saw destruction looming
far above, and who hurried to pack their belongings in preparation for
flight. Some thought they would go grey in a night, through the freaks
played by the fluid avalanche, which would seem to skirmish in avoidance
of an obviously doomed home. And I noticed a hesitance among these, as
well as other island visitors who rushed to the ten-days’ wonder, about
telling what they had seen.
“It’s like this,” they faltered. “We saw things that nobody would
believe. How do we know? We tried it out when we got home. The thing was
too big, too terrible, to impress those who had not seen it—in spite of
the great smoke and glare that hid Hawaii from the other islands for
days and days. Why, I stood on the hot bank of that burning cascade, and
saw bowlders _as big as houses_, I tell you, perfectly incandescent, go
rolling down to the sea; and—but there I go. I don’t think you’d
believe the things I could tell you.”
Yet I find this in Professor Jaggar’s official report: “The lava ‘rafts’
or blocks of bench magma which rolled down the live channel, were seen
to bob up [in the sea], make surface steam, and float out some distance
from the shore without sinking at first, as though buoyed by the hot gas
inflating them. Lightnings were seen in the steam columns. There was
much muddying of the water, and fish were killed in considerable
numbers.”
For the week previous the professor had kept a pack train in readiness,
and by sun-up on September 29 he and Mr. Finch of the observatory, with
two native packers, were on their difficult and perilous adventure over
the lava deserts of other periods. The redoubtable scientist risked life
and limb in the following days to secure his remarkable photographs and
take samples of gas in vacuum tubes. The absorbing details of the
journey and its observations are in his Bulletin of October, 1919—the
high fountains of lava, the great detonations of explosions, the lake of
fire on the mountain, and the final plunge of the melt over old lava
bluffs into the sea in a river speeding five to ten miles an hour. This
red torrent coursed for ten days. The heat of the stilled lava was not
yet gone when, four months afterward, I motored upon it where it had
crossed, a hundred yards wide, the highway in Alika district—a waste of
_aa_ as upstanding as the wavelet of a tide-rip, _kupíkipíkio_. It had
swept everything in its path, causing suffering, fear and death among
the herds. A temporary restoration of the highway was begun as soon as
the heat had sufficiently cooled; but it made one nervous, in an
inflammable vehicle, to see how a light shower caused the lava to steam,
and to feel warmth still rising from crevices. Through the courtesy of
Professor Jaggar, I am able to present his photograph of the flowing
lava-stream.
During the eruption there was a succession of short-period, shallow
tidal waves ranging from three to fourteen feet in height. These kept in
trepidation the passengers on vessels of all classes that swarmed off
shore. An authentic tale is told of the wife of an islander being swept
some distance off-shore by a subsiding tidal wave. Fortunately she was a
swimmer. I have forgotten whether she was returned by the next landward
billow or was rescued by a canoe.
As I write, at this late date, of Hawaii’s volcanoes quick and dead, it
comes to me that they have new rivals in extent—Katmai in Alaska, and
Svea crater in Iceland just discovered by the Swedish savants Yberg and
Waddell. But the character and accessibility of Kilauea and Haleakala
make them immune from neglect.
One morning at half past two we left Hilo for the Shipmans’ highest
altitude on Mauna Kea. But not by way of their volcano house, which
necessitates traversing the lava valley between Mauna Loa and its twin
mountain. We motored up the coast, in and out the misty, moonlit
gulches, breathing the odors of Eden, and trying to catch glimpses of
the sleeping beaches at their mouths. The sky went every opal tint that
dawn can paint; and when the sun rose it was a dull, blood-red globe
that burned its way through the mist at our backs. By five we were
breakfasting in substantial New England manner with friends in Waimea on
Parker Ranch.
More than one gorgeous sunrise was ours while we wound southerly up
Mauna Kea’s western side on tracks more fit for cow-ponies, and only
lately attempted by automobiles. As the “clover-leaf” climbed, one felt
less and less inclined to talk. The beauty, the enormousness of every
prospect was almost stupefying. The first great valley we encountered
lies several thousand feet high between the largest mountain’s broken
knees and Hualalai lifting its head more than eight thousand feet to the
right, with Mauna Loa visible ahead. It must be kept in mind that this
highest island in the world is composed of three mountains, two of which
are nearly twice the elevation of Hualalai. This valley had the effect
of a desert basin, hemmed in by the three looped mountains. The rolling
plain, broken by hills and lesser valleys, was tufted with tree-growths
and half-dried, golden-green pili grass, blowing in the high wind. For
the island was suffering from what was as near drouth as it ever
experiences. But one knew that with abundant moisture the wavy plateau
would be an incalculably rich one.
At Kalaieha, on the Humuulu tract, still on Parker Ranch, we watched the
throwing and shearing of rams, while waiting for the Japanese cowboys to
bring horses on which we rode to the Shipmans’ ranch, PuuOO. The ponies’
feet thudded softly in the meadow turf. The air was light and sweet, and
full of bird voices—questioning whistle of plover, bickering and
calling of mynah, and skylarks near the ground, with more of
earth-earthy mellowness than that small feathered angel’s celestial
strains from the thin blue ether. From time to time, on our curving path
among hillocks high and low, we would have a glimpse, still six thousand
feet overhead, of Mauna Kea’s pure snowy pinnacles, with their azure
shadows.
“I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed in the buildings,” Caroline ventured.
Disappointed? Never had I seen anything to equal this little ranch
house, perched a mile and a quarter above sea level. It is built of
hand-hewn koa—walls, roof, floors, lanais. Koa, red as Etruscan gold,
is as common here as precious metal in heaven. The furniture, too, is of
the same “Hawaiian mahogany,” fashioned long ago in quaintest of shapes.
