Lunalilo
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I was shown, on Kauai, a young man of insignificant appearance, and of no particular merit or force of character. To him an old woman recently dying had by a will, written out for her by a friend of my own, left all her property—a taro patch, a house, and some other land. My friend asked why. He is my chief, was the reply; and sure enough, on inquiry my friend discovered, what he had not before known, that the man was a descendant of one of the chief families, of whom this old woman had in her early days been a subject.
As the chief was the ruler, the people looked to him for food in a time of scarcity. He directed their labors; he protected them against wrong from others; and as it was his pride that his retainers should be more numerous and more prosperous than those of the neighboring chief, if the head possessed brains, no doubt the people were made content. Food was abundant; commerce was unknown; the chief could not eat or waste more than his people could easily produce for him; and until disturbing causes came in with Captain Cook, no doubt feudalism wrought satisfactory results here. One wonders how it was invented among such a people, or who it was that first had genius enough to insist on obedience, to make rules, to prescribe the tabu, and, in short, to evolve order out of chaos.
The tabu was a most ingenious and useful device; and when you hear of the uses to which it was put, and of its effectiveness, you feel surprised that it was not found elsewhere as an appurtenance of the feudal machinery. Thus the chief allowed his people to fish in the part of the ocean which he owned—which fronted his "land," that is to say. He tabued one or two kinds of fish, however; these they were forbidden to catch; but as a fisherman can not, even in these islands, exercise a choice as to the fish which shall enter his net or bite at his hook, it followed that the tabued fish were caught—-but then they were at once rendered up to the chief. One variety of taro, which makes poi of a pink color, was tabued and reserved for the chiefs. Some birds were tabued on account of their feathers; one especially, a black bird which has a small yellow feather under each wing. The great feather cloak of Kamehameha I., which is still kept as a sign of royalty, is made of these feathers, and contains probably several thousand of them, thus gathered, two from each bird.
Further, a tabu prohibited women from eating with men, even with their husbands; and when, on the death of the first Kamehameha, his Queen Kahumanu, an energetic and fearless virago, dared for the first time to eat with her son, a cry of horror went up as though "great Pan was dead;" and this bold act really broke the power of the heathen priests.
A tabu forbade women to eat cocoa nuts and some other articles of food; and the prohibition appears to have been used also to compel sanitary and other useful restraints, for I have been told that a tabu preserved girls from marriage until they had attained a certain age, eighteen, I believe; and to this and some other similar regulations, rigorously enforced in the old times, I have heard old residents attribute the fertility of the race before foreigners came in.
Kamehameha I
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He who violated a tabu was at once killed. Capital punishment seems to have been an effective restraint upon crime among these savages, contrary to the theories of some modern philosophers; probably it was effective for two reasons, because it was prompt and because it was certain. One wonders how long the tabu would have been respected, had a violator of it been lodged in jail for eighteen months, allowed to appeal his case through three courts, and at last been brained amidst the appeals for mercy of the most respectable people of his tribe, and had his funeral ceremonies performed by the high-priest, and closed with a eulogy upon his character, and insinuations against the sound judgment and uprightness of the chief who ordered the execution.
The first Kamehameha, who seems to have been a savage of considerable merit, and a firm believer in capital punishment, subdued the Islands to his own rule, but he did not aim to break the power of the chiefs over their people. He established a few general laws, and insisted on peace, order, and obedience to himself. By right of his conquest all lands were supposed to be owned by him; he gave to one chief and took away from another; he rewarded his favorites, but he did not alter the condition of the people.
Queen of Kamehameha I
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But as traders came in, as commerce began, as money came into use, the feudal system began to be oppressive. Sandal-wood was long one of the most precious products of these islands—their Chinese name, indeed, is "Sandal-wood Islands." The chiefs, greedy for money, or for what the ships brought, forced their unhappy retainers into the mountains to gather this wood. Exposed to cold, badly fed, and obliged to bear painful burdens, they died in great numbers, so that it was a blessing to the Islanders when the wood became scarce. Again, supplies of food were sold by the chiefs to the ships, and this necessitated unusual labor from the people. One famous chief for years used his retainers to tow ships into the narrow harbor of Honolulu, sending them out on the reef, where, up to their middle in water, they shouldered the tow-line.
Thus when, in 1848; the king, at the instance of that excellent man and upright judge, Chief-justice Lee, gave the kuliana rights, he relieved the people of a sore oppression, and at a single blow destroyed feudalism. The kuliana is the individual holding. Under the kuliana law each native householder became entitled to the possession in fee of such land as he had occupied, or chose to occupy and cultivate. He had only to make application to a government officer, have the tract surveyed, and pay a small sum to get the title. It is creditable to the chiefs that, under the influence of the missionaries, they consented to this important change, fully knowing that it meant independence to the common people and an end of all feudal rights; but it must be added that a large part of their lands remained in their hands, making them, of course, still wealthy proprietors.
