THE SPELL OF THE
HAWAIIAN ISLANDS AND
THE PHILIPPINES
HAWAIIAN ISLANDS AND
THE PHILIPPINES
THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS
CHAPTER I
THE BRIGHT LAND
n our first trip to Hawaii we sailed from San Francisco aboard the Gaelic with good, jolly Captain Finch. He was a regular old tar, and we liked him. We little thought that in 1914 he would have the misfortune to be in command of the Arabic when it was torpedoed in the Atlantic. He showed great gallantry, standing on the bridge and going down with his ship, but I take pleasure in adding that he was saved.
We had an ideal ocean voyage: calm, blue seas, with a favouring trade wind, a glorious moon, and strange sights of huge turtles, tropic birds, and lunar rainbows. We had, too, an unusual company on board—Captain Gridley, of Manila Bay fame, then on his way to take[Pg 4] command of the Olympia; Judge Widemann, a German who had lived for many years in Honolulu, and had married a Hawaiian princess; Mr. Irwin, a distinguished American with a Japanese wife—all old friends of my father, who, as a naval officer, made several cruises in the Pacific—Dr. Furness of Philadelphia, a classmate of my husband's at Harvard, who was going out to study the head-hunters of Borneo; and Mr. Castle, grandson of one of the early missionaries to Hawaii. He has since written a charming book on the Islands.
After six days on the smooth Pacific, we caught sight of Oahu, the fairy island on which Honolulu is situated. Diamond Head stretches far out into the blue, like a huge lizard guarding its treasure—a land of fruits and flowers, of sugar-cane and palm. The first view across the bay of the town with its wreath of foliage down by the shore, just as the golden sun was setting over the mountain range, was a picture to be remembered. And in the distance, above Honolulu, the extinct crater called Punchbowl could be seen, out of which the gods of old no doubt drank and made merry.
An ancient Hawaiian myth of the creation tells how Wakea, "the beginning," married[Pg 5] Papa, "the earth," and they lived in darkness until Papa produced a gourd calabash. Wakea threw its cover into the air, and it became heaven. The pulp and seeds formed the sky, the sun, moon and stars. The juice was the rain, and out of the bowl the land and sea were created. This country they lived in and called it Hawaii, "the Bright Land." There are many legends told of Papa by the islanders of the Pacific. She traveled far, and had many husbands and children, among whom were "the father of winds and storms," and "the father of forests."
As we approached the dock, we forgot to watch the frolicking porpoises and the silver flying fish, at sight of the daring natives on their boards riding the surf that broke over the coral reef. The only familiar face we saw on the wharf as we landed was Mr. George Carter, a friend of my husband's, who has since been Governor of the Islands.
Oahu is a beautiful island, and the town of Honolulu at once casts its spell upon you, with the luxuriance of its tropical gardens. There is the spreading Poinciana regia, a tree gorgeous with flowers of flame colour, and the "pride of India," with delicate mauve blossoms; there are trees with streaming yellow clusters, called[Pg 6] "golden showers," and superb date and cocoanut and royal palms, and various kinds of acacia. Bougainvilleas, passion-flowers, alamanders and bignonias drape verandas and cover walls. There are hedges of hibiscus and night-blooming cereus, and masses of flowering shrubs. Everywhere there is perfume, colour and profusion, the greatest wealth of vegetation, all kept in the most perfect freshness by constant little passing showers—"marvelous rain, that powders one without wetting him!" Honolulu is well named, the word meaning "abundance of peace," for we found the gardens of the town filled with cooing doves. It is said the place was called after a chief by that name in the time of Kakuhihewa, the only great king of Oahu who is mentioned before Kamehameha I.
ROYAL HAWAIIAN HOTEL.
At the time of this visit, in 1897, the total isolation of the Islands was impressive, absolutely cut off, as they were, except for steamers. Sometimes, moreover, Hawaii was three weeks without an arrival, so that the coming of a steamer was a real event. To cable home, one had to send the message by a ship to Japan and so on around the world.
After a night at the old Royal Hawaiian Hotel, big and rambling, in the center of a pretty garden, we started housekeeping for ourselves [Pg 7]in a little bungalow on the hotel grounds, with a Chinaman for maid of all work. Here we lived as if in a dream, reveling in the beauty of land and sea, of trees and flowers, enjoying the hospitality for which the Islands are famous, and exploring as far as we could some of the enchanting spots of this heaven on earth.
We were pleased with our little house, with its wide veranda, or lanai, as it is called there, which we made comfortable and pretty with long wicker chairs and Chinese lanterns. Mangoes falling with a thump to the ground outside, and lizards and all sorts of harmless creatures crawling or flying about the house, helped to carry out the tropical effect.
In the four visits that we have made on different occasions we have found the climate perfect; the temperature averages about 73 degrees. The trade winds blowing from the northeast across the Pacific are refreshing as well as the tiny showers, which follow you up and down the streets. There is not a poisonous vine or a snake, or any other creature more harmful than the bee; but I must confess that the first night at the old hotel, the apparently black washstand turned white on my approach as the water bugs scuttled away. Nothing really troubled us but the mosquitoes, which, by the way, did not exist[Pg 8] there in the early days, so must have been taken in on ships.
The Islands have been well called "the Paradise of the Pacific" and "the playground of the world." The five largest in the group, and the only important ones, are Hawaii, about the size of Connecticut, Maui, Oahu, Kauai and Molokai. The small ones are not worth mentioning, as they have only cattle and sheep and a few herdsmen upon them. They are formed of lava—the product of numberless volcanic eruptions—and the action of the sea and the rain, combined with the warm climate and the moisture brought by the trade winds, has resulted in the most varied and fascinating scenery. Mark Twain, who spent many months there, said of them, "They are the loveliest group of islands that ever anchored in an ocean," and indeed we were of his opinion.
At that time the Islands formed an independent republic, under Sanford B. Dole as President, the son of Rev. Daniel Dole, one of the early missionaries. He was educated at Punahou, meaning new spring, now called Oahu College, and at Williams College in the States. He came to Boston to study law, and was admitted to the bar. But Hawaii called him, as if with a forecast of the need she would have of his services [Pg 9]in later days, and he went back to Oahu, where he took high rank among the lawyers in the land of his birth, and became judge of the Supreme Court. After the direct line of Kamehameha sovereigns became extinct, and the easy-going rule of their successors culminated in the high-handed attempt of Queen Liliuokalani to restore the ancient rites and also to turn the island into a Monte Carlo, Judge Dole was the one man who understood both parties and had the confidence of both, and he was the unanimous choice of the best element of the population for president.
HON. SANFORD B. DOLE.
Of course we visited the buildings and localities in Honolulu that were of interest because of their connection with the existing government or their history in the past. The Executive Building—the old palace, built by King Kalakaua and finished in the finest native woods—and the Court House, which was the Government Building in the days of the kings; the big Kawaiahao Church, built of coral blocks in 1842, and the Queen's Hospital, all are in the city, but they have often been described, so I pass them by with only this mention. The first frame house ever erected in the Islands deserves a word, as it was sent out from Boston for the missionaries. It had two stories, and in the early days its tiny[Pg 10] rooms were made to shelter four mission families and twenty-two native children, who were their pupils.
Oahu College, too, interested us. It was built on the land given by Chief Boki to Hiram Bingham, one of the earliest missionaries, who donated it to his coworkers as a site for a school for missionary children. The buildings stand in a beautiful park of ninety acres, in which are superb royal palms and the finest algaroba trees in Honolulu. Long ago, in the days of the rush for gold to California, boys were sent there for an education from the Pacific Coast.
The great aquarium at Waikiki, the bathing suburb of Honolulu, I found particularly fascinating. There does not exist in the world an aquarium with fishes more peculiar in form or colouring than those at Waikiki, unless the new one in the Philippines now surpasses it. About five hundred varieties of fish are to be found in the vicinity of the Islands. The fish are of many curious shapes and all the colours of the rainbow. Some have long, swordlike noses, and others have fins on their backs that look like feathers. One called the "bridal veil" has a lovely filmy appendage trailing through the water. The unusual shapes of the bodies, the extraordinary eyes and the fine colouring give[Pg 11] many of them a lively and comical appearance. Even the octopus, the many-armed sea creature, seemed wide awake and gazed at the onlookers through his glass window.
An afternoon was spent in the Bishop Museum, which is very fine and well equipped, its collection covering all the Pacific islands. I was chiefly interested in the Hawaiian curios,—the finely woven mats of grass work and the implements of the old days. Here, too, was the famous royal cloak of orange, made of feathers from the mamo bird.[1] It was a work of prodigious labour, covering a hundred years. This robe is one of the most gorgeous things I have ever seen and is valued at a million dollars. There were others of lemon yellow and of reds, besides the plumed insignia of office, called kahili, which were carried before the king. Our guide through the museum was the curator, Professor Brigham, who had made it the greatest institution of its kind in the world.
This museum is a memorial, created by her husband, to Bernice Pauahi Bishop, great-granddaughter of Kamehameha I and the last descendant of his line. Bernice Pauahi was the[Pg 12] daughter of the high chief Paki and the high chieftainess Konia. She was born in 1831, and was adopted in native fashion by Kinau, sister of Kamehameha III, who at that time had no daughters of her own. Her foster sister, Queen Liliuokalani, said of her, "She was one of the most beautiful girls I ever saw."
At nineteen she married an American, Hon. Charles R. Bishop, who was collector of customs in Honolulu at that time. She led a busy life, and used her ability and her wealth to help others. She understood not only her own race but also foreigners, and she used her influence in bringing about a good understanding between them.
In 1883, the year before her death, she bequeathed her fortune to found the Kamehameha School for Hawaiian boys and girls. This school has now a fine group of stone buildings not far from Honolulu.
The Lunalilo Home was founded by the king of that name for aged Hawaiians. When we visited it, we were particularly interested in one old native who was familiar with the use of the old-time musical instruments. This man, named Keanonako, was still alive two years ago. He was taught by his grandfather, who was retained by one of the old chiefs. He played on[Pg 13] three primitive instruments—a conch shell, a jew's-harp and a nose flute. The last is made of bamboo, and is open at one end with three perforations; the thumb of the left hand is placed against the left nostril, closing it. The flute is held like a clarinet, and the fingers are used to operate it. Keanonako played the different notes of the birds of the forest, and really gave us a lovely imitation. The musical instruments in use to-day are the guitar, the mandolin, and the ukulele. The native Hawaiians are very musical and sing and play well, but the music is now greatly mixed with American and European airs.
It was always entertaining to drive in the park, where we listened to the band and watched the women on horseback. In those days the native women rode astride wonderfully well and looked very dignified and stately, but one does not see this superb horsemanship and the old costumes any more. They did indeed make a fine appearance, with the paus, long flowing scarfs of gay colours, which some of them wore floating over their knees and almost reaching the ground, while their horses curvetted and pranced.
One of the amusements was to go down to the dock to see a steamer off and watch the pretty[Pg 14] custom of decorating those who went away with leis—wreaths of flowers—which were placed around the neck till the travelers looked like moving bouquets and the whole ship at last became a garden. When large steamers sailed the whole town went to the wharf, and the famous Royal Hawaiian Band—which Captain Berger, a German, led for forty years—played native airs for an hour before the time of sailing. It was an animated and pretty sight at the dock, for the natives are so fond of flowers that they, too, wear leis continually as bands around their hats, and they bring and send them as presents and in compliment. Steamers arriving at the port were welcomed in the same charming fashion.
Judge Widemann kindly asked us to dine and view his wonderful hedge of night-blooming cereus. The good old Judge who had married the Princess had three daughters; two of the girls were married to two brothers, who were Americans. All the daughters were attractive, and the youngest, who was the wife of a German, was remarkably pretty. It was strange at first to see brown-skinned people in low-necked white satin dinner gowns, and to find them so cultured and charming.
We dined with Mr. and Mrs. Castle, also with[Pg 15] old Mrs. Macfarlane at Waikiki. We enjoyed our evening there immensely. Sam Parker, "the prince of the natives," and Paul Neumann, and Mrs. Wilder, too, all great characters in those days, were very kind to us. Many of them have passed away, but I shall always remember them as we knew them in those happy honeymoon months.
All the mystic spell of those tropical evenings at Waikiki lives in these lines by Rupert Brooke:
"Warm perfumes like a breath from vine and tree
Drift down the darkness. Plangent, hidden from eyes,
Somewhere an eukaleli thrills and cries
And stabs with pain the night's brown savagery.
And dark scents whisper; and dim waves creep to me,
Gleam like a woman's hair, stretch out, and rise;
And new stars burn into the ancient skies,
Over the murmurous soft Hawaiian sea."
Drift down the darkness. Plangent, hidden from eyes,
Somewhere an eukaleli thrills and cries
And stabs with pain the night's brown savagery.
And dark scents whisper; and dim waves creep to me,
Gleam like a woman's hair, stretch out, and rise;
And new stars burn into the ancient skies,
Over the murmurous soft Hawaiian sea."
I took great pleasure in going to Governor Cleghorn's place. He is a Scotchman who married a sister of the last king, and was at one time governor of this island. Many years ago, my father brought home a photograph of their beautiful daughter, then a girl of fourteen, who died not long after. Mr. Cleghorn's grounds were superb—old avenues of palms and flowering shrubs, and shady walks with Japanese bridges, and pools of water filled with lilies. A[Pg 16] fine view of the valley opened out near the house. There were really two connected houses, which were large and built of wood, with verandas. One huge room was filled with portraits of the Hawaiian royal family and some prints of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. There were knickknacks everywhere, and teak-wood tables and chairs, poi bowls made by hand, and primitive stone tools. We were served with lemonade by two Japanese servants in the pretty costume of their land, while tea was served by a picturesque Chinese woman at a table on the veranda.
Besides these informal entertainments, there were various official functions. One was a delightful musicale at President Dole's house, in the midst of his lovely tropical garden; also a dinner at the Consul General's, besides several parties on the naval vessels at the station. Captain Book gave us a dinner and dance on his ship, the Marian. We had breakfast one day on the flagship Philadelphia with Admiral and Mrs. Beardsley—the Admiral was in command of the station. Captain Cotton of the Philadelphia also gave us a boating party by moonlight, followed by a little dance aboard ship.