Outside, the house was grayed beautifully with age and weathers of many
years. We slept in high koa beds, on fat wool mattresses carded by
Jack’s “First lady of Hawaii,” Mother Shipman herself. And what sleep!
What appetite! What life! It was snapping-cold at morn and eve, with a
moon diamond-bright—never did I see moon so bright. I would wake to
hear, as if in a Maine winter, the telephone wire humming and crackling,
and the mynahs complaining of the cold; and another bird, with a
benevolent warble low in the throat.
Before the moon had risen, we could make out afar, where the sea laved
the foot of the valley, the twinkling lights of Hilo town, a little to
south of east. Already the glow from Kilauea’s raging furnace was
coloring the dark clouds beyond Mauna Loa’s long incline. Any time of
the night one could reckon upon that intense, lurid wine-glow to the
southeast.
Breakfasts were mainly of plumpest plover, proudly served to the queen’s
taste by Ondera, the Japanese cook, a broken-down cowboy. For some
reason it had been hard for me to think of the Japanese as cowboys; but
men who are fortunate enough to get and keep them say there are none
more able nor more faithful. The time came when none of the splendid
Hawaiian horsemen were to be found who would stay on the upper reaches.
A picturesque Japanese graveyard on a neighboring knoll attests the
devotion of the transplanted labor.
I came to call it The Book of the Mountain, what I read into and out of
it from saddle and from lanai at PuuOO. From dawn to dusk the pages were
always turning. Sometimes twilight came short hours after high noon,
with an infloat of cloud between earth and sun that seemed to rob one of
weight and all relation to every-day sensations, giving great area to
the imagination. Then would show the sudden etching, against thinning
vapor, of the writhen, ghostly skeleton of a dead koa tree, or the large
grace of a living lehua. But for the most part the satin-gray doorway
framed a happy foreground of green touched with sun-gold.
What held me most in thrall was the breathtaking lap of earth between
the two great mountains. For the first time I realized, only possible
from such vantage, what a whale of a mountain is Mauna Loa, and why the
ancients named it Loa, Long. It is that long, gradual slope to the sea.
Upon its side, from the summit, miles upon miles of lava that had flowed
from Mokuaweoweo in the early ’fifties and as late as 1880, glisten
under the brassy sun like streaming fields of mica, hardly
distinguishable from snow or ice.
Sometimes, at PuuOO, I seemed to be in a balcony looking upon a gigantic
stage. The cloud-drop of tarnished silver rose and lowered upon the
bright scene of flowing leagues of seaward-declining valley, with
showers of sun-javelins falling inside the curtain. I wondered why the
very vastness of it did not speak monotony. Perhaps the vastness was the
answer. Movement depended upon sunshine and cloud-shadow, except when
one picked out upon the colossal map a gliding herd of cattle, or a
pack-train of mules crawling _con moto_ over the gray and fawn of
lichened lava. What I do know is that never was the unearthly sweep of
valley twice alike; always the vision was renewed with a difference; and
never did it seem a tangible reality.
One day we spent following the pig-hunters. There was lacking the famed
excitement of boar-sticking, for the boars were stunted and spiritless
from the prolonged drouth. This sport is all in the day’s work for Otji
and Muranka, immovable as sacks of meal in their saddles—efficient
Japanese _vaqueros_, but far from graceful. They and their ponies are of
a sort in appearance, stocky, short-legged, homely, with sagacious eyes.
Good little philosophers, both, and kindly.
Exhilarating was the dash down the hummocky, slanting champaign, hoofs
displacing dust only lightly laid by cloud-mist. Fear of monotony is
dispelled in the first mile of closer acquaintance with the range. Quite
suddenly the soft pasture-soil gives place to harder ground of
half-decomposed lava forested in koa, standing and fallen. Then we come
quite unexpectedly upon a large river between steep banks; but it is of
long-arrested lava. Halting on the brink, we watch the hunters
scrambling below after a boar, the collies stringing out eagerly in
pursuit, bearing their plumed tails like kahilis, proudly.
I rein down into the channel, and negotiate the stream of stone and the
farther bank, marveling upon the puissance of my square and honest pony.
On over a descent of rough lava country, with clinking shoes the horses
leap like goats, landing bunched from mound to mound with perfect
precision, or scampering like rabbits in the wider spaces. We stop where
a stout plain-wire boundary is reached, by which the government protects
the young koa forestage, rooted in large bracken and tree ferns. From
among this undergrowth the collies’ smiling faces, bright-eyed, point up
at us, where they have come upon the quarry accounted for by the first
shot. A cowboy swings from his horned saddle, and dexterously, without a
waste movement, skins the bristly beast, whose lips in death snarl away
from yellowed tusks. The butchering is unpleasant and malodorous, but
interesting. The knife releases the entrails, and a small rough boot is
planted conveniently midmost of the smoking ruins that seem to shrink
from contact with an inimical outer world. All of the once vicious
wild-pig is left on the ground save the four quarters, except in case of
especially fine ribs. When the boys are out for longer periods, they
roast the meat, wrapped in koa leaves, in a bed of hot stones lined with
koa branches. The meat remains all day in this primitive tireless
cooker.
Sometimes we trailed after the hunters into deep gulches, crowded with
ferns, where the victims were brought to bay and dispatched in places
from which it was difficult to retrieve their bodies.
Caroline and I turned homeward by way of an obscure trail she knew upon
the long acclivity. Part of the distance was over pahoehoe lavas of
antiquity, patterned in grey-green lichen and a rich, tawny-tiger moss
deep and yielding as Wilton carpet. The sky was wonderful as the
earth—a satsuma sky of blue and white, the fleck of clouds giving the
effect of delicate cracked surfaces.