Thus the present system of land tenure on the Islands is much the same as our own; but the holdings of the common people are generally small, and the chiefs, or their successors in many cases foreigners, still maintain their right to the sea fisheries as against all who live outside the old boundaries of their own "lands."
The families of most of the great chiefs have become extinct. Their wealth became a curse to them when foreigners came in with foreign vices and foreign luxuries. They are said to have been remarkable as men and women of extraordinary stature and of uncommon perfection of form. I have been told of many chiefesses nearly or quite six feet in height, and many chiefs from six feet two inches to six feet six, and in one case six feet seven inches high. There is no reason to doubt the universal testimony that they were, as a class, taller and finer-looking than the common people; but the older missionaries and residents believe that this arose not from their being of a different race, but because they were absolutely relieved from hard work, were more abundantly and carefully fed, and used the lomi-lomi constantly. It is supposable, too, that in the wars which prevailed among the tribes the weaklings, if any such were among the chiefs, were pretty sure to be killed off; and thus a natural selection went on which weeded out the small and inefficient chiefs.
Their government appears to have been a "despotism tempered by assassination," for great as was the respect exacted by a chief, and implicit as was the obedience he commanded, if he pushed his tyranny too far, his people rose and slew him. Thus on Kauai, in the lower part of the Hanapepe Valley, a huge cliff is shown, concerning which the tradition runs that it was once the residence of the chief who ruled this valley. This person, with a Titanic and Rabelaisian humor, was accustomed to descend into the valley in the evening, seize a baby and carry it to his stronghold to serve him as a pillow. Having slept upon it he slew it next morning; and thus with a refinement of luxury he required a fresh baby every evening. When patience had ceased to be a virtue, according to our more modern formula, the people went up one night and knocked his brains out; and there was a change of dynasties.
Ancient Gods of Hawaii
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The Hawaiian of the present day reads his Bible and newspaper, writes letters, wears clothes, owns property, serves in the Legislature or Parliament, votes, teaches school, acts as justice of the peace and even as judge, is tax collector and assessor, constable and preacher. In spite of all this, or rather with it, he retains the oddest traces of the habits and customs of another age. For instance, he will labor for wages; but he will persistently and for years give away to his relations all his pay except what he needs for his actual subsistence, and if he is prosperous he is pretty sure to have quite a swarm of people to support. A lady told me that having repeatedly clothed her nurse in good apparel, and finding this liberal soul, every time, in a day or two reduced to her original somewhat shabby clothing, she at last reproached her for her folly. "What can I do?" the woman replied; "they come and ask me for the holaku, or the handkerchief, or whatever I have. Suppose you say they are yours—then I will not give them away." Accordingly, the next new suit was formally declared to belong to the mistress: it was not given away. An old woman, kept chiefly for her skill in lomi-lomi by an American family, asked her master one day for ten dollars. He gave her two five-dollar gold pieces, and, to his amazement, saw her hand them over immediately, one to a little girl and one to a boy, who had evidently come to get the money—not for her use at all. A cook in my own family asked for the wages due him, which he had been saving for some time; he received forty-four dollars, and gave the whole amount at once to his father-in-law, who had come from another island on purpose to get this money. Nor was it grudged to him, so far as any of us could see. "By-and-by, if we are poor and in need, they will do as much for us," is the excuse.
As you ride along in the country, you will see your guide slyly putting a stone or a bunch of grass on a ledge near some precipice. If you look, you will see other objects of the same kind lying there. Ask him about it and he will tell you, with a laugh, that his forefathers in other times did so, and he does the same. It is, in fact, a peace offering to the local divinity of the place. Is he, then, an idolater? Not at all; not necessarily, at least. He is under the compulsion of an old custom; and he will even tell you that it is all nonsense. The same force leads him to treat with respect and veneration a chief or chiefess even if abjectly poor, though before the law the highest chief is no better than the common people.
They are hearty and even gross feeders; and probably the only christianized people who live almost entirely on cold victuals. A Hawaiian does not need a fire to prepare a meal; and at a luau, or feast, all the food is served cold, except the pig, which ought to be hot.
Hospitable and liberal as he is in his daily life, when the Hawaiian invites his friends to a luau he expects them to pay. He provides for them roast pig, poi, baked ti-root, which bears a startling resemblance in looks and taste to New England molasses-cake; raw fish and shrimps, limu, which is a sea-moss of villainous odor; kuulaau, a mixture of taro and cocoa-nut, very nice; paalolo, a mixture of sweet-potato and cocoa-nut; raw and cooked cuttle-fish, roast dog, sea-eggs, if they can be got; and, if the feast is something above the ordinary, raw pickled salmon with tomatoes and red-pepper.