After lunching with the American Minister, Mr. Sewall, one day, we sat on his lanai [Pg 17]at Waikiki and watched the surf-boating, which was most exciting, even from a distance, as the canoes came in at racehorse speed on the crest of the breakers. That day L. and I put our bathing suits on, as we did indeed several times, got into an outrigger canoe with two native boys to handle it, and started for the reef. They skilfully paddled the boat out between the broken waves, waiting for the chance to move on without meeting a foaming crester, and then hurrying to catch a smooth place. At last we got out far enough and turned, watching over our shoulders for a big fellow to come rolling in. Then the boys paddled wildly and allowed the crest, as it broke, to catch and lift the boat and rush it along on top of the roaring foam, right up to the beach. On one of our trips our oarsmen were a little careless and we were upset. But instead of swimming in shore we swam out to sea and pushed the boat until we were well beyond the breakers, where we could right it again and get in—which, for those not used to it, is not a particularly easy thing to accomplish. The people on the shore became frightened about us and sent out another boat to pick us up, for we were quite far out and there were many sharks around.
Surf-Boating 
By the way, one hears it questioned even to-[Pg 18]day whether sharks really do eat men, notwithstanding two men were bitten lately while bathing as far north as on the New Jersey coast. I will simply say I have seen a black diving boy at Aden with only one leg, as the other was bitten off by a shark, and have myself even worn black stockings when bathing in tropical seas because it is said sharks prefer white legs to black.
An old friend of mine, an admiral in the navy, tells this extraordinary story—that a sailor was lost overboard from his ship, and that inside a shark caught the very same day was found the sailor's head. Here is another story even more remarkable than that, taken from Musick's book on Hawaii:
"Why, sharks are the most tractable creatures in the world when you know how to handle them. It takes a great deal of experience and skill to handle a good-sized shark, one of the man-eating species, but the Kanaka boys know exactly how to master them. I used to have a fish pond over on the other side of Oahu, and at high tide sometimes as many as half a dozen full-grown sharks would come in the pond at a time, and when it was low tide it left them in the pond, which would be so shallow the sharks could not turn over. The native boys used to[Pg 19] go to that pond, jump astride the sharks and ride them through the water. It was great amusement to see them riding races around the pond on the backs of the sharks.
"Now, if you don't believe this story, if you will charter the ship I will take the whole party to the very pond in which the sharks are ridden for horses. If I can't show you the pond, I will pay the expense of the ship."
A long drive up into the mountains back of the town one morning, took us to Mt. Tantalus, two thousand or more feet high, from which there are splendid views of the plain below and the sea beyond and mountain ranges on each side. To-day there are many pretty summer villas built on its slopes. While we were looking down on the town and harbour far below us, we saw little puffs of white smoke, and long after could just hear the booming of the guns of the warships, American, English, and Japanese, saluting in honour of the President of this little island republic, who was visiting one of the vessels. Then we climbed higher yet, through woods of koa trees, bordered by thickets of the lantana, with its many-coloured flowers, up till we could look down into the dead crater of Punchbowl and over Diamond Head, and far off across the[Pg 20] sparkling ocean, while the steeply ravined and ribbed mountains seemed to fall away suddenly beneath our feet.
Punchbowl, where in the early days the natives offered human sacrifices, "is for the most part as red as clay, though a tinge of green in its rain-moistened chinks suggests those bronzes of uncertain antiquity." On this mountain top a myth tells us how a human being was first made—a man to rule over this island. The gods molded him from the clay of the crater, and as they were successful and he came to life, they made from his shadow a woman to keep him company. Indeed, many of the natives still believe in gods and fairies, in shark men, owls, and ghosts, and they will tell you stories of the goddess of the crater even to-day.
When we last visited this island thirteen years later with our Secretary of War, Mr. Dickinson, we saw many changes. We were taken to the Alexander Young Hotel in the center of the town, and to the great hotel at Waikiki. The old hotel, where we stayed years before, had changed hands and was sadly run down. How pretty and green everything was, and how marvelous were the flowers! Many new and rare species had been planted.[Pg 21]
The changes have been gradual, but to-day Honolulu is a modern, up-to-date American town, with business blocks of brick. The Makapuu Point Light is one of the largest in the world, and Diamond Head crater has been made into one of the strongest fortifications of modern times. Great men-of-war are to be seen off Honolulu, and Pearl Harbour has been dredged. The army quarters on this island are quite fine. There are good golf links, and on the polo field you see excellent players; the field is also used for aviation. The finely equipped Children's Hospital, the Normal School, and the McKinley High School were interesting institutions that had sprung up since our first visit.
To-day, out of a total population in all the Islands of 209,830, Honolulu has over 50,000. Many new houses and beautiful gardens are to be seen. The island now has, of course, cable and wireless communication with the mainland, electric cars and lights, telephones, the telegraph and numberless motors—in fact, every luxury is to be found. There are a number of clubs, of which the University is especially popular, and the Pacific, or British, Club is the oldest. The graduates of women's colleges have formed a club of their own. Schools and charitable institutions and missionary societies are[Pg 22] numerous, and the Y. M. C. A. building is very prominent.
The city now has many churches, which are well attended. The Episcopal cathedral, of stone brought from England, is especially fine. The Catholic cathedral and convent have long been established. It was a Catholic priest who first brought the algaroba tree from Central America sixty years ago and planted it in the city of Honolulu. The descendants of that one tree have reclaimed great sandy wastes and clothed them with fodder for cattle.
Our motor trip to Pearl Harbour took us past Mr. S. M. Damon's charming new place with its delightful Japanese garden. We motored to the Pali, a precipice that drops one thousand feet to the plains which stretch to the sea, where in the old days we had gone so often. Now, a stone tablet on its summit bears the following inscription:
"Erected by the Daughters of Hawaii in 1907 to commemorate the battle of Nuuanu, fought in this valley in 1795, when the invading Kamehameha I drove the forces of Kalanikupule, king of Oahu, to the Pali and hurled them over the precipice, thus establishing the Kamehameha dynasty."
In these days of aeroplanes, I gather this myth[Pg 23] of the Bird-man of the Pali from "Legends of old Honolulu," by Westervelt:
Namaka was a noted man of Kauai, but he left that island to find some one whom he would like to call his lord. He excelled in spear-throwing, boxing, leaping and flying. He went first to Oahu, and in Nuuanu Valley he met Pakuanui, a very skilful boxer, and they prepared for a contest at the Pali. Pakuanui could not handle Namaka, who was a "whirlwind around a man," so he became angry and planned to kill him. Namaka was as "slimy as a fish." "The hill of the forehead he struck. The hill of the nose he caught." Like a rainbow bending over the hau-trees he was, as he circled around Pakuanui. At a narrow place Pakuanui gave him a kick that knocked him over the precipice, expecting him to be dashed to pieces. "But Namaka flew away from the edge.... The people who were watching said, ... He flew off from the Pali like an Io bird, leaping into the air ... spreading out his arms like wings!"
This panorama is one of the wonders of the world; land and sea, coral reef and mountains, green meadow and shining sand, spread out before one's eyes at the Pali. As the road makes a sharp turn and begins to descend toward the valley, we encounter the full force of the trade[Pg 24] winds, for through this pass a gale is always blowing. To quote from Charles W. Stoddard, "If you open your mouth too wide, you can't shut it again without getting under the lee of something—the wind blows so hard."
From the Pali we went on to Pearl Harbour, where the United States Government is constructing a great naval station. This harbour, the finest in the Islands, is a deep lagoon, entered from the ocean by a narrow channel three miles in length. At the inner end it expands and divides into two "lochs," which are from thirty to sixty feet deep and with a shore line of some thirty miles. Algaroba forests cover the shores, and the fertile countryside, in which are rice, sugar and banana plantations, promises abundant supplies for the troops stationed here.
Pearl Harbour has really been in our possession ever since the Reciprocity Treaty with Hawaii was signed in Harrison's administration.[2] As it covers ten square miles, the whole navy of this country could find anchorage there, and[Pg 25] be in perfect safety. Not only has the bar that obstructed the entrance to the channel been removed, the long, narrow channel straightened, and a huge drydock constructed in which our largest ships of war could be repaired, but barracks, repair shops, a power house, hospitals, a powder magazine, and all the other buildings needed to make a complete station have been erected at a cost of more than ten millions of dollars. Before the drydock was finished it was partially destroyed by an upheaval. The natives' explanation was that the dock was built over the home of the Shark-god, and that he resented this invasion of his domain.
The island of Oahu will soon be a second Gibraltar, we hope. The channel from the sea is guarded by Fort Kamehameha. Fort Ruger is at the foot of Diamond Head, Fort DeRussy near Waikiki Beach; at Moanalua is Fort Shafter, and at the entrance of Honolulu Harbour, Fort Armstrong. There are more than eleven thousand troops stationed there to-day, consisting of field artillery, cavalry, infantry, engineers, signal corps, telephone and telegraph corps, and it is said there will soon be fifteen thousand or more.[3]
A Hawaiian feast, such as they had in the old days, was given in honour of the Secretary of War, so we were taken to the house of a member of the royal family. I was surprised to see how fine these residences were. This man was only part native, and really one would not have suspected from his appearance that he had any Hawaiian blood at all. His wife was a fat native in a holoku—a mother hubbard—who directed the feast, but did not receive.
The bedroom in which we took off our wraps opened out of the big ball room. There was a bright-coloured quilt on the bed, and on the walls were many photographs and cheap prints. Here were also royal feather plumes in vases and more polished poi bowls.
The inclosure where we feasted—or had the luau or "bake"—which led out of the ball room, was half open with a cover of canvas and banana leaves. It contained a long table covered with flowers and fruit, bowls and small dishes. There were no forks nor spoons, nor anything but one's fingers to eat with. At the end of the meal a wooden dish was passed for us to wash our fingers. Some of the dishes contained raw fish with a sauce. A cocoanut shell held rock [Pg 27]salt, the kind that is given to cattle, and a small bowl was filled with a mixture of sweet potato and cocoanut. That was the best dish of all. The roasted sweet potato was good, too, and pork, sewed up in ti leaves and roasted with hot stones, was another delicacy. The drink was made of fruits and was very sweet. And, of course, we had poi.
Making Poi 
Poi is described as "one-finger" or "two-finger" poi—thick or thin. Native Hawaiians like it a few days old, when it is sour. Fortunately, as this was only one day old, I was able to put one finger-full of the pasty stuff in my mouth, and, on a dare, I ventured another. Poi is made from the taro root, which is boiled till soft, then pounded and mixed with water. Why I was not ill after this feast I don't know, as I tried mangoes, grapes, watermelon, and pineapple, as well as all the other things. Leis of pink carnations were put about our necks. Hawaiian music with singing went on during the meal, and afterward we danced.
The company was certainly cosmopolitan. One of the people who interested me most was a Hawaiian princess, really very pretty, dressed in the height of fashion. Her father was English. Another interesting person was the daughter of a full-blooded Chinaman, her[Pg 28] mother being half Hawaiian. Her husband was an American. She told me with great pride that her boys were both very blond. A wild Texan army man also roused my interest, from the point of view of character study; and I must not forget an Englishwoman, who said, on departure, "Us is going now." We found it all very diverting and the people so kind and hospitable that we enjoyed every minute of our stay.
CHAPTER II
MYTHS AND MELES
ative Hawaiians—big, generous, happy, good-looking folk, athletic and fond of music—are in physical characteristics, in temperament, in language, traditions and customs, so closely related to the Samoans, the Maoris of New Zealand, and the other inhabitants of Polynesia, that it is clear they belong to the same race. Although Hawaii is two thousand miles from any other land, the people are so much like the natives of the South Sea Islands that I do not see how the relationship can be questioned. Distance, too, means little, for we hear that only lately a Japanese junk was caught in a storm and the mast destroyed, yet it was swept along by the Japan current and in an exceedingly short time was washed up on the shore near Vancouver, with most of the sailors still alive. The adventurous boatmen who first landed on the island of Hawaii, however, must not only have crossed two thousand miles of ocean in their canoes but crossed it in the face of opposing trade winds and ocean currents.[Pg 30]
The Polynesians of those early days, like the ancient Chaldeans, studied the heavenly bodies, and so, on their long voyages, were able to guide their course by the stars. Their vessels, which were double canoes, like those of the modern Samoans, were from fifty to one hundred feet long and carried a large company of people, with provisions, animals, idols, and everything that was needed for a long voyage or for colonizing a strange island.
The legends of that earliest time tell of Hawaii-loa, who sailed from the west to the Islands, which he named for himself. The coming of Wakea and Papa also belonged to that period. While they are mentioned as the creators of the earth, they are said in another version of the story to have come from Savaii in Samoa. They brought with them the tabu, which is common to all Polynesia.
Little is to be learned, however, of the history of Hawaii from the folklore of Pacific Islanders until about the year 1000 A. D. If we may believe their traditions, this was a time of great restlessness throughout all Polynesia, when Hawaii was again visited and held communication with other islands, peopled by the same race. It is interesting to remember that this was the century when the Norsemen were strik[Pg 31]ing out across the Atlantic, showing that there were daring navigators on both sides of the globe.
Paao, one of the heroes from Samoa, who settled in Hawaii, became high priest. He introduced the worship of new gods and increased the number of tabus. The great temple built by him was the first in the shape of a quadrangle—previously they had been three-sided. Afterward, he went back to Samoa and returned with Pili, whom he made ruler, and from whom the Kamehamehas were descended.
From the Hawaiian meles, or songs, we may picture their life. The men were skilful fishermen, using hooks of shell, bone, or tortoise shell, nets of olona-fiber or long spears of hard wood. The bait used in shark fishing was human flesh. When it was thrown into the water and the shark was attracted to it, the fishermen sprang overboard and fought the fish with knives of stone and sharp shark's teeth. No doubt it was an extremely exciting sport.