A roaring fireplace greeted our return. The smiling Ondera bustled about
like an old nurse making us comfortable, and set upon the koa table,
already holding his vase of dewy blue violets, a steaming roast of ranch
beef, and steaming vegetables from his garden. Later, while we read
cozily in the warmth, out of the windy night we heard the hunters and
pack animals coming in with the slain porkers; and presently their
laconic expressions of satisfaction as they sat to meat in Ondera’s
domain.
Under a tortoise sky this time, a dome of large close patches of lead
and white, we swung down-mountain to move into certain paddocks a drove
of cattle which had come all the way from Keaau by the sea. To an
American, the word paddock sounds so futile to designate the seemingly
immeasurable acres between fences or gates. Moment by moment I marveled
at the variety of that sage-green obliquity. Large areas are so rich and
friable that it must have puzzled the owner where, in some practically
desirable spot, as PuuOO, to find a place firm enough to bear a house.
It is saddening to come upon so much fallen timber. A pest of moss has
overspread and destroyed great numbers of the large growth. Among living
trees, I saw a few of the _naia_, false sandalwood, pricked out
bright-green by stray sunbeams.
Over the tussocks of grass we raced, senses aching with very pleasure of
motion in so boundless a survey. The declining earth stretches in an
unbroken expanse; then suddenly, under a clearing sky, an unguessed deep
serration yawns at our feet. The little horses drop easily from the
prairie into tropic ferns and flowering lehua, where the ground is lush,
the air hot as a greenhouse. Just as one notices that the fern-edges are
frost-bitten to brown, a cloud rolls majestically overhead, and coats
are drawn on without delay. Shortly afterward the torrid sunshine floods
down, and one pants in the rarefied air, while the toughest pony breaks
out in sweat.
We would ride through a living greenwood of large koa, and the next
paddock would shock as the veriest boneyard of blanched trunks and
limbs, erect or prone. In one such, we moistened our throats with
thimble-berries, less insipid than our California ones, and quite juicy
and refreshing.
Resting loosely in saddle, we followed with our eyes the red cattle
deploying with soft impact of tired hoofs. Next we would be over-edge
driving into some wet ruddy gulch, where the ponies, machine-like but
more reliable than any machine, slid steeply upon braced fours, into
fainting depths and dauntlessly up the opposite walls, keeping the
beeves in line.
Homeward bound, to show me more of the endless novelty we rode leisurely
by a round-about way that led through a stretch of Kentucky bluegrass
which would make a golfer’s paradise. This close lawn spread into the
most beautiful wood I have ever seen. It was of thriving koa and ohia
lehua, and would serve for the scene of legend or fairy tale. The lehua
are of as great girth and height as the koa; the fair green gloom,
trickled through with showers of sunrays, making the white-grey trunks
gleam as in a dream forest, or like the spirits of trees. That a
red-fibered plant may be so white outside, is of a piece with the wonder
of white-skinned humanity. One looked for pure, exquisite wood-sprites
to step into the emerald clearings and challenge the invader. Then, like
a shot, the lovely tranquillity was shattered by the spurring of a pony
after a frightened wild-pig, and I found myself very much occupied
staying with the bounding, darting pursuit of my own steed. The black
boar, at bay, almost underneath a mounted hunter, stood motionless
except for the savage glint of eye, bristling crest along neck and back,
and gnashing of tusks—the strangest, wildest note I have ever heard
outside a nightmare. In this posture, with all outdoors around him
offering a fighting chance, the animal menaced death and received it at
full gaze.
Puaakala—akala blossom—is the eastern ranch house of PuuOO, and
thither we rode for our last sleep on Mauna Kea. Raincoats and our few
traveling effects were strapped behind on the saddles, and thus we set
out, over an entirely different route, upon the return journey to the
east coast.
Puaakala, roofed in red corrugated iron, was otherwise even more
picturesque, more hand-made in appearance than the PuuOO eyrie, even the
washing-bowl and the bath-tub being dubbed out of koa. That tub, long
and narrow and sloped at one end, was unavoidably reminiscent of a stout
coffin. The living room had an aged and mellow look, walled with
beautifully seasoned wood. There were well filled bookcases and
cupboards of koa, stands of rifles and shotguns, small koa tables
bearing pots of flowers; and a large couch covered with a scarlet shawl
that I fancied was an heirloom. The fireplace shed its warmth and glow
upon the splendid woods, which gave back the cheer. Cooking and serving
was done by another Nipponese cowboy, with a face like weathered
mahogany, and whose usefulness in the saddle had passed. He, like
Ondera, busied himself with our welfare like an old family nurse. Unlike
Ondera, various small replicas of himself played charmingly upon the
greensward outside.
The low front lanai, wreathed with honeysuckle, faced mauka. Makai of
the house we wandered on foot at sunset through a grove of koa rooted in
uneven velvet turf pastured by Holstein Frisian and Hereford cattle that
made pictures at every turn.
That night, when I shut the koa panel that was my bedroom door, I became
aware that Gauguin had not been the only young painter who left his mark
upon wood. I found on the inner side an oil, manifestly not new, of a
spray of akala berries and leaves. It had been done as long ago as 1882,
on a visit by Howard Hitchcock, who has since attracted much attention
by his fine canvases of Hawaii.