The object of such a luau is usually to enable the giver to pay for his new house, or to raise money for some private object of his own. Notice of the coming feast is given months beforehand, as also of the amount each visitor is expected to give. It will be a twenty-five cent, or a fifty cent, or a dollar luau. The pigs—the centre-piece of the feast—have been fattening for a year before. The affair is much discussed. It is indispensable that all who attend shall come in brand-new clothing, and a native person will rather deny himself the feast than appear in garments which have been worn before. A few of the relatives of the feast-giver act as stewards, and they must be dressed strictly alike. At one luau which I had the happiness to attend the six men who acted as stewards were arrayed in green cotton shirts and crimson cotton trowsers, and had green wreaths on their heads. I need not say that they presented a truly magnificent appearance.
To such a luau people ride thirty or forty miles; arriving often the evening beforehand, in order to be early at the feast next day. When they sit down each person receives his abundant share of pig, neatly wrapped in ti-leaves; to the remainder of the food he helps himself as he likes. They eat, and eat, and eat; they beat their stomachs with satisfaction; they talk and eat; they ride about awhile, and eat again; they laugh, sing, and eat. At last a man finds he can hold no more. He is "pau"—done. He declares himself "mauna"—a mountain; and points to his abdomen in proof of his statement. Then, unless he expects a recurrence of hunger, he carefully wraps up the fragments and bones which remain of his portion of pig, and these he must take with him. It would be the height of impoliteness to leave them; and each visitor scrupulously takes away every remaining bit of his share. If now you look you will see a calabash somewhere in the middle of the floor, into which each, as he completes his meal, put his quarter or half dollar.
In the evening there are dancing and singing, and then you may hear and see the extremely dramatic meles of the Hawaiians—a kind of rapid chant, the tones of which have a singular fascination for my ears. A man and woman, usually elderly or middle-aged people, sit down opposite each other, or side by side facing the company. One begins and the other joins in; the sound is as of a shrill kind of drone; it is accompanied by gesticulations; and each chant lasts about two or three minutes, and ends in a jerk. The swaying of the lithe figures, the vehement and passionate movements of the arms and head, the tragic intensity of the looks, and the very peculiar music, all unite to fasten one's attention, and to make this spectacle of mele singing, as I have said, singularly fascinating.
The language of the meles is a dialect now unused, and unintelligible even to most of the people. The whole chant concerns itself, however, with a detailed description of the person of the man or woman or child to which or in whose honor it is sung. Thus a mele will begin with the hair, which may be likened in beauty to the sea-moss found on a certain part of Kauai; or the teeth, which "resemble the beautiful white pebbles which men pick up on the beach of Kaalui Bay on Maui;" and so on. Indeed an ancient Hawaiian mele is probably, in its construction, much like the Song of Solomon; though I am told that the old meles concerned themselves with personal details by no means suitable for modern ears. A mele is always sung for or about some particular person. Thus I have heard meles for the present king; meles for a man or woman present; meles for a chief; and on one occasion I was told they sang a mele for me; and I judged, from the laughter some parts of it excited, that my feelings were saved by my ignorance of the language.
On all festive occasions, and on many others, the Hawaiian loves to dress his head with flowers and green wreaths. Les or garlands are made of several substances besides flowers; though the most favorite are composed of jasmine flowers, or the brilliant yellow flowers of one kind of ginger, which give out a somewhat overpowering odor. These are hung around the neck. For the head they like to use wreaths of the maile shrub, which has an agreeable odor, something like that of the cherry sticks which smokers like for pipe stems. This ornamentation does not look amiss on the young, for to youth much is forgiven; but it is a little startling, at a luau, to see old crones and grave grandfathers arrayed with equal gayety; and I confess that though while the flowers and leaves are fresh the decorated assembly is picturesque, especially as the women wear their hair flowing, and many have beautiful wavy tresses, yet toward evening, when the maile has wilted and the garlands are rumpled and decaying, this kind of ornamentation gives an air of dissipation to the company which it by no means deserves.
Finally, the daily life of the Hawaiian, if he lives near the sea-coast and is master of his own life, is divided between fishing, taro planting, poi making, and mat weaving. All these but the last are laborious occupations; but they do not make hard work of them. Two days' labor every week will provide abundant food for a man and his family. He has from five to ten dollars a year of taxes to pay, and this money he can easily earn. The sea always supplies him with fish, sea-moss, and other food. He is fond of fussing at different things; but he also lies down on the grass a good deal—why shouldn't he?—he reads his paper, he plays at cards, he rides about a good deal, he sleeps more or less, and about midnight he gets up and eats a hearty supper. Altogether he is a very happy creature, and by no means a bad one. You need not lock your door against him; and an election and a luau occasionally, give him all the excitement he craves, and that not of an unwholesome kind.