Along the shores of the Islands are the walls of many fish-ponds, some of which, though very old, are still in use and bid fair to last for centuries longer. Usually they were made by building a wall of lava rock across the entrance to a small bay, and the fish were kept in the in[Pg 32]closure. The wall was built loosely enough to allow the water to percolate through it, and sluice gates were added, which could be opened and closed. They were at first owned by kings and chiefs, and were probably built by the forced labour of the people. Tradition has it that the wall of Wekolo Pond at Pearl Harbour was built by natives who formed a line from shore to mountain and passed lava rock from hand to hand until it reached the shores over a mile away, without once touching the ground. Some of the ponds in the interior of the Islands have been turned into rice fields and taro patches, especially on Oahu.
The sports and games of the Hawaiians, of which there were many, were nearly all associated with gambling. Indeed, it was the betting that furnished most of the excitement connected with them. At the end of a day of games, many of the people would have staked and lost everything they owned in the world.
Boxing, surf-riding and hurling the ulu—a circular stone disk, three or four inches in diameter—were some of the favourite amusements, as well as tobogganing, which is interesting as a tropical adaptation of something that we consider a Northern sport. The slide was laid out on a steep hillside, that was made slippery [Pg 33]with dry pili grass. The sled, of two long, narrow strips of wood joined together by wicker work, was on runners from twelve to fourteen feet long, and was more like our sleds than modern toboggans. The native held the sled by the middle with both hands, and ran to get a start. Then, throwing himself face downward, he flew down the hill out upon the plain beyond, sometimes to a distance of half a mile or more.
INTERIOR OF HAWAIIAN GRASS HOUSE.
The old Hawaiians were not bad farmers, indeed, I think we may call them very good farmers, when we consider that they had no metal tools of any description and most of their agricultural work was done with the o-o, which was only a stick of hard wood, either pointed at one end or shaped like a rude spade. With such primitive implements they terraced their fields, irrigated the soil, and raised crops of taro, bananas, yams, sweet potatoes, and sugar-cane.
Most of the houses of primitive Hawaiians were small, but the grass houses of the chiefs were sometimes seventy feet long. They were all simply a framework of poles thatched with leaves or the long grass of the Islands. Inside, the few rude belongings—mats, calabashes, gourds, and baskets for fish—were all in strange contrast to the modern luxury which many of[Pg 34]their descendants enjoy to-day. The cooking was done entirely by the men, in underground ovens. Stones were heated in these; the food, wrapped in ti leaves, was laid on the stones and covered with a layer of grass and dirt; then water was poured in through a small opening to steam the food.
The mild climate of Hawaii makes very little clothing necessary for warmth, and before the advent of the missionaries the women wore only a short skirt of tapa that reached just below the knees, and the men a loin-cloth, the malo. Tapa, a sort of papery cloth, is made from the bark of the paper mulberry.
Hawaiians say that in the earliest days their forefathers had only coverings made of long leaves or braided strips of grass, until two of the great gods, Kane and Kanaloa, took pity upon them and taught them to make kiheis, or shoulder capes.
Tapa making was an important part of the work of the women. It was sometimes brilliantly coloured with vegetable dyes and a pattern put on with a bamboo stamp. Unlike the patterns which our Indians wove into their baskets and blankets, each one of which had its meaning, these figures on the tapa had no special significance, so far as is known. By[Pg 35] lapping strips of bark over each other and beating them together, the tapa could be made of any desired size or thickness.
In the old legends, Hina, the mother of the demi-god Maui, figures as the chief tapa maker. The clouds are her tapas in the sky, on which she places stones to hold them down. When the winds drive the clouds before them, loud peals of thunder are the noise of the rolling stones. When Hina folds up her clouds the gleams of sunlight upon them are seen by men and called the lightning.
The sound of the tapa beating was often heard in the Islands. The story is told, that the women scattered through the different valleys devised a code of signals in the strokes and rests of the mallets by which they sent all sorts of messages to one another—a sort of primitive telegraphy that must have been a great comfort and amusement to lonely women.
In the early days, marriage and family associations fell lightly on their shoulders, and even to-day they are somewhat lax in their morals. The seamen who visited the Islands after their discovery by Captain Cook brought corruption with them, so that the condition of the natives when the first missionary arrived was indescribable. A great lack of family affection[Pg 36] perhaps naturally followed from this light esteem of marriage. The adoption and even giving away of children was the commonest thing, even among the high chiefs and kings, and exists more or less to-day.
There were three distinctly marked classes even among the ancient Hawaiians—chiefs, priests, and common people—proving that social distinctions do not entirely depend upon civilization. The chief was believed to be descended from the gods and after death was worshiped as a deity.
The priestly class also included sorcerers and doctors, all called kahuna, and were much like the medicine men among the American Indians. As with most primitive peoples—for after all, when compared they have very similar tastes and customs—diseases were supposed to be caused by evil spirits, and the kahuna was credited with the power to expel them or even to install them in a human body. The masses had implicit belief in this power, and "praying to death" was often heard of in the old days.[4]
Ancient Hawaiians wrapped their dead in tapa with fragrant herbs, such as the flowers of [Pg 37]sugar-cane, which had the property of embalming them. They were sometimes buried in their houses or in grottoes dug in the solid rock, but more frequently in natural caves, where the bodies were dried and became like mummies. Sometimes the remains were thrown into the boiling lava of a volcano, as a sacrifice to Pele.
ANCIENT TEMPLE INCLOSURE.
It is said no Hawaiians were ever cannibals, but in the early days man-eaters from the south visited these Islands and cooked their victims in the ovens of the natives. Human bones made into the shape of fish hooks were thought to bring luck, especially those of high chiefs, so, as only part of Captain Cook's body was found and he was considered a god, perhaps his bones were used in this way.
The heiaus, or temples, developed from Paao's time into stone platforms inclosed by walls of stone. Within this inclosure were sacred houses for the king and the priests, an altar, the oracle, which was a tall tower of wicker work, in which the priest stood when giving the message of his god to the king, and the inner court—the shrine of the principal idol. One of the most important heiaus, which still exists, although in ruins, is the temple of Wahaula on the island of Hawaii.
There was much that was hard and cruel[Pg 38] about this religion. The idols were made hideous that they might strike terror to the worshipers. Human sacrifices were offered at times to the chief gods. The idols of the natives were much like those of the North American Indians, but the Kanakas are not like the Indians in character.
The oppressive tabu was part of the religion, and the penalty for breaking it was death. The word means prohibited, and the system was a set of rules, made by the chiefs and high priests, which forbade certain things. For instance, it was tabu for women to eat with men or enter the men's eating house, or to eat pork, turtles, cocoanuts, bananas and some kinds of fish. There were many tabu periods when "no canoe could be launched, no fire lighted, no tapa beaten or poi pounded, and no sound could be uttered on pain of death, when even the dogs had to be muzzled, and the fowls were shut up in calabashes for twenty-four hours at a time." Besides the religious tabus there were civil ones, which could be imposed at any time at the caprice of king or chiefs, who would often forbid the people to have certain things because they wished to keep them for themselves.
One is apt to think that in those early days the natives of these heavenly islands must have[Pg 39] been happy and free-living, without laws and doing as they wished, with plenty of fruit and fish to eat; but it was not so at all, for they were obliged to crawl in the dust before their king; they were killed if they even crossed his shadow.
As a pleasant contrast to all these grim features, the Hawaiians, like the ancient Israelites, had cities of refuge, of which there were two on the island of Hawaii. Here the murderer was safe from the avenger, the tabu-breaker was secure from the penalty of death, and in time of war, old men and women and children could dwell in peace within these walls.
The curious belief in a second soul, or double, and in ghosts, the doctrines of a future state, and the peculiar funeral rites, all of which formed part of the native religion, seem strange to many present-day Christian Hawaiians.
In all Polynesia the four great gods were Kane, "father of men and founder of the world,"[5] Kanaloa, his brother, Ku, the cruel one, and Lono, to whom the New Year games[Pg 40] were sacred. These four were also the chief deities of Hawaiians.
A Hula Dancer
With some concession in costume to Western conventions
Besides the great gods there was a host of inferior deities, such as the god of the sea, the god of the fishermen, the shark god, the goddess of the tapa beaters, Laka, the goddess of song and dance, who was very popular, and Pele, the goddess of volcanoes. Still lower in the scale were the demi-gods and magicians of marvelous power, like Maui, for whom the island of Maui is said to be named, who pulled New Zealand out of the sea with his magic fish hook and stole the secret of making fire from the wise mud hens. His greatest achievement was that of lassoing the sun and forcing him to slacken his speed. He was a hero throughout Polynesia, and his hook is said to have been still preserved on the island of Tonga in the eighteenth century.
Like most primitive peoples, the Hawaiians danced in order that their gods might smile upon them and bring them luck, or to appease the dreaded Pele and the other gods of evil. The much-talked of hula began in this way as a sacred dance before the altar in a temple inclosure, while the girls, clad in skirts of grass and wreaths of flowers, chanted their songs. There was grace in some of the movements, but [Pg 41]on the whole the dances are said to have been "indescribably lascivious." After the missionaries arrived, the hula was modified, and to-day it has almost died out.
Many of the old chants were addressed to Laka, sometimes called the "goddess of the wildwood growths." These meles had neither rime nor meter and were more like chants or recitatives, as the singers used only two or three deep-throated tones. Curiously enough the verses suggest the modern vers libre. The chants include love songs, dirges and name songs—composed at the birth of a child to tell the story of his ancestors—besides prayers to the gods and historical traditions. As some of these early songs have real vigour and charm, I give a few examples.
The following is a very old chant of Kane, Creator of the Universe:
"The rows of stars of Kane,
The stars in the firmament,
The stars that have been fastened up,
Fast, fast, on the surface of the heaven of Kane,
And the wandering stars,
The tabued stars of Kane,
The moving stars of Kane;
Innumerable are the stars;
The large stars,
The little stars,
The red stars of Kane. O infinite space!
[Pg 42]The great Moon of Kane,
The great Sun of Kane
Moving, floating,
Set moving about in the great space of Kane.
The Great Earth of Kane,
The Earth squeezed dry by Kane,
The Earth that Kane set in motion.
Moving are the stars, moving is the Moon,
Moving is the great Earth of Kane."[6]
The stars in the firmament,
The stars that have been fastened up,
Fast, fast, on the surface of the heaven of Kane,
And the wandering stars,
The tabued stars of Kane,
The moving stars of Kane;
Innumerable are the stars;
The large stars,
The little stars,
The red stars of Kane. O infinite space!
[Pg 42]The great Moon of Kane,
The great Sun of Kane
Moving, floating,
Set moving about in the great space of Kane.
The Great Earth of Kane,
The Earth squeezed dry by Kane,
The Earth that Kane set in motion.
Moving are the stars, moving is the Moon,
Moving is the great Earth of Kane."[6]
I find the meles to Laka especially pretty, such as these, taken from Emerson's "Unwritten Literature of Hawaii":
"O goddess Laka!
O wildwood bouquet, O Laka!
O Laka, queen of the voice!
O Laka, giver of gifts!
O Laka, giver of bounty!
O Laka, giver of all things!"
"This is my wish, my burning desire,
That in the season of slumber,
Thy spirit my soul may inspire,
Altar dweller,
Heaven guest,
Soul awakener,
Bird from covert calling,
Where forest champions stand,
There roamed I too with Laka."
O wildwood bouquet, O Laka!
O Laka, queen of the voice!
O Laka, giver of gifts!
O Laka, giver of bounty!
O Laka, giver of all things!"
"This is my wish, my burning desire,
That in the season of slumber,
Thy spirit my soul may inspire,
Altar dweller,
Heaven guest,
Soul awakener,
Bird from covert calling,
Where forest champions stand,
There roamed I too with Laka."
This one from the same collection is interesting in its simplicity and strength:
"O Pele, god Pele!
Burst forth now! burst forth!
Launch a bolt from the sky!
Let thy lightnings fly!...
Fires of the goddess burn.
Now for the dance, the dance,
Bring out the dance made public;
Turn about back, turn about face;
Dance toward the sea, dance toward the land,
Toward the pit that is Pele,
Portentous consumer of rocks in Puna!"
Burst forth now! burst forth!
Launch a bolt from the sky!
Let thy lightnings fly!...
Fires of the goddess burn.
Now for the dance, the dance,
Bring out the dance made public;
Turn about back, turn about face;
Dance toward the sea, dance toward the land,
Toward the pit that is Pele,
Portentous consumer of rocks in Puna!"
The Hawaiian myths, I find, are not nearly so original or so full of charm as the Japanese and Chinese stories, and the long names are tiresome. They have, moreover, lost their freshness, their individuality and their primitive quality in translation and through American influence. They had been handed down entirely by word of mouth until the missionaries arrived. Many of the myths bear some resemblance to Old Testament stories as well as to the traditions told by the head-hunters of the Philippines. The legends of the volcano seem more distinctly Hawaiian.
There are many legends of Pele as well as chants in her honour, which generally represent her as wreaking her vengeance on mortals who have been so unfortunate as to offend her. I quote one that is told to account for the origin of a stream of unusually black lava, which long,[Pg 44] long ago flowed down to the coast on Maui:
"A withered old woman stopped to ask food and hospitality at the house of a dweller on this promontory, noted for his penuriousness. His kalo (taro) patches flourished, cocoanuts and bananas shaded his hut, nature was lavish of her wealth all around him. But the withered hag was sent away unfed, and as she turned her back on the man she said, 'I will return to-morrow.'
"This was Pele, goddess of the volcano, and she kept her word, and came back the next day in earthquakes and thunderings, rent the mountain, and blotted out every trace of the man and his dwelling with a flood of fire."
Another story goes that in the form of a maiden the goddess appeared to a young chief at the head of a toboggan slide and asked for a ride on his sled. He refused her, and started down without her. Soon, hearing a roar as of thunder and looking back, he saw a lava torrent chasing him and bearing on its highest wave the maiden, whom he then knew to be the goddess Pele. Down the hill and across the plain his toboggan shot, followed by the flaming river of molten rock. The chief, however, reached the ocean at last and found safety in the waters.[Pg 45]
This condensed story of the Shark King is also a typical Hawaiian tale:
The King Shark, while sporting in the water, watched a beautiful maiden diving into a pool, and fell in love with her. As king sharks can evidently take whatever form they please, he turned himself into a handsome man and waited for her on the rocks. Here the maiden came one day to seek shellfish, which she was fond of eating. While she was gathering them a huge wave swept her off her feet, and the handsome shark man saved her life. As a matter of course, she straightway fell in love with him. So it happened that one day they were married; but it was only when her child was born that the shark man confided to her who he really was, and that he must now disappear. As he left, he cautioned her never to give their child any meat, or misfortune would follow.