In a crisp dawn that tingled cheeks and gloved fingers, we took to the
homeward trail, fifty miles down-mountain to the railroad. There we were
to board train for Hilo, leaving the cowboys to lead our mounts back to
PuuOO. It is the sort of traveling that only a seasoned rider should
undertake. Not that it demands special horsemanship, for the ponies are
surefooted and docile. But the approved gait is that steady jog-trot
which one must, with at least simulated composure, maintain to the
bitter end. This for five times ten miles, downhill at that, unrelieved
by even a stop for lunch, and paced, mile in and mile out, by chunky
little Japanese whose one duty was to see that we did not miss our
train... I, fortunately, was a seasoned rider.
But every foot of the way was of a beauty and interest never to be
forgotten. The start, for instance: did I say dawn? It was barely more
than the beginning of the end of morning twilight. The sky was deep blue
in contrast to a crescent moon bright as any star. The day grew, and
beetling cloud-masses, slate-blue, stood up, solid, the lightning
streaking athwart, like fantastic mountains against the heavenly
hyacinth dome. I almost listened for grand music to usher in this
creation of a new day. Music there was not wanting, however, of birds on
earth and in the scintillating air. Then a Gargantuan cloud-zeppelin
sailed on its tremendous way above the horizon, raining reflected fire
over a burning cloud-city of sunrise upon a cobalt sea.
How different the vision upon our left—shadowy Mauna Kea’s snows
flushing rosier, shade by shade, to the sun’s ardency; but in some
towering fields it was that the color of the snow is occasioned by the
red volcanic soil.
Dipping in and out of gulches, the clawing, sliding hoofs uncovered
earth as yellow as rusty iron. In a light rain, the warm breath of the
dust rose fog-like in the frosty air. While the sun dispersed the mists
and sent them drifting, drifting, in opal veils, we noted the semblance
of a Japanese print in the dead and dying koa trees, stark and gray
against a pearl-white curtain.
When the sharp, hot sunlight became obscured by clouds through which we
plodded, our coats had to be unrolled. The changes of temperature were
startling. But as the morning wore, the heat settled down, and jerseys
were added to the saddle bundles. In and out of forest and descending
plain jogged we; and many were the views of the mountain—red, upturned
profiles of burned-out craters against the enamel-blue sky, and the
sharp-edged summit blotched with snow. The drouth was very apparent
where we had come again into the Parker Ranch, which reaches over the
shoulders and about both sides of Mauna Kea, into and around other
tracts. Reforesting has been done by setting out eucalyptus. I saw some
well-grown groves, of a kind bearing blossoms which drenched the breeze
with fragrance.
The last few miles, by highway along the ocean bluffs, were painful, I
will admit; but I was not the only “seasoned rider” who dismounted
stiffly. A short walk, and the restful trip to Hilo in an open railway
coach, put us into condition for a dance. But I was bothered much by the
sudden wrenching from transcendent heights of which I had been a
thankful and very humble part for the past days. It was hard again to
tread city pavement, to gaze upon buildings of wood and stone instead of
fronded tree and the extravagant bulks of God’s mountains. Even when
contemplating the Shipmans’ string of automobiles, I harked back
regretfully to my friends up yonder on Mauna Kea’s shoulder—the funny,
fuzzy, excellent philosophers, the square, true little horses of PuuOO.
Yet for all the stupendousness of my late surroundings, and the
wholesome excitements of the chase, the memory of it remained a quiet
thing, something serenely happy.
At one o’clock of another morning, I arrived at Lahaina, on Maui, to
spend Christmas holidays upon Haleakala Ranch. Not long after leaving
Hilo, the _Mauna Kea_ had run into a succession of violent squalls,
through which she threshed steadily for hours. But when the ship’s boat
landed, it was under a sky of low-hanging stars, and I could see the
loom of West Maui’s valleyed heights.
Louis von Tempsky, debonair as of old, and the sonsy Armine, stood
peering down in the uncertain light. Without trace of yawn from
interrupted sleep, they reached to me the hands of perfect welcome one
fails not to clasp in these sweet isles. Never, should I embark and
depart a thousand times, can Hawaii’s landings become commonplace. Day
or night, they remain the most unspoiled of travel blessings.
If there is one thing lovelier than sea-level on Maui, it is her
temperate zone. I slept and woke for a month in the wing of a new house
on the ranch, set in thick, wild lawns where before breakfast one romps
barefoot with an adorable sprawl of puppies. By day, it was the old
story of bird-song, of sunshine and shadow, of illimitable mountain rim
above blue-shadowed clouds. And rainbows. Such rainbows! Conflagrations
of rainbows; the air afire with drifting rainbows; rainbows against
cloudrack of West Maui; through a veil of rainbowed mist, all the
centuried lapse of green-clothed lava below. Each morning, my own pet
rainbow frayed itself out in a dewy meadow just beyond my window. And
once, on a day’s ride of fifty miles, I saw at sunset, across a vast
bowl of pale-green cane, an old burial ground turned into a glittering
city of the dead, with a huge slanting shaft of rainbow piercing a low,
leaden pall of cloud.
During that same ride on the mountain, above the cactus plains, we could
make out the island of Kahoolawe. And Armine told me how once she had
found, in a rocky interstice, an old tambourine—so old it fell to dust
in her fingers. Lanai was visible to the northwest, and I planned some
day to go there from Lehaina. One reads that the ages have exposed on
Lanai a strata of soil of every conceivable shape and color, as
remarkable as the Garden of the Gods.
Christmas and New Year came and went, with all the gay observance of
tree and feast and dancing. On both days, a swarm of men and women who
had for years worked under Von, came like retainers to share in the
holiday spirit—Hawaiian, Portuguese, Chinese and Japanese. And all
played their part in music and merriment. The New Year’s Eve ball opened
the new hall at Kahului’s race-track. Then there were the New Year’s
races. In an unguarded moment I let fall that I had always been
ambitious to ride in a race. Promptly Von took me up, and it was
arranged that I should be one in the cow-girls’ contest on polo ponies.