The child was a fine boy, and was quite like other children except that he bore on his back the mark of the great mouth of the shark. As he grew older he ate with the men instead of the women, as was the custom, and his grandfather, not heeding the warning but wishing to make his grandson strong, so that some day he might become a chief, gave him the forbidden meat. When in company, the boy wore a cape[Pg 46] to cover the scar on his back, and he always went swimming alone, but when in the water he remembered his father, and it was then that he would turn into a shark himself. The more meat the boy ate the more he wanted, and in time it was noticed that children began to disappear. They would go in bathing and never return. The people became suspicious, and one day they tore the boy's mantle off him and saw the shark's mouth upon his back. There was great consternation, and at last he was ordered to be burned alive. He had been bound with ropes and was waiting for the end, but while the fire was kindling he called on his father, King Shark, for help, and so it was that he was able to burst the ropes and rush into the water, where he turned into a shark and escaped.
The mother then confessed that she had married the Shark King. The chiefs and the high priests held a council and decided that it would be better to offer sacrifices to appease him rather than to kill the mother. This they did, and for that reason King Shark promised that his son should leave the shores of the island of Hawaii forever. It was true, he did leave this island, but he visited other islands and continued his bad habits, until one day he was really caught just as he was turning from a man[Pg 47]into a shark on the beach in shallow water. He was bound and hauled up a canyon, where they built a fire from the bamboo of the sacred grove. But the shark was so large that they had to chop down one tree after another for his funeral pyre, until the sacred grove had almost disappeared. This so angered the god of the forest that he changed the variety of bamboo in this region; it is no longer sharp-edged like other bamboo on the Islands.
CHAPTER III
THE FIVE KAMEHAMEHAS
awaiian myths and traditions are confused and unreliable, and we know little real history of the "Bright Land," the "Land of Rainbows," before the coming of Captain Cook, in 1778. We do know, however, that, in those early days, the different tribes continually carried on a savage warfare among themselves. Not until the latter part of the eighteenth century did there arise a native chieftain powerful enough to subdue all the islands under his sway and bring peace among the warring tribes. This chief was Kamehameha I, or Kamehameha the Great, often called the Napoleon of the Pacific. The authentic history of Hawaii really begins with his reign. His portrait in the Executive Building in Honolulu shows him as a stern warrior.
The Japanese, as well as the Spaniards, had long known of the existence of islands in that part of the Pacific Ocean. Tradition tells of some shipwrecked Spanish sailors and some[Pg 49] Japanese who settled there at a very early date. These Islands were, however, brought to the notice of the civilized world for the first time by Captain Cook.
The Englishmen were received by the simple natives with awe and wonder, Captain Cook himself was declared by the priests to be an incarnation of Lono, god of the forest and husband of the goddess Laka, and abundant provisions were brought to the ship as an offering to this deity. Had the natives been even decently treated, there would have been no tragic sequel to the story, but Cook's crew were allowed complete and unrestrained license on shore. As it was, there was no serious trouble during their first visit, but when they returned in a few months and again exacted contributions the supplies were given grudgingly. The English vessel sailed away, but was unfortunately obliged to put back for repairs, and it was then that the fight occurred between the foreigners and the natives in which Captain Cook met his death. It was this famous voyager who gave the name of Sandwich Islands to the group, in honour of his patron, Lord Sandwich. They were known by that name for many years, but it was never the official designation, and is now seldom used.[Pg 50]
The discovery of the Islands by Englishmen and Americans was fraught with evil consequences to the natives, as they brought with them new diseases, and they also introduced intoxicating liquors, and it soon became the custom for whaling vessels in the Pacific to call there and make them the scene of debauchery and licentiousness. It has been said that at that time sea captains recognized no laws, either of God or man, west of Cape Horn. We must not fail to note, however, that even in those early days there were a few white men who really sought the good of the Hawaiians.
Isaac Davis and John Young were two of these men. When the crew of an American vessel was massacred these two were spared, and they continued to live in the Islands until their death. They were a bright contrast to most seamen who visited Hawaii at that period. They accepted the responsibility imposed by their training in civilization, exerting a great influence for good, and were even advisers and teachers of King Kamehameha I.
Captain George Vancouver, who visited the Islands three times in the last decade of the eighteenth century under commission from the British Government, was another white man whose work there was wholly good. He landed[Pg 51] the first sheep and cattle ever seen there, and induced the king to proclaim them tabu for ten years so that they might have time to increase, after which women were to be allowed to eat them as well as men. He introduced some valuable plants, such as the grapevine, the orange and the almond, and brought the people seeds of garden vegetables. He refused them firearms. Under his direction the first sailing vessel was built there and called the Britannia. Vancouver so won over the natives by his kind treatment that the chiefs ceded the Islands to Great Britain and raised the British flag in February, 1794. He left them with a promise to come again and bring them teachers of Christianity and the industries of civilization. His death, however, prevented his return, and Great Britain never took formal possession.
Kamehameha I, who, at the time of Cook's arrival, was only a chief on the island of Hawaii, joined in the tribal wars, conquered the other chiefs of that island, and became king. While this conquest was in progress, an eruption of Kilauea destroyed a large part of the opposing army and convinced Kamehameha that Pele was on his side.
The subjugation of Maui and Oahu followed. At the great battle fought in the Nuuanu Val[Pg 52]ley, the king of Oahu was defeated and driven with his army over the Pali. Kamehameha was twice prevented from invading Kauai, but some years later it was ceded to him by its ruler.
After the conquest of Oahu was completed, in 1795, it was Kamehameha's work to build up a strong central government. According to the feudal system that had existed in the Islands up to that time, all the land was considered to belong to the king, who divided it among the great chiefs, these in turn apportioning their shares among the lesser chiefs, of whom the people held their small plots of ground. All paid tribute to those above them in rank. Kamehameha I, in order to increase his own power and destroy that of the chiefs, distributed their lands to them in widely separated portions rather than in large, continuous tracts, as had been the custom previously.
Kamehameha was elected by the chiefs as king of all the Hawaiian Islands, and founded the dynasty called by his name, under which his people had peace for nearly eighty years. He adroitly used the tabu to strengthen his power, and availing himself of the wise advice of the few benevolent foreigners whom he knew, he sought in every way to further the best inter[Pg 53]ests of his people. He has been called "one of the notable men of the earth."
The bronze statue of Kamehameha I stands in front of the Judiciary Building in Honolulu. The anniversary of the birthday of the great ruler occurs in June, and is celebrated by the natives far and near. His statue is dressed in his royal cape of bird feathers and decorated with leis of flowers by the sons and daughters of Hawaii.
The strength of character of Kamehameha I is shown in many ways, but especially in the stand he took in regard to liquor, which was having a disastrous effect on his people. When he became convinced that alcoholic drinks were injurious, he decided never to taste them again.
Before the close of his life, he made a noble effort to prevent the use of liquor by his people. All the chiefs on the island of Hawaii were summoned to meet in an immense grass house, which he had ordered built at Kailua, the ancient capital, solely for this council. When they were all assembled the King entered in his magnificent cape of mamo bird feathers, and drawing himself up to his full height, uttered this command:
"Return to your homes, and destroy every[Pg 54] distillery on the island! Make no more intoxicating liquors!"
At the death of Kamehameha I, in 1819, his son Liholiho succeeded him as Kamehameha II. Unfortunately, he did not carry out his father's wishes. He was like his father in nothing but name, being weak and dissipated, and easily influenced by the unscrupulous foreigners who surrounded him. Many changes took place in his reign, but so strong had the government been made by his father that it survived them all. Fortunately, too, an able woman, one of the wives of the first Kamehameha, was associated with the King as Queen Regent.
Before the end of the year 1819 the Hawaiians had burned their idols and abolished tabu. It was the influence of Europeans that had led to these radical changes. Early in the nineteenth century the trade in sandalwood sprang up, in return for which many manufactured articles were imported, especially rum, firearms and cheap ornaments. This trade brought increased numbers of foreigners to the Islands, and their sneers undermined the faith of the people in their old gods without offering them any other religion as a substitute.
In this connection, we are told that twice Kamehameha I made an effort to learn something[Pg 55] about Christianity. When he heard that the people of Tahiti had embraced the new faith, he inquired of a foreigner about it, but the man could tell him nothing. Again, just before his death, he asked an American trader to tell him about the white man's God, but, as a native afterward reported to the missionaries, "He no tell him." This greatest of the Hawaiians prepared the way, but he himself died without hearing of Christ.
The Hawaiians had now swept their house clean, and they were ready for an entirely new set of furnishings. In a land far away beyond the Pacific these were preparing for them, and the short reign of this second Kamehameha was made memorable not only by the changes already mentioned but also by the coming of the missionaries, in 1820.
Obookiah, whose real name was Opukahaia, was a young Hawaiian who shipped as seaman on a whaler about 1817, and was taken to New Haven, where he found people who befriended him and undertook to give him an education. They sent him to the Foreign Mission School which had been established at Cornwall, Connecticut, for young men from heathen lands. Among his mates were four others from his native islands. It had been his purpose to carry[Pg 56] the Christian religion to his home, but he was taken seriously ill at the school and on his death-bed he pleaded with his new friends not to forget his country. His appeal led the first missionaries to embark for those far-away shores. Three young Hawaiians from the school went with them as assistants.
When the Christian teachers arrived, it is said that the captain of the ship sent an officer ashore with the Hawaiian boys. After awhile they returned, shouting out their wonderful news:
"Liholiho is king. The tabus are abolished. The idols are burnt. There has been war. Now there is peace."
The missionaries received a cordial welcome from some of the natives of high station. The former high priest met them with the words,
"I knew that the wooden images of gods carved by our own hands could not supply our wants, but I worshiped them because it was a custom of our fathers.... My thought has always been, there is only one great God, dwelling in the heavens."
The chief Kalaimoku, neatly dressed in foreign clothes, boarded the ship, accompanied by the two queen dowagers, and welcomed each of the newcomers in turn with a warm hand clasp.[Pg 57] One of the queens asked the American women to make her a white dress while they were sailing along the coast, to wear on meeting the King. When she went ashore in her new white mother hubbard, a shout greeted her from hundreds of throats! Because the gown was so loose that she could both run and stand in it, the natives called it a holoku, meaning "run-stand." It became the national dress. The queens afterward sent the missionaries sugar-cane, bananas, cocoanuts and other foods, as a token of their pleasure.
The Americans were received kindly by the King after explaining their mission and were allowed to remain in the Islands. They had many trials and privations, but they were strong in their faith, and within twenty years they had the joy of baptizing thousands of converts.
Kamehameha II, fearing the Russians—one trader had actually gone so far as to hoist the Russian flag over some forts that he had built—visited the United States with his queen and then went on to England to ask for protection, which was promised them by George IV. They both died there, in 1824, and their remains were sent home in a British man-of-war, commanded by Lord Byron, cousin of the poet.
When Kamehameha III was made ruler, all[Pg 58] the unprincipled white men in Oahu immediately set to work to lead him into every form of dissipation, but they were not to succeed with him as they had with his predecessor. There were men of ability in that band of missionaries, and they had great influence with him. These faithful advisers had a large share in framing the liberal constitution which he granted.
It is of special interest to note that, the year before the constitution was adopted, a Bill of Rights was promulgated, which set forth the fundamental principles of government and is often called the Hawaiian Magna Charta. An eminent writer has given us the provisions of this document.
It asserts the right of every man to "life, limb, liberty, freedom from oppression, the earnings of his hand, and the productions of his mind, not however, to those who act in violation of the laws. It gave natives for the first time the right to hold land in fee simple; before that the King had owned all the land, and no one could buy it. In this document it is also declared that 'protection is hereby secured to the persons of all the people, together with their lands, their building lots and all their property while they conform to the laws of the kingdom,'[Pg 59] and that laws must be enacted for the protection of subjects as well as rulers."
A commission was also formed to determine the ownership of the land. By this commission one-third of all the land was confirmed to the King, one-third to the chiefs, and one-third to the common people. As far as possible the people's share was so divided that each person received the piece of ground that he was living on. The King and many of the chiefs turned over one-half of their share to the Government, which soon held nearly one-third of all the landed property in the kingdom.
The first constitution was framed in 1840. About ten years later an improved one was adopted. The legislature was to meet in two houses. The nobles were to be chosen by the King for life, and were not to be more than thirty in number. There were to be not less than twenty-four representatives, who were to be elected by the people. The Supreme Court was to be composed of three members—a chief justice and two associate justices. Four circuit courts were to be established, and besides the judges for these, each district was to have a judge who should settle petty cases.
It was in 1825, early in the reign of Kamehameha III, that Kapiolani, daughter of the[Pg 60] high chief Keawe-mauhili, of Hilo, defied the power of Pele. Having become a Christian, she determined to give her people an object lesson on the powerlessness of their gods. With a retinue of eighty persons she journeyed, most of the way on foot, one hundred miles to the crater of Kilauea. When near the crater, she was met by the priestess of Pele, who threatened her with death if she broke the tabus. But Kapiolani ate the sacred ohelo berries without first offering some to the goddess, and undaunted, made her way with her followers down five hundred feet to the "Black Ledge." There, on the very margin of the fiery lake of Halemaumau, she addressed her followers in these ringing words:
"Jehovah is my God. He kindled these fires.... I fear not Pele. If I perish by the anger of Pele, then you may fear the power of Pele; but if I trust in Jehovah, and he should save me from the wrath of Pele, then you must fear and serve the Lord Jehovah. All the gods of Hawaii are vain!" Then they sang a hymn of praise to Jehovah, and wended their way back to the crater's rim in safety.
It was during the reign of Kamehameha III that the United States, France and Great Britain recognized the independence of the Ha[Pg 61]waiian Islands. Before this news reached the Pacific, however, Lord George Paulet, a British naval officer, took possession and hoisted the British flag, because the King refused to yield to his demands. Five months later, Admiral Thomas, in command of Great Britain's fleet in the East, appeared at Honolulu and restored the country to the natives. In recognition, an attractive public park was named for him. At the thanksgiving service held on that day, the King uttered the words which were afterward adopted as the motto of the nation, the translation of which is: "In righteousness is the life of the land."
The independence of Hawaii was only once again threatened by a foreign power, when a French admiral took possession of the fort and the government buildings at Honolulu for a few days. Indeed, that independence was not only recognized but guaranteed by France, England and the United States.
Many of the missionaries settled in Hawaii, and their descendants have become rich and prominent citizens. Hawaii owes much to them. So far as lay in their power, they taught the people trades and introduced New England ideals of government and education. Two years after they arrived a spelling book was printed,[Pg 62] and a few years later the printing office sent out a newspaper in the native language. The first boarding school for boys was started by Lorrin Andrews in 1831, on Maui, and it was not long after that one was established for girls. The Hilo boarding school, which came later, was the one that General Armstrong took many suggestions from for his work for the coloured people, at Hampton Institute in Virginia. Indeed, so eager were the Hawaiians to learn of their new teachers that whole villages came to the mission stations, gray-haired men and women becoming pupils, and the chiefs leading the way.
As early as 1835, Hoapili, governor of Maui, made the rule that all children over four years of age should attend school, and no man or woman who was unable to read and write should hold office or receive a license to marry. Soon after that laws were passed making attendance at school compulsory. Any man who had a child under eight years of age, and did not send him to school, was to suffer various penalties, among them to forfeit the right to cut the kinds of timber that the king set apart for the use of the people. To make this provision emphatic, the following sentence was added: "All those kinds of timber are tabu to those parents who send not their children to school."[Pg 63] An anecdote of this transition period is found in a book written by one who styled himself simply Haole (a foreigner). In the valley of Halawa, on the island of Molokai, he was entertained at the house of the district judge, a full-blooded Hawaiian. Among the furnishings of the house were a table, a bedstead, some chairs, even a rocking chair. He gives an amusing description of his evening meal in this house.
"First of all, the table was covered with a sheet just taken off the bed. The table service consisted of a knife, fork and spoon, procured from the foot of a long woolen stocking, a single plate, a tumbler, and a calabash of pure water from a neighbouring spring. The eatables were composed of fresh fish, baked in wrappers of the ti leaf, a couple of boiled fowls, a huge dish of sweet potatoes, and another of boiled tara (taro?).... The last thing served upon the table was something which the family had learned to designate by the name of 'tea' in English. This was emptied into large bowls, and was intended for the family group, myself included....
"The cook was a strapping Kanaka, rather more than six feet in height, and would have weighed nearly three hundred pounds. While I was the only occupant of the table, the fam[Pg 64]ily had formed a circle on their mats, where they were discussing their supper with the utmost eagerness. He devoted his entire attention to me. He was a good specimen of a well poi-fed native. I could see his frame to advantage, for his sole dress consisted of a short woolen shirt and the malo; and his head of hair resembled that of the pictured Medusa. When I first sat down to the table, he took up my plate, and with a mouthful of breath, which was really a small breeze, he blew the dust from it.
"This act occasioned me no small merriment. But when, in supplying me with 'tea,' he took up a bowl and wiped it out with the corner of his flannel shirt, I could refrain no longer. I laughed until my sides fairly ached and the tears streamed down my face.... For a moment the family were taken by surprise, and so was this presiding deity of culinary operations. But on a second outburst from myself, they felt reassured, and joined with me in my laughter. The cook, however, seemed to feel that I had laughed at some one of his blunders; so he dipped the bowl in a calabash of water, washed it out with his greasy fingers, and again wiped it out with that same shirt lap. This was done three times, in answer to the laughter it was [Pg 65]impossible for me to restrain. And when he had filled the bowl with tea, and saw that it remained untasted, he put a large quantity of sugar into the huge tea-kettle, shook it up, placed it at my right elbow, and told me to drink that!
QUEEN EMMA.
"The evening was closed with solemn devotions. The best bed in the house was placed at my disposal; and upon it was replaced the sheet on which I had just before supped, and on which I slept during that night. The bed was carefully stuffed with a soft downy substance, resembling raw silk, but called by the natives pulu, and culled from the tree-fern. The pillows were stuffed with the same material."
Kamehameha III was succeeded by his nephew and adopted son Kamehameha IV. Although he had a violent temper, he had many good qualities. His wife was Queen Emma, granddaughter of John Young, who was very English in her tastes. It was in her honour that the King founded the Queen's Hospital, and it was probably due to her influence that he started the Anglican mission and made an excellent translation of the English prayer book into the Hawaiian language. The harbour of Honolulu was enlarged by him and other im[Pg 66]provements were made, and the cultivation of rice was introduced. After his death, which occurred in San Francisco, Queen Emma made an attempt to obtain the crown, but was unsuccessful.
It was about this time, thirty years before my first visit to Hawaii, that my father, Lieutenant Perkins of the U. S. S. Lackawanna, was ordered to the Pacific, and for two years was stationed at Honolulu. He spent much of his spare time in traveling over the Islands, even to their remotest corners. He enjoyed visiting the ranches and joining in the exciting though perilous occupation of driving wild cattle down from the mountains, where one's safety depended almost wholly on skilful horsemanship. He ascended to the great crater of Kilauea, went to every interesting locality, studied the natives, attended their feasts and learned their customs. These things were described in his letters, and such a newspaper bit as the following gives a glimpse of the duties of a naval officer.
"The whaling bark, Daniel Wood, of New Bedford, was wrecked on the French Frigates Shoal, April 14th. Captain Richard and a portion of the crew arrived at Honolulu after a passage of 450 miles in an open boat. The[Pg 67] U. S. S. Lackawannaimmediately sailed for the scene of the wreck to rescue the remainder of the crew."
Another clipping records this amusing incident: "The Commander of the British war vessel Chanticleer, at Honolulu, set his band playing 'Dixie,' alongside the United States steamer Lackawanna. The latter retorted with 'Wearing of the Green.'"
While the Lackawanna was at Honolulu, an event occurred which was referred to in the discussions of Congress with regard to Hawaiian matters in the session of 1892-1893, as illustrating the policy of our Government. The official record of the Government affords a very complete story of how the United States became the possessor of what is now called Midway Island. It was first known as Brooks Island, but was renamed by our navy department, principally on the unofficial suggestion of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, in recognition of its geographical position on the route from Hawaii to Japan.
The attention of Mr. Welles, then Secretary of the Navy, was called to this island as possibly destined to prove of early importance as a coaling station for United States vessels cruising in these waters. Secretary Welles is[Pg 68]sued an order to Rear Admiral Thatcher, commanding the Lackawanna or some other suitable vessel to search for the island and having found it, to take possession in the name of the United States.
My father's letters give an account of this trip. August 4th, 1867, he wrote:
"Just now we are sailing along quietly, although we have been greatly startled and had a few moments of terrible anxiety. One of the men, while furling the top-gallant sail, lost his hold and fell overboard. Of course, falling from such a height, we all thought he was killed. The life buoys were cut away, and the ship hove to, and the boat sent for him, which picked him up and found him but little hurt after all. It was such a narrow escape, we were all greatly relieved when we got him aboard all right. Except this, we are sailing along day after day in perfect monotony, and for two months or more we shall not see a strange face or hear a word of news from home. But the weather is delightful, and my health is good."
"August 24th.
"Breakers have been reported from the masthead, and I hope it is the island we are looking for."
"August 27th.
"Yes, it proved to be the land we were seeking, and now we are lying at anchor off Brooks Island, called after the captain who discovered it a few years ago; and probably never before or since has there been any one there. It is low and sandy, about six miles long, and its inhabitants are only sea gulls and other sea birds, seals and turtles. Never having seen human beings before, they are not in the least afraid of us, and we can catch as many of them as we wish. I have been fishing and caught a boatload of fish and eleven turtles, each one of the latter weighing two hundred pounds and over. We are going to remain here and survey the island, but to-day it has come on to rain, and we are all cooped up on board the ship."
"August 28th.
"Pleasant weather has come again, and I have been out hunting and fishing. Shot seventeen curlew, hauled the seine, caught a boatload of fish and three large turtles; hunted for shells, but could not find any.
"We are going to have quite a ceremony and take possession of the islands for the United States."
[Pg 70]Captain William Reynolds, the officer in command of the Lackawanna, was very proud of having been concerned in taking possession of the first island beyond our own shores ever added to the dominion of the United States. In his report he well describes the somewhat dramatic and spectacular performance.
"I have the honour to report that on Wednesday, the 28th of August, 1867, in compliance with the orders of the Hon. Secretary of the Navy of May 28th, I took formal possession of Brooks Island and reefs for the United States. Having previously erected a suitable flagstaff I landed on that day, accompanied by all the officers who could be spared from the ship, with six boats armed and equipped, and under a salute of twenty-one guns, and with three cheers, hoisted the national ensign, and called on all hands to witness the act of taking possession in the name of the United States.
"The ceremony of taking possession over, the howitzers and small-arm men and marines were exercised at target-firing. Having hauled the seine and procured an abundant supply of fish, the men cooked their dinner on shore, and the rest of the day was spent pleasantly, picnic fashion upon the island.... I sincerely hope that this will by no means be the last of our [Pg 71]insular annexations. I venture to name the only harbour at this island after the present Hon. Secretary of the Navy, and to call its roadstead after the present Hon. Secretary of State (Seward)."
"In 1869," writes C. S. Alden, in his life of Commodore Perkins, "Congress appropriated $50,000 for deepening the entrance of the harbour; the work was begun, but the amount proved insufficient for completing the plan. One hundred miles to the west, Lieutenant-Commander Sicard, of the U. S. S. Saginaw, who had the duties of inspecting and assisting in this work, had the misfortune to wreck his ship on a reef. The hazardous voyage of Lieutenant Talbot with three men in a small boat sailing over 1500 miles to Kauai, Hawaiian Islands, to gain succour, and the drowning of all but one of the men just as they reached their destination and were pushing through the surf to make a landing, is one of the thrilling tales of the sea. Nothing further seems to have been done by our Government until three or four decades later, when it sought to insure safety to navigation by establishing there a lighthouse and buoys. After the visits of the Lackawanna and the Saginaw, the islands were deserted until the Pacific Commercial Cable Company placed there a station [Pg 72]in the San Francisco-Manila line, maintaining about forty men. This is the intermediate station between Honolulu and Guam."[7]
Kamehameha V was the older brother of the last King, and a man of autocratic temper, who promulgated a new constitution that increased the powers of the king and decreased those of the people. He was called Prince Lot before he came to the throne. During his reign the leper colony on Molokai was started, in an effort to stop the spread of leprosy. As every one knows, it was here that Father Damien, the Catholic priest, devoted his life to caring for the sufferers and finally succumbed to the disease. The King died in 1872, the last of his line. Just before his death, he turned to Mrs. Bishop and asked her to become queen. She refused, thinking she could serve her people better in some other way, and the King passed away without naming his successor.
It was suggested that either the sister of Kamehameha V or one of the high chiefs should [Pg 73]be placed on the throne, but Prince Lunalilo, the nearest male relative, was elected in 1874 by the people. He was thus the first Hawaiian monarch to be chosen by popular vote. His reign, however, lasted little more than a year.
KING KALAKAUA AND STAFF.
David Kalakaua, a high chief, was the choice of the people to succeed Lunalilo. The Reciprocity Treaty with the United States was the great commercial event of this reign. By this sugar and some other products were admitted into America free of duty.
This last of all the kings sought continually to regain the authority lost by the crown when the first constitution was granted, and his government kept growing more arbitrary and corrupt. Finally, so much feeling was roused that the foreign element compelled Kalakaua to proclaim a new constitution, by which he lost the power he had previously possessed and white men gained more control of the government. Two years later, the "Wilcox rebellion," headed by Robert W. Wilcox, a half-breed, was the unsuccessful attempt of the natives to assert themselves against the whites. It was, however, promptly put down.
Kalakaua was kind-hearted, popular, and possessed a dignity and ease of manner that made [Pg 74]him at home in any society, although he was dissipated and corrupt and could be "hail fellow well met" with carousers. Captain Lucien Young says of him in his book, "Real Hawaii":
"Kalakaua was only a high chief, in no way related to the extinct royal family, and was reputed to be the illegitimate son of a negro cobbler, who had emigrated to the Islands from Boston."
On the other hand, the sister of Kalakaua, Liliuokalani, who followed him, gives the following account of their pedigree:
"My father's name was Kapaakea; my mother was Keohokalole; the latter was one of the fifteen counselors of the King, Kamehameha III. My great-grandfather Keawe-a-Heulu, the founder of the dynasty of the Kamehamehas, and Keona, father of Kamehameha I, were own cousins, and my great-grandaunt was the celebrated Queen Kapiolani, one of the first converts to Christianity."
King Kalakaua was the author of the Hawaiian national hymn, which was set to music by Captain Berger, leader of the Royal Hawaiian Band. It certainly testifies to a firm belief in the "divine right of kings."
"Hawaii's very own,
[Pg 75]Look to your sovran Lord,
Your chief that's heaven-born,
Who is your King;
"Men of Hawaii's land,
Look to your native chiefs,
Your sole, surviving lords,
The nation's pride.
"Men of Hawaiian stock,
My nation ever dear,
With loins begirt for work,
Strive with your might.
Refrain:
"Protector, heaven-sent,
Kamehameha great,
To vanquish every foe,
With conquering spear."
[Pg 75]Look to your sovran Lord,
Your chief that's heaven-born,
Who is your King;
"Men of Hawaii's land,
Look to your native chiefs,
Your sole, surviving lords,
The nation's pride.
"Men of Hawaiian stock,
My nation ever dear,
With loins begirt for work,
Strive with your might.
Refrain:
"Protector, heaven-sent,
Kamehameha great,
To vanquish every foe,
With conquering spear."
Kalakaua died in San Francisco and his body was taken home in a United States man-of-war. His funeral was one of barbaric splendour with kahili bearers, superb feather cloaks, and as was the custom, with bearers who had shaved half their faces and heads.