I demanded further practice in the required “cowboy” saddle, being used
to the English tree. But almost incessant storms prevented much
preparation, and none whatever on the race-course.
On the great day, after dancing all night, I entered the event on a
horse and saddle I had never tried nor even seen before that day, upon a
new track so deep in mud that several jockeys had already been hurt from
falling horses. But the worst of it was that two “dark horses” proved to
be rangy thoroughbreds. Armine and I, indignant but determined, managed
despite to pass second and third under the wire, very close to the
winner. The other thoroughbred was at our rear, along with the beaten
ponies.
The weather did not permit the Haleakala camping I had so longed to
repeat. I was especially disappointed, because the von Tempskys had some
time previously made the startling discovery of heiaus in many of the
interior cones of the main crater. They had so far guarded their
fascinating secret; but in September, 1920, conducted to the
treasure-trove the scientists of the new Polynesian Research Society. In
all but two of the entire number of cones were found structures. These
were of three descriptions—the first a sort of prayer heiau; the
second, a type of burial heiau, “the passing place of priests,” in some
of which skeletons were still preserved. The Kaupo natives say that the
gray cinder-cone was for women, the black for men. A third variety, of
which there were dozens in more or less demolished condition, were of
the kind once used by Maui troops when they tried to hold Red Hill
against an invading army from the Big Island. The floor of one cone held
several small heiaus in a perfect state, while another crater bore
nearly a dozen temples terraced upon its inner slopes. A sling-stone of
antique pattern was the only relic they came across. I cannot imagine
any exploration in Hawaii more alluring than this in Haleakala, and
shall continue to burn for the chance, on horseback, to make at the side
of cone after cone in the great House of the Sun.
I was to enjoy a new revelation of Hawaii, the Kona coast in winter.
Gone was the Blue Flush, except the opalescent ghost of it at dawn or
sunset. Instead, the horizon was keen as a steel-blue knife, though at
times hardly darker than the deep blue sky. Seldom was the ocean like
the streaked mirror I remembered. Winds blew fresh and stirred the
surface into a semblance of more turbulent waters of the group.
Over the highway from the Volcano House, on through the Kau district, we
drove close-protected as in a tent, in warm deluging rain-flurries that
lightened to misty showers; out of rain-curtain into blazing sunshine
that tore splendid vistas in the clouds mauka and to the crawling indigo
sea far below. Lava from underneath Kilauea had broken out, in a fine
spectacle, upon a bygone flow. The yacht _Ajax_, one hundred and ninety
miles off-shore, had reported as plainly visible the glow from this Kau
desert stream as well as from Halemaumau. But seeing the lower outburst
entailed arduous tramping over sharp aa, and I, for one, having been a
spectator of Samoa’s similar eruption on Savaii, decided not to spare
the time and effort.
The Paris ranch was our goal. There we visited our friend Ethel who,
with her brother, was administering the ranch. On the velvet lap of the
mountain, the house rests in a close of natural lawn and rioting
flowers. Oh, these gardens of Hawaii! It would seem that here the main
effort might be not to stimulate growth, but to curb it from getting out
of hand. This garden is inclosed by a low stone wall, above which rises
a hedge bearing a profusion of rusty-orange flowers that make an arbor
of the gate-arch. I loved to stroll down the pave of broad, flat
volcanic flags, moss-grown, edged with amaryllis and iris, and then
wander in the tree shade over the springy grass, breathing perfume of
plumeria, magnolia, orange, my eyes full of the creamy color of their
blooms and the scarlet and coral of tall hibiscus. The deep, rich loam
in beds close to the house foundations was planted in luxuriant, tall
begonias, red, pink, and blush, and many another flower that flourishes
in this ardent clime; while the brilliant magenta Bougainvillea
clambered up the pillars, screened the lanai, and banked upon its roof.
In a leafy, damp ell of the building, I came upon an old well-top of
mossy cement, that looked more like a beautiful miniature mausoleum.
Outside the garden, on the natural terraces, were untended coffee
plants, with their green and red beans; the air-plant cassia (kolu),
with bell-shaped flowers, tinged with pink. This is a native of Africa,
and is a well known curiosity. Its leaf, allowed to lie on a table, will
continue to grow from the crenate notches along its edges, deriving life
from the air—hence, air-plant.
It was to this very spot where now stands the Paris home that from
earliest times the missionaries came as a health resort when the
tropical coast proved too warm for their New England blood.
Coffee raising in Kona, as in other sections of the Big Island, goes on
apace. The tobacco industry can hardly be said to be firmly established,
but its prospects are excellent. The leaf has the tropical flavor and
quality, classing with “Havana” rather than with any of our “domestic”
varieties. The 1920 crop was disposed of to a New York firm, who express
faith that at no distant day the Hawaiian “weed” will occupy a permanent
place in the American market.
One novel trip to me was on horseback to Kaawaloa, where is the Cook
monument. The trail lies down a rocky ridge, on which one sees the site
of that small heiau where Captain Cook’s body was dismembered, and where
one may turn aside to look upon Lord Byron’s 1825 oaken cross with
tablet to the memory of his slain countryman.
How certain faces and scenes stand out clear, definite, as if
challenging to be forgotten! One head I saw on the cape persists in my
impressions of that dreamy day. Its owner was vouched for as pure
Hawaiian—yet why, when he flashed his eyes sidewise, did I fancy they
were grey? He was the alii type, nobly tall, with straight-backed skull
and waving iron-grey hair. The Hawaiian lofty sweetness was not wanting,
softening the sternness of a large mouth and aquiline nose—reminiscent
of the carven lineaments of the fast-disappearing Marquesan.