Under the kings the Hawaiians had a coat of arms. It had on the first and fourth quarters of the shields eight red, white and blue stripes, which represented the eight inhabited islands. On the yellow background of the second and third quarters were the tabu sticks—white balls with black staffs. These were a sign of protection, as well as of tabu. In the center[Pg 76] of the shield is a triangular flag, the puela, lying across two spears. This also was a sign of tabu and protection. The background represents a royal mantle. At the sides are the supporters in feather cloaks and helmets, the one on the right carrying a spear, the one on the left a kahili, or staff used only on state occasions. Above the shield is the crown, ornamented with twelve taro leaves. Below is the national motto.
Notwithstanding she had married an American, John C. Dominis of Massachusetts, Liliuokalani was even more determined than her brother had been to restore the ancient privileges of the monarch. She revived the old Hawaiian customs, and decided to proclaim a new constitution giving to herself increased power. The English Minister and his followers were on the Queen's side, but those who composed the American mission element were distinctly the best citizens, and this element conquered.
A Citizen's Committee of Safety was formed, then a Provisional Government was established, and a delegation sent to Washington to request annexation to the United States. A treaty of annexation was drawn up, but it was not acted upon by the Senate before President Harrison's term of office ended and President Cleveland's began. In the meantime, Mr. Stevens, our Min[Pg 77]ister to Hawaii, had, at the request of the Provisional Government, put the Islands under the protection of the Government of the United States. Emissaries of the Queen told their story to President Cleveland, who sent a special Commissioner to the Islands to report on conditions there. After receiving his report, which was far from impartial, the President sent an urgent request—really a demand—to the Provisional Government to restore the Queen to power. It was impossible for free-born Americans to accede to such a demand, and they replied through Hon. S. B. Dole that the Government "respectfully and unhesitatingly declines to entertain the proposition of the President of the United States that it should surrender its authority to the ex-Queen." Then, in 1894, despairing of immediate annexation, they formed a republic with Mr. Dole as president.
It was proposed by some of the people that Princess Kaiulani, Mr. Cleghorn's daughter and the Queen's niece, should be proclaimed queen, and a Regency with Mr. Dole at its head established until the Princess came of age. But the American element did not feel that an honest government would be insured by this means. Kaiulani, who was being educated in England, came here and issued an appeal to Americans,[Pg 78] but was unable to awaken sympathy. She died soon after.
The new Republic of Hawaii thus began its history under the leadership of the man of whom it is said that he "throughout his life had been identified with all that was least partizan and most upright in the Islands." It is interesting to note that a vast amount of political wire-pulling was guarded against in the constitution then adopted by the provision that the President at the close of his term of six years should be "ineligible to reëlection for the next succeeding term."
The last native uprising, said to have been instigated by the ex-Queen, occurred in 1895, but was quickly put down. Among the few who lost their lives at this time was Charles L. Carter, brother of Governor Carter. Liliuokalani was tried for treason, with nearly two hundred of her followers, but having formally renounced all claim to the Hawaiian monarchy and taken the oath of allegiance to the republic, she was pardoned. None of the rebels were executed, their sentence being commuted in various ways.
At this time, trouble arose over the large immigration from Japan; the Japanese contract labourers showed a bad spirit; a Japanese man-of-war appeared and also a British war ves[Pg 79]sel; and it was seen that only annexation to the United States could prevent the Islands from falling into the hands of some foreign power. They were formally annexed to the American republic in 1898. The Territory of Hawaii—this is now the official title of the Islands—has the same form of government as the other territories of the United States.[8]
As was indeed fitting, the first governor of Hawaii was Hon. S. B. Dole. The governor and the secretary of the territory are appointed by the President. Of the fifty senators and thirty members of the House of Representatives about one-half are Hawaiians. There are two official delegates to Washington, one of whom is Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalanianaole, usually called Prince Cupid.
A series of able men have succeeded Mr. Dole, who in 1903 was appointed to another office.[9] Hon. George R. Carter was the next governor [Pg 80]until his resignation in 1907. Judge Walter F. Frear held the position from that time until 1913, when Governor Pinkham was appointed, who is still at the head of affairs in the territory.
CHAPTER IV
SERVANT AND SOIL
s Americans have always been leaders in the Islands, so they were the first to begin the cultivation of sugar, which is the chief occupation. They commenced by using their own capital, and then gradually interested capitalists from the mainland. The Reciprocity Treaty between the United States and the Islands in 1876 gave a great impetus to the sugar industry. Capital, particularly from this country, was invested in the Islands, until at present crops of more than 600,000 tons are shipped away in a year.
One of the largest sugar plantations in the world is that of the Hawaiian Commercial Sugar Company on the island of Maui. It was Mr. Claus Spreckles who bought crown land of the Hawaiian Princess Ruth and by his influence with King Kalakaua secured irrigation water for this tract at a nominal rental, then formed a stock company to carry on the plantation. The yearly product of these miles of cane fields alone is 60,000 tons.[Pg 82]
On Maui, Kauai and Hawaii skilfully engineered tunnels have brought down the water needed for sugar raising. On Oahu artesian wells have reached "the water of magic power."
We enjoyed an excursion to Judge Widemann's plantation of Waianae on Oahu. Here we saw a sugar-cane mill and wide meadows and brakes of the thick growth, and the whole process of the work—the crushing of the cane into molasses, the refining into sugar—and rode on the tiny plantation railway among the waving green stalks, while the blue sea sparkled on one side, and bare, gaily coloured mountains rose above us on the other.
"THE TINY PLANTATION RAILWAY AMONG THE WAVING GREEN STALKS."
Sugar raising in Hawaii probably furnishes the most perfect example of scientific agriculture to be found under the flag of the United States. "Think of always plowing two feet deep," writes a friend, "and not having to wait for rain, but telephoning to the engineer to start the pumps—of knowing at the end of a crop just what elements and the amount of each have been taken from the soil—of searching the world for parasites to destroy the insect enemies of the cane—of collecting and recording the life history of all the insects found in countries bordering the Pacific and all the islands within its borders, so that when some new pest appears, [Pg 83]its origin and characteristics will be known—of sending men out to wherever sugar-cane is grown, in order to study and record its diseases, and giving the planter coloured illustrations of symptoms, so that he may know them in advance of their arrival and be able to check the pest—of the skilful manipulation of the soil, so that there is a constant increase in the production."
In harvesting the cane a path is first opened through the jungle, then the men, armed with knives like butchers' cleavers, go in among the dense growth to cut the stalks. After they have "stripped" a field in this way, the cane must be sent to the mill within twenty-four hours, or the juice will ferment.
Here the Japanese women play their part—for, among the Japanese, the women as well as the men work on the plantations. They gather up the stalks, which are not very heavy but are decidedly unwieldy, and if the field is on high land take them to wooden flumes through which water is run from the irrigation ditches. The women toss the great twelve-foot stalks into the rapid stream which carries them down to a loading place for cane-cars. Here the flume branches into five "fingers," at the head of which stands a man who opens one finger after[Pg 84] another, until the cars standing under them are filled in turn.
Inside the cars are men who stack the cane as it tumbles in, so that each car carries a maximum load, laid in good order for the next process at the mill. Here, too, is an automatic "giant-hand" on an endless belt, the "fingers" of which, as it revolves, clutch the stalks of cane like jackstraws and pass them up to a wide belt that extracts every drop of juice so completely that the refuse is fit only for fuel for the furnaces. After the various processes of boiling down, evaporating, crystallizing and drying, the raw sugar is shoveled into gunny-sacks, which are filled to weigh exactly one hundred pounds each. Again the women take hold, and sew up the bags. The cost of raising and marketing sugar is from forty-five to seventy-five dollars a ton.
Japanese women who work on the sugar plantations may be seen sometimes knee-deep in muddy-watery soil near the flumes, or again out in the driest, hottest part of a newly plowed field. They have discarded their usual Japanese dress for a mixed costume, consisting of a close-fitting waist of dark, figured, Japanese cotton crêpe, a scant skirt to the knee,[Pg 85] khaki gaiters, and their own heavy cotton "bootees." To protect their hair from dust and their necks from the sun, they wear a piece of Japanese toweling, which is tied across the back of the head and hangs down on the shoulders. On top of this is perched a cheap American sailor hat. The effect is certainly startling. Some take their tiny babies in bright-figured swaddling clothes with them, and put up a little shelter tent of cloth and sticks, where the youngsters lie and sleep.
Most of the women who do agricultural work are Japanese. A few years ago, when a ship-load of people came from Madeira, the women told the immigration authorities that they had come to work on the plantations. But, after a very short time, they retired from this sort of labour for the much pleasanter and more remunerative business of making Madeira embroidery. Among the Chinese the women rarely go out of their own homes to work, although Oriental servants prevail all over these Islands. Some of the younger generation of Portuguese girls go out as nursemaids in white families, but the majority of that race make sewing and dressmaking or "clerking" their means of support. It is surprising, indeed, to see how few of the employees in any store are[Pg 86] "white"; bookkeepers, clerks, etc., are usually young part-Hawaiians or part-Chinese.
From the beginning, when sugar was ready for export, it was rarely shipped from the Hawaiian Islands in any but American bottoms. The American-Hawaiian Steamship Company—the largest fleet sailing under the Stars and Stripes and numbering twenty-eight vessels—the Oceanic Steamship Company, and the Matson Navigation Company, were all formed largely because of the favourable contracts they were able to make for carrying sugar, and the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, which plied between California and the Far East, stopped at Honolulu because of the profit to be made by carrying freight from the Islands. American shipping on the Pacific, however, has always been at a disadvantage, because foreign ships can be built more cheaply than ours and are usually subsidized.
As if these drawbacks were not enough, during the present Congress the Seaman's Act, somewhat modified now to be sure, has had a disastrous effect on American shipping on the Pacific Ocean. The American boats used to carry crews of well trained Chinamen. Under this act the majority of the crew must be English-speaking sailors and they cannot be pro[Pg 87]cured in sufficient numbers nor can such boats generally be run with sufficient economy to compete with foreign flags. So trans-Pacific trade has been given over almost entirely to the Japanese, who have especially fine passenger ships on that route to-day. As, according to our laws, these boats are not permitted to carry passengers or freight between American ports, the service between the Islands and the United States has been seriously crippled with consequent increase in rates of carriage. A resident in the Islands writes, "When the last Pacific Mail steamer sailed from Honolulu Harbour, all flags were at half mast and Hawaii was in mourning."
Still, the planters are cheerful. For 1916, they look forward to an estimated production of 603,000 tons and a continuance of the present high prices, which will enable them not only to pay good dividends but also to install labour-saving machinery and to make other improvements, by which they will produce sugar more cheaply when the present era of high prices is over. The shipments of raw sugar from Hawaii for the year ending June 30, 1915, sold for more than $51,000,000.
Next in importance to the sugar industry is the production of pineapples. These are raised[Pg 88] only on the higher ground. The land is as carefully prepared as a garden, and the soil thoroughly pulverized. The plants are set in furrows, and there are sometimes as many as twelve thousand to the acre. They mature their fruit in about two years. When the pineapple ripens, from the lower part of the stump suckers appear, which bear fruit one year later. These in turn grow suckers that come into bearing the following year. Besides these there are slips, that spring from the upper part of the parent plant. New plants are grown not only from suckers and slips, but also from the crowns of the fruit, and growers consider them all about equally good. The plants almost never produce seeds, and when found, they are used for experimental purposes only.
PINEAPPLE PLANTATION, ISLAND OF OAHU.
There are 24,000 acres of land in the pineapple plantations of the Islands, and most of them are on Oahu. There is never any frost, and as there are no serious insect pests which attack the fruit the crop is a very fine one. Nor is irrigation necessary, so that thousands of acres unavailable for sugar have brought in millions of dollars to those who own or rent these plantations.
The fields are carefully picked over every day [Pg 89]or two, and only perfectly ripe fruit is gathered. Hawaiian pineapples are rich in sugar when fully matured, but if picked green, they contain little sugar, and gain none after they are taken from the plant. Extensive experiments have shown that the Smooth Cayenne variety is far superior to all others, and it is now the only one grown in the Islands. In no instance are the fields more than a few miles from the cannery, and the fruit is put in the tins as soon as possible after it is picked. The Hawaiian canneries are equipped with labour-saving machinery. Aside from grading the slices and filling the cans, all the work is done by machines. The employees who handle the fruit wear rubber gloves with gauntlets, and the most modern sanitary methods are observed throughout. Every night everything in the factory is washed, steamed and scrubbed as clean as possible.
When the fruit arrives at the cannery, it passes into a machine which first cuts off both ends, then takes out the core and removes the rind. It is then conveyed to another, which slices the whole pineapple in one operation. From here it passes on a moving belt in front of a line of workers, who select the perfect cylindrical pieces for the first grade.[Pg 90]
From the packing table the tins go to the syrup machine, where the fruit is covered with a syrup made of clear water and granulated sugar, thence to the exhaust box and double sealer, where it is heated and the cover sealed on the can. Then the can is conveyed to the cooker, where it is submerged in boiling water from twenty to thirty-five minutes, after which it is left in the cooling room about twelve hours, and then stacked in the warehouse until required for shipment.
The history of this industry is interesting. Only small amounts were canned previous to the year 1901. There has been a steady increase ever since, with a total output in 1914 of over 2,000,000 cases from nine canneries. Nothing like this rapid increase in production and distribution has ever been known before in the canned-fruit trade. California, as every one knows, is the greatest fruit-producing section in the world, and her canned fruits are found in practically every market, yet her average total pack, of every variety except apples, from 1901 to 1910, was only about one-third more than the pack of Hawaiian pineapples alone in 1914. The total value of those shipped to the United States for the year ending June 30, 1915, was nearly $6,000,000.[Pg 91]
Besides the other important staples raised by the planters for export, coffee and rice are produced in large quantities—over 3,000,000 pounds of each. The coffee grown in the district of Kona is famous. The Chinese are especially good at market gardening. The Hawaiians also plant taro for poi, which, although now manufactured by machinery, is still their favourite food, and is also eaten by the whites. Doctors pronounce it most digestible and strengthening. Duke Kahanamoku, a native who has always lived on poi, is the champion swimmer of the world. It is true that not only poi but also the climate is favourable to our race as well, for white boys brought up in Hawaii have proved themselves to be strong, all those who have gone into athletics in American colleges having made fine records.
In addition to the products of the large plantations, wool, hides and skins from the ranches are exported to a considerable extent. The Shipman stock ranch, near Hilo, has been carried on for more than forty years. The Parker ranch, however, is the largest, having 18,000 head of cattle—Herefords and Holsteins. The long pods of the algaroba tree furnish a large part of the feed for cattle and horses. This is the carob tree of the New Testament, the pods of[Pg 92] which were the husks that the Prodigal Son fed to the swine he tended. In the earlier days, guano from the bird islands was exported, for use as a fertilizer.
While plantation life in the Islands may be monotonous for the resident, it is full of interest for the tourist who really takes time to see it. An effort is made by the planters to furnish recreation for their labourers. At Waialua on Oahu a large hall has been built, where moving-picture shows are given at intervals, political meetings are held, and there are dances for the white colony. The latter have tennis courts near their homes and hold tournaments, to which they invite players from other plantations. As work is over at four o'clock—the hours being from five to eleven in the morning and two to four in the afternoon—the men who work in mill, store or office can play every afternoon.
The Portuguese, Japanese and Hawaiian boys have formed a baseball team, which represents the plantation in a league of such teams. There are match games by this league at different places every Sunday. The Japanese at Waialua have a theater, the occasional performances at which are announced during the day by a man who drives through all parts of the plantation[Pg 93] in a hack covered with Japanese signs, beating a drum.
The native Hawaiians in country districts often present "tableaux" for the benefit of their church or some charity fund. A friend of mine told me she had once gone to a representation of "Adam and Eve" which would have seemed either sacrilegious or ridiculous if done by any but these ingenuous, grown-up children. The minister of the church played the part of Satan, in a bright red union suit with a long tail; a large native, in flowing white robes, with a Santa Claus beard and mask, took the part of the Deity and banished Adam and Eve, in brown union suits the colour of their skin, from the Garden of Eden. Other tableaux gave very vivid portrayals of scenes from ancient days of royalty, with its attendant pomp and ceremony, and old Hawaiian legends. One of these was about Paahana, a young Hawaiian girl, who was afraid of the white settlers, and ran away to the mountains, building herself a shelter of grass among the bushes. Finally she was discovered by the white missionaries, who tried to approach her, but she was wild with fear, and vanished from sight into the forest. This story was told in verse, sung to the tune of "Mauna Kea," a hula dance.[Pg 94]
These entertainments are never complete without a dance for young and old, to music sung and played by a quintette of native boys. Besides the ukulele and the taro-patch, which is a large ukulele with five strings instead of four, they use the mandolin, violin, guitar and bass-viol. The Hawaiians, being naturally musical, have a keen sense of time and rhythm. The Filipinos are also fond of dancing, and in the Libby, McNiel and Libby pineapple cannery, where many of this nationality are employed, dances are held to make them more contented with their isolated life.
Among the plantation labourers there is never the abject poverty that is known in the Far East for, in addition to steady wages, houses, water, fuel and doctor's services are all provided for them. Although the climate is semi-tropical sunstroke is unknown. The men who work around the machinery and the boiling sugar wear as few clothes as possible, and the women who sew up the bags of sugar as fast as they are filled, have adopted the cool and comfortable but hideous Hawaiian garb of the holoku. The heat from the great boilers in the mill is sometimes hard for the white men to bear, but I have never heard of a case of heat-prostration.[Pg 95] As a large part of the school work must be done on the plantations I insert the following description, given me by one of the teachers of the school at Waialua, Oahu, the largest outside of Honolulu.
"As the pupils are almost entirely foreign, the first grade has three divisions, to accommodate the number who enter it until they are able to speak enough English to be properly graded. Sometimes one finds here children of twelve to fourteen years who have just come to Hawaii. As a rule, they work hard to get out of the 'baby-grade,' and are quickly promoted.
"I was the only white teacher in the school besides the principal. The other teachers were Hawaiian, half-white and Chinese Hawaiian girls who had gone through the Honolulu Normal School. They are good teachers, kind and patient, and can instruct children in the same slow manner in which they themselves learn. There was also a young Hawaiian man, a Normal graduate, who could help in many extra ways, such as map-drawing, chorus-leading, games, etc.
"Fifteen nationalities were represented in the various grades—Hawaiian, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, Filipino, Spanish, Korean, Porto Rican, and a few Scotch, English, Canadians,[Pg 96] Germans and Americans, as well as Russians and Italians. Besides the pure bloods there were many mixtures, such as American-Hawaiian, Chinese-Hawaiian, Japanese-Portuguese, German-Hawaiian, etc.
"The Japanese and Chinese were the best pupils in every way. The Hawaiians were tractable, but stupid; Portuguese, smart but mischievous. School hours were from nine to twelve, and from half past twelve to two. Most of the children came from long distances, and after the plantation school was dismissed, the Japanese children went to a Japanese school for two hours.
"In the first grade, I taught reading, writing and 'rithmetic; also nature-study, in simple form, story-work, folk songs and dances. These last helped them a great deal in the new vocabulary, as they loved that part of the day's program.
"It was interesting to note the habits of the different nationalities at recess, especially in regard to their luncheon. The Japanese usually were together out in the yard. They each had their little tin pail with top and bottom section, in which they carried fish and cold rice. I never got a very close look at it, to know how the fish was cooked, but I could smell it afar off![Pg 97]They seemed very shy, and would try to hide their lunch as I walked past. The Chinese were even shyer about their lunch, for they never gathered together, as the other nationalities did, but went to some secluded spot and nibbled away at an orange or something else.
"The Portuguese usually brought long rolls of bread, which had been cut open and a red jelly-like substance spread all along the inside. They also had fruit, and especially the mango in its season.
"A little Japanese store nearby kept cakes and pastries, which were very popular when the children had money, but the greatest delicacy sold there seemed to be a rubbery substance, which looked like a piece of resin, but could be shaved in long strips. They called it dry squid, but it did not seem like the dry squid I've tried to masticate at native luaus, and I never did find out just what it was.
"The schools are all supported by the territorial government, which in turn receives the plantation taxes, so the plantations themselves do not directly support the schools, although the children of the labourers comprise nine-tenths of the pupils outside Honolulu.
"There is compulsory attendance until the age of fourteen, and at Waialua a school policeman[Pg 98]—a Hawaiian—went all over the plantations on horseback and found out if any of the children were ill or playing truant."
Each nationality is housed more or less by itself in small, one-story houses built in rows, each group called a camp. The white men employed as chemists, bookkeepers and clerks in the general store usually live in a group near the buildings where they are employed. They are German, Scotch, Norwegian, English and Danish. Few Americans go into this work now, although a number did in years past start out as time-keepers and have become managers. The Kanaka does not make a good manager, but if he has some one to direct him he works well, and he can learn almost any trade; of course he is at his best as a sailor, and he is such a wonderful rider that he makes an excellent cowboy.
At Waialua there is a small hospital where the labourers are treated free, and in at least one of the outlying camps there is a small cottage that is used as a dispensary. The plantation doctor has charge of the school children, vaccinating all that need it at the opening of the school year and watching them for signs of trachoma or leprosy.
Social work on plantations has not been car[Pg 99]ried on with a central organization as yet, and the welfare of the labourers depends on the attitude of the managers, who all belong to the Sugar Planters' Association. This holds yearly meetings of a week or more in Honolulu, when managers from all the Islands talk over questions pertaining to their interests.
The agricultural situation in the Islands has been carefully studied by the Bureau of Agriculture and Forestry, which reports that there are no other crops than sugar and pineapples which can be recommended as a reliable industry for the territory. This is true for several important reasons.
In the first place, from an agricultural point of view Hawaii is not a tropical country, and the strictly tropical crops do not find optimum climatic conditions. Neither has Hawaii a temperate climate, and the staple products of the temperate zone cannot be relied upon.
The distance from the mainland markets imposes a serious handicap. Moreover, both inter-island and inter-community transportation is difficult and expensive, because Hawaii is a group of comparatively small, mountainous islands with very few harbours.
It should be borne in mind, moreover, that the area of cultivated land in Hawaii is very[Pg 100] small, the amount reclaimable still smaller, while the needs of a growing population must be met. This, of course, means intensive cultivation and a high average rate of wealth production per acre. In the ten-year period from 1900 to 1910, the population increased 24.6 per cent and the area of tillable land 3.6 per cent. The census reports also show that Hawaii is already cultivating its land far more intensively than the mainland states; for example, it supports twenty-two times as many persons per acre of improved arable land as the agricultural state of North Dakota. Clearly, the problem in Hawaii is peculiarly difficult.
It is true, also, that practically all tropical industries demand a plentiful supply of cheap labour. Labour in Hawaii is neither cheap nor plentiful. In this respect, the Islands are at a disadvantage compared with nearly all tropical countries, but much money has been spent on the industries, and the results are certainly encouraging.
How to secure cheap labour has always been a serious question for the planters. The Bureau of Immigration was established in 1876. When the Reciprocity Treaty with the United States was signed, several thousand Portuguese were sent for by the government and the planters,[Pg 101] and many of them have remained in the country and become good citizens. About the year 1888, however, it was decided that the Chinese and the Japanese should be encouraged to come, because the cost of transportation for them was so much less. For some years the larger part of the labourers were of these two nationalities. The Japanese are still far in excess of all others, numbering over 93,000. After annexation, when the Congress of the United States prohibited immigration by the yellow races, Hawaii was obliged to seek a supply from other sources. Filipinos, of whom there are only 8,000, are next in number to the Japanese; Portuguese, Chinese, Spaniards, and Porto Ricans stand next.
After the expenses of the voyage were paid, the labourers did not always keep their agreement to work, so contract labour was introduced. Although some objections have been made to the contract system in Hawaii, it must have proved fairly satisfactory to both parties, for in those days a large number of labourers would sign a second contract on the same terms, showing at least that they were well treated and paid according to agreement.
In some cases, Chinese and Japanese labourers remained in the Islands after their contract[Pg 102] expired, and settled there permanently. Many of the Chinese became merchants. The Portuguese went into fruit raising, and the Japanese kept mostly to the coffee plantations. In those days, the Japanese had labour unions, and they were sometimes troublesome.
Hawaii, owing to the lack of coal and iron and other minerals, can never be a manufacturing country, hence must always depend largely upon the United States for such goods. The Islands spend a large part of $60,000,000 yearly for imported articles, although, since Hawaii is a territory of the United States, goods received from the American mainland are not classified in census returns as imports.
With the opening of the Panama Canal, the Hawaiian Islands are a necessary coaling station between the Atlantic Coast and the Far East. In anticipation of increased traffic, the harbours have been enlarged, new wharves built, a floating drydock installed, the channel widened and deepened in the harbour of Honolulu, breakwaters built at Hilo and Kahului, modern freight- and coal-handling apparatus provided, and fuel oil depots established.
CHAPTER V
IN AND OUT
onolulu itself the traveler may perhaps be able to see in a day, with American rush, while the steamer stops on the way to Japan. To take trips on Oahu, go surf-riding, indulge in a luau, visit the plantations, and make an excursion to the volcanoes in the other islands, you must stay at least a few weeks, so that you may really see it all and have time to dream of its wonderful beauties.
Honolulu is the oldest, and so by far the most attractive, town in the Islands. Besides visits to Waikiki, the Pali, and Punchbowl, there are many delightful excursions on the island of Oahu. The Trail and Mountain Club has made excellent paths to the mountain tops, where you can get superb views. The lovely falls of Kaliuwaa are especially celebrated, while a trip to Hauula is pleasant. The coral gardens are entrancing, and near these one can see the largest wireless station in the Islands. In the great pineapple district, Wahiawa, there is a good[Pg 104] hotel and fine bass fishing, and not far away is a big military camp.
To-day the excursion to the other islands is made fairly comfortable on the steamers of the Inter-Island Navigation Company, and one can motor to the very brink of Kilauea. But at the time of our first visit the journey was something to be endured, for the sake of the wonders at the end. The story has been often told by travelers, yet it may be worth while to recount our own experiences.
The trip certainly could not be recommended for pleasure in those days. The tiny boat was loaded down with pigs and cattle and sickly smelling sugar. The crossings were far worse than the English Channel, and our wretched little steamer reeled before the winds and tossed upon the waves. To add to our discomfort, the boat was by no means swift, and hours were consumed between the innumerable small landing-places. When we had the pleasure of stepping on solid earth once more, we found very poor hotels, if you could call them by that name, and finally, we were disappointed in the volcano itself, which was not active enough to suit us.
At our departure from Honolulu, we were quite covered with leis by the kind friends who gathered at the dock to see us off. Our boat [Pg 105]plunged almost immediately into the high seas of the channel between Oahu and Molokai. As we passed the latter island, we had a distant view of the leper colony, on a triangle of level land, at the foot of a precipice three thousand feet high that effectually guards the patients from the landward side.
LEPER COLONY, ISLAND OF MOLOKAI.
At first the lepers resisted the attempt to banish them to the colony, and their relatives, who seemed to have no fear of the disease, concealed those who were afflicted, but this opposition decreased as the natives learned that the lepers were to be supported in comfort by the Government. They have a school, a library, newspapers, musical instruments, a theater, even moving-picture shows now, I am told—in short, everything is done to make their lives as pleasant and comfortable as possible.
Mark Twain writes of a beautiful custom in the colony. "Would you expect," he says, "to find in that awful leper settlement a custom worthy of transplanting to your own country? When death sets open the prison door of life there the band salutes the very soul with a burst of golden music."
On this island where the natives have retained their primitive habits and beliefs more than on the others of the group, the Poison God was[Pg 106] saved at the time the idols were destroyed, a hundred years ago. It was kept here in charge of kahunas until near the end of the last century, and it is not definitely known whether it may not even now be in existence. This hideous image seems to have had the power to kill those who handled it. It has been suggested that it was made of some poisonous wood, and only the priests knew how to hold it without harm.