The scene that is stamped upon my recollection is of the peacock-blue,
deep water at foot of that dull-gold burial cliff. Here some grand
specimens of Polynesians, nude save for bright loin-cloths, were fishing
as of old from a small fleet of the savage black and yellow outrigger
canoes. The noonday sun beat hot upon them, and their skins glistened
like wet copper and bronze. Now and again a fixed, silent statue became
alive and went overboard with a perfect grace that left hardly a ripple
upon the intensely blue current. Then two or more would pull in a tawny
net, and spill into the canoes their catch of sentient silver. Or, if
some were colored fish of unedible sorts, these were flung like autumn
leaves back into their element.
Unwatched so far as they knew, untrammeled, utterly at one with their
native environment, they gave me unwittingly a look into the past of
their race. Often I feel again beneath my head the cast-up spar,
sun-whitened, of a forgotten wreck, and see from beneath drowsy lashes
that vision of the golden age of Polynesia, and hear the desultory
chatter and young, care-free laughter of those children of the sun who
little knew the priceless worth of their gift to one white visitor on
their shore.
Doubtless I heard and listened to the same natives, but in their
unlovely modern clothes, at a church convention song-festival in
Napoopoo, part of the centennial commemoration of Opukahaia. The best
voices on the island were there, sweet, pure, true, melodious. I sat on
a bench with my back to the singers, but more particularly, to the
glaring lanterns; swinging my feet over a small surf and dreaming into
the starry night. “What dreams may come,” when one revisits lands where
one’s own romance has been enacted. I thought I saw the _Snark’s_
headsails come questing through the gloom around the point—my little
ship of dreams-realized.
Upon the outskirts of Napoopoo village lie the well-preserved remains of
Hikiau heiau where the monument to the famous young Hawaii Christian of
a century ago was unveiled with day-long song and prayer and genuine
Hawaiian oratory. This temple, which has been cleared of debris, shows
half a dozen shallow terraces rising to the final shrine. Here one can
see the very holes where once stood the idol-posts. In the middle of
this level is a divided wall inclosure. A short distance southeast of
the savage edifice, one comes upon a small stone platform where was the
house of Opukahaia’s uncle, with its family chapel—I should say heiau;
and two tall coconut palms which the boy is supposed to have planted.
The new monument stands hard against the outer southwest corner of the
impressive Hikiau temple, that point being nearest to where Opukahaia
had lived, and from where he sailed quite literally for the bourne
whence there was no return for him. The Anglicized inscription follows:
IN MEMORY OF
HENRY OPUKAHAIA
Born in Kau 1792.
Resided at Napoopoo 1797-1808
Lived in New England Until His Death at Cornwall,
Conn., in 1818.
His Zeal for Christ and Love for His People Inspired
the First American Board Mission to Hawaii in 1820.
Standing or sitting in the grass, without boredom for hours on end I
listened to the exercises. The oratory of the Hawaiian leaders, several
of them government officials, is like music. There is nothing they would
rather do than launch into speechmaking upon public occasions; and with
good reason, for there is nothing they do better. Their rounded periods,
their intonations, are impressive in the extreme. They know the value of
emphasis, of pause, of repose. I was transported to Bora-Bora, the Jolly
Isle, and heard again the ringing improvisations of the Talking Men. Not
the least among the speakers at Napoopoo that day was our good friend
Mr. Kawewehi. Some of the old men of the district, perspiring patiently
in resurrected frock-coats that were moss-green with age and damp,
delivered themselves of word and gesture with volume and fervor that
betokened they had been long-pent.
Between speeches, the choirs from various churches and Sunday schools
about the island, including every adopted race, were heard in songs and
hymns and recitations. School songs were also given, and I can only wish
I had reels of motion-picture, in colors, to preserve the types,
beautiful, comical, dark, fair, large and small, from royally-fleshed
Hawaiian, on through the score of other nationalities, to the tiniest,
bashfullest Chinese or Japanese maiden, or babe from sunny Portugal.
Such a gathering may never be again upon the strand of storied
Kealakekua.
One distinguished figure that mingled with the gathering was Miss Bertha
Ben Taylor. Her official title is Supervising Principal of the West
Hawaii government schools. For years this strong and capable woman has
devoted her abilities to maintaining the high standard she has set for
the schools under her charge.
“Do you approve of whipping children?” I once asked Miss Taylor.
“Not now,” she replied, breaking into a smile. Then, to my questioning
look, she went on:
“The last time I ever spanked a child, it suddenly occurred to me to ask
the little fellow if he knew why I had punished him. ‘Yes,’ he
blubbered. ‘Why, then?’ said I. ‘Because you’re bigger’n me!’ Why else?
it struck me. I have never laid hand on a child since that day.”
The collection plate was passed by the sheriff—could that have been
unpremeditated by the committee in charge? The last hymn died away upon
the seabreeze, and the amen of the final invocation to Deity floated up
to blue heaven. The summery throng, so solemnly happy throughout the
warm hours of attention, left chairs, stones, grass, and the walls of
the heiau, and descended upon a huge feast in a half-open building at
water’s edge. Preparations had been afoot for days. More than once,
bound through for other points, we had noted the busy wahines and their
men, and passed the time o’ day with them. That very morning our
nostrils had dilated to delicious odors of roast pig.