The boat reeled on through another rough passage to the double island of Maui, consisting of two great mountain peaks joined by a low isthmus of lava, which by degrees filled up the channel between the two original islands. We made endless stops, and by means of small boats took on and off freight, cattle, and passengers—native, Chinese and Japanese.
Our first landing was at Lahaina, once the capital of the group and the rendezvous for all the whaling ships in the Pacific. Now it is a dilapidated village, attractive only for its beautiful situation.
At Wailuku, at the northern end of the isthmus, was the home of "Father Alexander," well known as one of the early missionaries. The name Wailuku means "Water of Destruction." A great battle was fought near here by Kamehameha the Great.[Pg 107]
Unfortunately we were unable to see the Ditch Trail, so well described by Jack London, or visit the famous Iao Valley, of which we had read such glowing descriptions. The entrance to this "gulch" is by a dark, wooded gorge that broadens out into an amphitheater surrounded by precipices as lofty as those of the Yosemite. These cliffs are covered with masses of trees, shrubs, and graceful, feathery ferns, which are veiled in turn by the mists from a thousand waterfalls. At the head of the valley stands the Needle, a natural watch-tower—of rock, but green with a luxuriant vegetation—to which the defeated army retreated in the battle of the Wailuku.
East Maui consists entirely of the huge extinct volcano of Haleakala, "house built by the sun." This, the largest extinct volcano on the surface of the globe, lifts its enormous crater, twenty miles in circumference, to the height of ten thousand feet above the sea. Some titanic eruption blew off the top of the mountain and scooped it out to the depth of two thousand feet. From the bottom of this vast cavity rise many cones—the largest a hill of seven hundred feet—and there are two great gaps in the walls, through which lava flows once made their way down to the plain. Here and there on the desert[Pg 108] that forms the floor of the crater are scattered clumps of silversword, with long leaves shining in the sun. This plant grows only at a high altitude. Hunting for it is like hunting for the edelweiss in Switzerland. Its nearest botanical relative is found in the Himalaya Mountains. From the highest point of the rim of Haleakala these plants are said to appear about the size and brightness of silver dollars.
Glad enough we were to land at Hilo—Hawaiian for "new moon." It takes its name from the superb crescent of the bay, two miles in length, perhaps the most beautiful on the shores of the Pacific Ocean. At one end of the semicircle is Cocoanut Island, crowded with glorious palms that seem eager for the salt water, stretching their heads far out over it, as if they would drink it up. As it is on the windward side of the island, the trade winds bring Hilo a yearly rainfall of 150 inches, and the result is seen in the luxuriance of the vegetation, which nearly hides the buildings of the little city in its depths. With the bay in front, the dense forest belt in the rear, and the towering masses of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa in the background, the situation of Hilo is glorious in its beauty.
SILVERSWORD IN BLOOM, IN THE CRATER OF HALEAKALA.
On the thirty-mile trail to the crater we [Pg 109]passed first between the brakes of cane plantations, then through a fine tropical forest. Among the trees we could see many gay and beautiful flowers, curious fruits and enormous tree ferns, while in the interior were lovely glades and the little bungalows of the coffee planters. But the island was only just being developed, so there were numbers of ranches in the first stages of raw newness.
A search through the forests on some of the islands would disclose the beautifully coloured landshells. These exquisite little creatures grow on the leaves of the trees. Many of the native birds have become extinct; there were originally seventy varieties. Game birds, however, have been introduced from America and China, and from other countries both north and south, including wild turkeys, quail, pheasants and ducks.
We arrived at the crater late at night, to find only a miserable hotel with a drunken proprietor. (Liars had told us it was good.) We were forced to pass the night there, but stayed the next day only long enough to visit the crater.
Kilauea was for us a great disappointment. It is not imposing in its situation, lying low on the gradual slope of Mauna Loa. We had been[Pg 110] thrilled by pictures of the great pit of Halemaumau, the "house of everlasting fire."[10] We had read of fountains of fire thrown a thousand feet into the air, of great fissures from which burst clouds of deadly sulphurous vapours, of indescribable terrors as huge billows of glowing lava surged against the rim of the pit, of changing colours, marvelous beauty, of ropes and serpents of cooling rock in a myriad writhing and contorted shapes, of raging floods pouring down to the plain in rivers of fire from one-half to two miles in width. But alas! none of these wonders were for us. We saw only a far-stretching lake of cold, black lava, over which we could walk for miles, as safe as if we were at home. Out of a pit in the center rose a column of white vapour—which did not even smell infernal. Pele was sleeping.
FIRE HOLE, KILAUEA.
We had three days to wait in Hilo until our steamer should be ready to return to Honolulu. The hotel was a funny little one, near the sea, but we were fairly comfortable, and amused ourselves in various ways. For one thing, we tried several of the delicious tropical fruits that were to be had here—water-lemons, mangoes, [Pg 111]papayas, mountain apples and guavas. We went on a picnic, and some one was kind enough to lend me a riding habit and a pony that had won some races. I rode astride, in native fashion. This was my first but by no means my last experience of this most natural and comfortable mode of riding. Then I had an old native woman to lomi-lomi me—Hawaiian for massage—as I was very lame from my long rides, and I was as much amused by her as benefited by her treatment.
We decided this was our opportunity to see a hula, and asked the coachman at the hotel to make arrangements for us at a native house. As part of the preparations, he gave the performers some wine, so the dance was in full swing when we arrived. They had made leis, which they put on us and also on themselves. A fat but good looking native woman in a holoku danced, while some others played. Another pretty native woman said she was dying to dance, but her husband, a white man, was not willing, and the last time she did it he beat her, so she did not dare to try again. It was a strange scene—the native house, the dim lights, and the wild, suggestive dance.
The trip back to Honolulu, though only two hundred miles in length, occupied two nights[Pg 112] and a day of rough and tumble sailing, after which we were happy to get to our bungalow and Chinaman once more.
Now, the Inter-Island boats leave Honolulu twice a week for Hilo and once a week for Kona and Kau, on the lee side of the island. It is quite a different trip from that in the old days. On the way to Hilo the first landing is usually at Kawaihae, an insignificant village, of no interest except for the great heiau of Kamehameha I, the last heathen temple erected in the Islands, dating from 1791. It is over two hundred feet long and one hundred feet wide, and the walls are twelve feet thick at the base. When this temple was dedicated to the favourite war-god of the King, besides vast quantities of fruit and great numbers of hogs and dogs, eleven human beings were sacrificed on the altar.
Hilo is to-day a modern city of 10,000 people, and the shipping point for all the sugar raised on the windward side of the island. A breakwater now in process of construction will make its harbour a perfectly safe anchorage for merchant ships.
One may make the entire circuit of the island by motor from Hilo. On a branch road from the highway to Kilauea is Green Lake, an emerald-tinted sheet of water occupying an old[Pg 113] crater. In the forest surrounding this lake the rare pink begonia, an exquisite plant, used to grow, but I am told by Mr. Castle it has become extinct.
Continuing to the southwest, the road passes through the district of Kau to Kona. Here, indeed, is the "Paradise of the Pacific." Protected from the trade winds by the huge mountain masses of Mauna Loa and Hualalai, it enjoys mild breezes from the west, which blow in from the sea all day long but give place at sunset to a wind from the mountain that cools the night. The Hawaiians have a saying that in Kona "people never die; they dry up and blow away." Daily showers toward sunset and at night keep the vegetation ever fresh and green, and make this a rich agricultural region.
Honaunau, in Kona, contains the largest of the "cities of refuge," in the walls of which are stones weighing several tons raised as high as six feet from the ground. Within these massive walls were three large heiaus, also houses for the priests and refugees. The gates were always open, and the fugitive who had crossed the threshold was absolutely safe. Old men, women, little children, defeated soldiers, all were received here, and when once the great gods had taken them under their protection,[Pg 114]they were safe even, when they returned to their homes.
It was on the coast of Kona, at Kaawaloa, that Captain Cook was killed by the natives. A monument has been erected there, which bears this inscription: "In Memory of the Great Circumnavigator Captain James Cook, R. N., who discovered these islands on the 18th of January, A. D. 1778, and fell near this spot on the 14th of February, A. D. 1779. This monument was erected in November, A. D. 1874, by some of his fellow countrymen."
At Kailua, a seashore village further north, is the old palace of the kings of the islands. This is far from imposing in its appearance. At this place one may watch a primitive method of shipping cattle. With their horns tied to the side of a rowboat, the poor creatures are dragged through the water to the steamer, then are hoisted on board by pulleys.
The road passes next through the Kohala district, in which the town of that name is of interest as the birthplace of Kamehameha the Great. The Kohala ditch, twenty-five miles long, brings water from the mountains to the sugar plantations, fifteen miles of the way through tunnels. One may leave the main road here and take a horseback ride along this ditch, [Pg 115]from which one can enjoy the magnificent scenery of the Waipio and Waimanu valleys, enormous "gulches," separated by sheer precipices hundreds of feet in height.
ON THE SHORES OF KAUAI, THE "GARDEN ISLAND."
The trip to Kauai, the "Garden Island," from Honolulu, requires but a single night, but is a rough passage. At Waimea Captain Cook made his first landing on the Islands. Here, too, is the ruined fort built by a Russian trader, and over which the Russian flag was raised.
The trip through the Waimea Gulch, which is called a miniature Grand Canyon of the Colorado, rewards the traveler with magnificent scenery. At the deepest part the cliffs are 3,000 feet high and the valley is a mile in width. It is said that "in the decomposing rocks the colours are as vivid as though volcanic fires were still at work."
On the shore, at the extreme western point of the island, are the Barking Sands, a row of sand dunes. "The wind on the sands makes them rustle like silk; to slide down them produces a sound like thunder; to stamp on them makes them cry out in different cadences." Not far away is an old bathing beach, where a bath was supposed to bring good luck.
At Hanalei River is one of the most ancient of the deep-water fish ponds. According to an old[Pg 116] tradition, this was built in a single night by Menehunes, a mythical race of dwarfs, who were noted for their industry and mechanical skill and their feats of engineering.
Everywhere one is struck by the preponderance of Japanese among the inhabitants. Since this great war broke out, Japan has taken from Germany the Ladrone Islands, just north of Guam, on the way to the Philippines. She has also taken the Marshall Islands, which bring her outposts fifteen hundred miles nearer to the Pacific coast of America. If we are inclined to be a bit pessimistic over the future fate of Hawaii, perhaps a piece of recent news from Nippon may encourage us.
Japan has just passed a law permitting Japanese to become American citizens. As nearly half the present inhabitants of the Islands are Japanese and 4,000 Japanese children are born there in a year, this is an interesting consideration when difficulties between Japan and America are talked of. The Japanese-American Citizens' Association was organized by a few Japanese who are citizens by right of birth, and has grown to a membership of more than fifteen hundred. It takes an interest in municipal affairs, discusses the questions of the day, and teaches young Hawaiian-born Japanese the[Pg 117] principles and duties of good citizenship. Rev. S. Sokabe, of Honolulu, gives its members the following advice:
"Hawaiian-born Japanese have a great mission to-day. The Japanese of Hawaii must become the pacificators should trouble come between Japan and America.... You owe it to yourselves to do this. Learn to be good American citizens, and then you will be able to help in case of trouble. You can do more to keep peace than ambassadors and ministers.... If trouble should come with Japan, you must remember that you are the sons of the President, not the sons of the Emperor."
Under the old Japanese law Japanese born in Hawaii were still subjects of Japan. Under the law lately enacted by the Diet and House of Peers of Japan, which went into effect June 1, 1916, all Japanese born in a foreign country have the right at the age of fifteen to decide whether they will become subjects of Japan or of the country of their birth; they must, however, first get the consent of their parents before giving up their citizenship in Japan.
Patriotic Americans should no longer think of Hawaii as she was eighteen years ago at the time of annexation. Then the Japanese labourer on the sugar plantations was an alien[Pg 118] and un-American. Now he is a factor and his children a greater factor in the American civilization of the Pacific!
Moreover, to show how American and patriotic most of the islanders are, I give an account of the celebration of Washington's Birthday, when a splendid parade took place. It included the military and naval forces of the Islands, as well as Hawaiians, Chinese and Japanese—all helping to make it a success.
The native police led the procession on horseback. In quick succession the troops of the cavalry rode by, saluting the Governor as they passed the reviewing stand. The First Field Artillery followed, with their guns. Then the "Dough Boys"—as the infantry men are called—companies from the Second and the Twentieth United States Infantry; after these came the bluejackets from the four United States warships lying in the harbour, with their field pieces, each manned by a gun crew; then the marines and the Red Cross brigade. The cadets of the school for young Hawaiians and the National Guard of Hawaii presented a fine military appearance.
One of King Kalakaua's descendants, Prince Kuhio, and his brother's son, little Prince Kalakaua, were among the leaders; also the so-called[Pg 119] Island Princesses, all on horseback. They were chosen to represent the five large islands, and had escorts of young girls on horseback dressed in the pau, followed by some lively cowboys on ponies.
Then came the floats, from which confetti were thrown. One float represented an elaborate tableau of a battle between the new Chinese republic and the old Manchu dynasty. Some took the part of the new army with their modern uniforms, and others in the old costumes lay very realistically dead behind their guns.
As evening came on the Japanese people began to assemble in the park down in the Oriental quarter, and from there marched to the palace grounds, then past the four American battleships at the docks, where they gave their banzai for the sailors, and were given in return a hearty American "three cheers," showing the good feeling between the two countries.
In view of the strategic value of the Islands, which, for more than fifty years, American naval officers have endeavoured to impress upon our Government, it is pleasant to learn of the loyalty and whole-hearted Americanism of the people of Hawaii. If Oahu, Guam and the Panama Canal are well fortified and sufficient numbers of troops and warships are stationed[Pg 120] at these posts they will protect our Pacific coast better than any number of harbour defenses.
And now, with the banzai of these newest Americans ringing in our ears, we must say our "Aloha," to these dream Islands, almost too perfect to be real. We say farewell, but the Spell of Hawaii will always be upon us.
Reference: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/41451/41451-h/41451-h.htm#THE_HAWAIIAN_ISLANDS read more at this link
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