We remained at the luau only long enough for a first course, because we
had been invited by the head of the Captain Cook Coffee Company to dine
at his cottage on the beach beyond the heiau. One could envy our host
his location, tucked away back in the cool shadow of the hoary temple,
half-surrounded by ponds, and with splendid swimming outside off the
shelving sands. There seems to be no fear of sharks here; why, I could
not unearth, for the ocean pours over no barrier reef. I never had finer
swimming than out beyond in those large, billowing rollers that did not
burst until close to the beach, and then mildly. But it is a wicked
place, they promise, in stormy weather.
* * * * *
There is no part of the world I have seen that is so fascinating to me
as Kona. Aside from its material beauty from surf-frilled coast to
timberline, it is pervaded by a mysterious charm that links it with my
oldest dreams. Back in childhood, in the beginnings of personal memory,
my dreaming at intervals took me upon a mountain where dwelt a
sophisticated people who lived for beauty and pleasure. There were dark
rooms somewhere in the steeps, but I never fathomed their significance.
Although the men and women were my kind—I saw no children—I seemed to
wander among them in a sort of seclusion, with little attention paid me.
For years I had not thought of this land of unconsciousness until that
week on the Paris ranch. As soon as the clover-leaf had emerged upon the
Kona slopes, its high ridge began to stir a remembrance that led to the
all but forgotten dream mountain. That skyline was a constant lure. The
tender wedges of young papaia groves and other crops, fingering into the
primeval forest, did not lessen the impression of familiarity with older
visits than my former ones here. By daylight and by dark the whole
prospect retained its unreality. Twilight and dawn lent the
mountain-side a perpendicularity, the depressions and shadows caverns of
mystery. In the eerie gloom one was almost afraid to find the ghostly
wall impalpable.
By far the most savage thing in the Kona district is a small Catholic
church that clings to the precipitous land. Some holy brother of long
ago had decorated every inch of this chapel with his conception of the
Hereafter. I will say that his sense of fitness kept the scene in key
with native surroundings, for the wooden pillars simulated coco palms,
their fronds spreading upon the blue ceiling. The painted trunks were
scrolled in the native with hopeful prophecies such as “You are going to
hell.” The tormented souls depicted on the right-hand wall were
indubitably Hawaiians, with a sprinkling of imported tillers of the
soil. Most of them wore expressions of pained surprise at shrewd
punishments for sins they wotted not of. It was an unfortunate skurrying
paké, Chinaman, however, with a long and inconvenient queue, who seemed
to be having a peculiarly unpleasant time of it, between fire and snakes
and an extremely unstable equilibrium. The distinguished attention
lavished upon his execution, artistically and spiritually, by a
harrying, tailed demon with a red pitchfork, led one to hazard that the
painter had “had it in” for his earthly prototype. An artist of old
Salem could not have used more lurid and thrilling realism!
On the opposite wall, with a certain rude sublimity, was limned the
Temptation in the Wilderness, besides scenes of heavenly reward for
righteousness.
The story runs, if I remember aright, that when the earnest proselyter
was called to another parish, his mural illuminations failing to meet
with aught but contumely, he revenged himself by painting _brown_ the
angels’ faces!
I was more than curious to learn if that three miles of new automobile
road across the lava from Napoopoo had altered the native atmosphere of
Honaunau. I record with thanksgiving that such is not to any grave
extent the case. The pilgrim, approaching the beach village with open
spirit and sympathy, may still find a bit of real Hawaii. Myself, I
spent a perfect day, the abominable fumes and noise of gas-cars
excepted. The church convention, taking the opportunity to revisit the
heiau, motored over _en masse_. From what I observed, not a Hawaiian was
guilty of the slightest levity within the pagan precincts.
It is a sweet spot, Honaunau, removed as far from the restless
work-a-day world as may be in a machine age, considering its nearness to
the continent. As all over the island, the old women, reminded of my
identity, caressed me half-reverently for my widowhood. They recalled
Jack London of the sea-gray eyes, and sunny curls as recalcitrant as
their own, and that he wrote understandingly of their people. “A good
man,” they murmured in the native; and _Auwe!_ and again Auwe! they
repeated in the kindest voices I had heard since far days in Samoa.
Ethel Paris, unknown to me, also hinted to the villagers that Lakana
Wahine favored, above haole oysters, raw tidbits of Hawaiian fish. I had
found, in the stone-walled palm grove, a coconut frond twenty feet long
that suited me well for a sylvan couch. With head on log, I was
complete. I sharpened my pencil on a convenient lava bowlder, and went
at making word-sketches of my environs, unwilling to lose one moment in
entire forgetfulness. I wrote a few sentences, set down some of the
colors. But I found my mood better fed by idly wondering why the drowsy
interval between the impact of an ax wielded by a distant woodchopper,
and the sound of it, seemed longer than in any other atmosphere. An old
break in the stone wall opened up a deep bight, striped in peacock and
green-turquoise, where rolled at anchor a dove-gray sampan that dully
mirrored the gaudy tide. To either side, arms of lava embraced miniature
bays. On a moss-green islet stood a native boy, in perspective a mere
Tanagre figurine, tarnished with vert reflections. In his hand was a
snow-white crust of coconut, and motionless he watched a green-crested,
red-webbed duck nozzling in the shallows.
Not far off, in a wind-ruffled, reef-sheltered place, swam a dozen men
and women. They wore loincloths and white or red muumuus, and threshed
the water, brilliant blue even close inshore, with overhand
breast-strokes from brown arms smooth-shining against the lava
background of rougher bronze surface. The unrestrained laughter and
exclamations were too much for me, and I went out upon the piled lava
shore for a nearer view of their gambols. While I sat, feet trailing in
the brine-washed sand, a sumptuous wahine strolled by with the correct,
straight-front poise of the heaviest Hawaiians. With the slightest
recognition of my presence, a diffident reticence often mistaken for
hauteur, she rested at a distance, filled and smoked a small pipe at her
ease, the while carelessly studying a salt pool near by. Pipe empty, it
and her sack of Bull Durham were tucked jauntily into the band of a
tattered straw of native weave that tilted at a killing angle over her
pretty eyes and saucy nose. The up-ended back of the brim gave view of a
generous toss of curls that made me envious of her very probable
ignorance of its beauty. With a hand-net and bag she commenced hunting
for seafood in the sandy places, planting her feet on lava hummocks as
squarely and ponderously, with her mighty ankles, as might a quickened
idol of stone. When she ventured in above the knees, her floating red
holoku revealed limbs like trunks, laughably fat, yet pleasantly
proportioned.
A bevy of young women came wading in from their swim, shaking out yards
of splendid hair to dry in the sun along with their dripping
muumuus—hair abundant, not coarse, breaking into wonderful red-bronze
waves, ringleting at the long ends and about face and neck as if in
sheer celebration of vital life. Some of these wahines and their men
converged where a swift current poured through a wee channel from one
rocky pool to another, and began netting colored fish. Joining them with
my friends, half in and half out in the drifting sand and milk-warm
water, I watched the pretty sport.
“Do you know that they’re after the right fish for _your_ lunch?”
Margaret whispered to me. Repeating to the fishers in their tongue what
she had said to me in mine, they all laughed, lowered their eyelids with
the movement that caresses the cheek with the lashes, and bobbed their
heads in delighted confusion.
I swam and frolicked in the racing brine, and once, floating face-down,
spied a long shadow that sent me half-laughing, half-panicky, to win to
safety ahead of an imaginary shark. But the natives knew that no
sea-tiger comes into these lava-rimmed baylets, and I joined in the
rippling explosion of mirth that went up at my discomfiture.
When I had returned to my shady coconut grove and palm-frond, ready to
have lunch, a handsome elderly Hawaiian, with leonine gray mane above
beautiful wide eyes of brown, approached with the grand air of a queen’s
minister. In his shapely hand was a large leaf. Upon this natural
platter lay freshly-snared game of the right varieties, white-fleshed
and size of my palm, cleansed and sliced raw. Not a smile marred the
high respectfulness of his manner; only the most formal ceremoniousness,
without affectation, of service from one race to another. Without a
word, he went as he had come, in unhurried and graceful stateliness.
After I had eaten, curiously yet courteously observed by the passing
dignified pilgrims to the ancient shrine, I joined my fish-host at the
water’s edge, where he sat with the large wahine, who proved to be his
wife. We waxed as chummy as our lingual disadvantage would permit. I was
glad to learn that in these unprolific times the fine couple had at
least one child; but he did not appear strong.
And thus, in all leisureliness, I linked with a chain of hours that
seemed like days, in which there was enough of unspoiled human nature
and habit to link one in turn with Hawaii’s yesterday. These
child-people of the beach were pleased, too, in their way, that an
outsider should love to be at one, as a matter of course, with their
customs.
Ten days of reuniting with friends in Honolulu, and there came my
sailing date. The four months’ vacation I had allotted myself was done.
I must get home to the finishing of Jack London’s biography.
On the big wharf was scarcely standing room for those come to God-speed
the ship. The faces of the passengers were regretful, no matter what
their pleasure of home-going. Bedecked with wreaths, they struggled
through the flowery crush to reinforce the crowded steamer rails that
appeared like tiered garden walls.
The embracing was over, the eyes-to-eyes of farewells that tried to
remain composed. Jack Atkinson, who at the last took charge of breasting
a way for me to the gangplank, handed me through the gate. I was banked
to the eyes with the rarest leis of roses, violets, plumeria, proud
ilima and all. It being a warm March day, and the weight of flowers very
palpable, one felt much as if in a perfumed Turkish bath!
Leaning over the topmost rail, trying to locate faces in the dense
gathering, I realized again all the sweetness of my welcome and parting.
Diffidently, desolately, I had approached Our Hawaii. As I had been
welcomed for two, so I departed for two; and my speeding was two-fold.
And now in my heart was gratitude and happiness for the renewed love and
trust that made it My Hawaii.
The hawsers were cast off, the band melted into Aloha Oe, the streams of
serpentine began to part and blossoms to fly, as the _Matsonia_ got
under way. Something made me glance down at the stringer-piece of the
pier. A handsome Hawaiian youth stood looking aloft at me in mute
distress, holding up fathoms of pink cables made from stripped
carnations. He had failed to get aboard with them in time. It was
Kalakaua Kawananakoa. Princess David had sent him in her stead, for I
had made her promise that she would not brave the exhaustion of the
merry mob.
Then I lost track of the young prince. A few moments later, one of the
music boys came to me bearing the royal ropes of flowers, five inches in
diameter, which Kalakaua had somehow contrived to land on the lower deck
across the widening gap. Still unable to detect his among the myriad
faces, I swung the wondrous lariat, letting out its yards about my
flower-crowned head, that he might know the gift was safely mine.
With a sob in the throat, I recalled Jack’s words, that last time I had
stood in the same place at the _Matsonia’s_ hurricane rail:
“Of all lands of joy and beauty under the sun...”
But always the sob must turn to song, in contemplation of that beauty
and joy.
Not alone because it was Jack London’s Loveland do I adore Hawaii and
her people. To me, native and kamaaina alike, have they given their
heart of sorrow, and their Welcome Home, in ways numerous and touching.
To them, therefore, this book, _Our Hawaii_. To them, friends all,
greeting and farewell.
“Love without end.”
“Aloha pau ole.”
Jack London Ranch,
In the Valley of the Moon,
1921.
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