What there is happy about his life he owes to the fine climate and the missionaries. The latter have given him education enough to read his Bible and newspaper, and thus to take some interest in and have some knowledge of affairs in the world at large. They and their successors, the political rulers, have made life and property secure, and caused roads and bridges to be built and maintained; and the Hawaiian is fond of moving about. The little inter-island steamer and the schooners are always full of people on their travels; and as they do not have hotel bills to pay, but live on their friends on these visits, there is a great deal of such movement.
It would hardly do to compare the Hawaiian people with those of New England; but they will compare favorably in comfort, in intelligence, in wealth, in morals, and in happiness with the common people of most European nations; and when one sees here how happily people can live in a small way, and without ambitious striving for wealth or a career, he can not but wonder if, after all, in the year 2873, our pushing and hard-pushed civilization of the nineteenth century will get as great praise as it gets from ourselves, its victims.
Hawaiians Eating Poi
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CHAPTER VI.
COMMERCIAL AND POLITICAL.
Commercial relations form and foster political alliances, especially between a weak state and a strong one. The annual report for 1872 of imports and exports, made up by the Collector-general of the Hawaiian Kingdom, shows how completely the Islands depend upon the United States.
Of 146 merchant vessels and steamers entered at Hawaiian ports during 1872, 90 were American, only 15 were English; 6 were German, 9 belonged to other nations, and 26 were Hawaiian. Of a total of 98,647 tons of shipping, 73,975 were American, 6714 Hawaiian, and but 7741 British. Of 47 whaling vessels calling at Island ports during the year, 42 were American, 2 Hawaiian, and 3 British.
Of a little less than 16,000,000 pounds of sugar exported during the same year, 14,500,000 were sent to the United States; of 39,000 pounds of coffee 34,000 were sent to us; of 1,349,503 pounds of rice and paddy exported, 1,317,203 pounds came to the United States. All the cotton, all the goat-skins, nearly all the hides, all the wool, the greater part of the peanuts and the pulu, in short, almost the whole exports of the Islands, are sent to the United States.
On the other hand, of $1,234,147, the value of duty-paying merchandise imported during 1872 into the Islands, $806,111 worth came from the United States, $155,939 from Great Britain, and $205,396 from Germany. Besides this, of the total value of bonded goods, $349,435, the large amount of $135,487 was brought from sea by whalemen, almost all of whom were Americans; and $99,567 worth was goods from the United States; or $235,000 of American products against $21,801 of British, and $23,904 of German importation, in bond.
It is plain that the Island trade is so largely in our hands that no other nation can be said to dispute it with us. If our flag flew over Honolulu we could hardly expect to have a more complete monopoly of Hawaiian commerce than we already enjoy. Moreover, almost all the sugar-plantations—the most productive and valuable property on the Islands—are owned by Americans; and the same is true of the greater number of stock farms.
Our political predominance on the Islands is as complete as the commercial. In the present cabinet all the ministers except one are Americans. This was true also of the cabinet of the late king. Of the Supreme Court, two of the judges are Americans, and one is German. Almost all the executive and administrative offices are in the hands of Americans or Hawaiians.
Nor can any foreign power rightly find fault with this state of things. What the Islands are they are because of American effort, American enterprise, American capital. American missionaries civilized them; Americans gave them laws wisely adapted to the customs and habits of their people; American enterprise and Boston capital established the sugar culture and other of the important industries; perhaps I ought to add that American sailors spread among the Islands the vices and diseases which, more than all else, have caused the rapid decrease of the population, and to combat and check which added toil and trouble to the labors of the American missionaries.
The government of the Hawaiian Islands consists of a king and a Parliament. The Parliament meets once in two years; and under the late king consisted of but a single House. The present king has promised to call together two Houses, of which but one will be elected. The other consists of "Nobles," who are nominated or created by the king for life, but have no title nor salary unless they are called to office. By the Constitution the reigning king appoints his successor, but his nomination must be confirmed by the Nobles. As, however, he may at pleasure increase the number of Nobles, the appointment virtually rests with him. If he dies without naming a successor, the Parliament has the right and duty to elect a new sovereign.
There is a slight property qualification for voters, and a heavier one for members of Parliament.
The revenue of the Government, which amounts to about half a million per annum, is derived from the various sources specified in the official returns of the Minister of Finance, which I copy below. It must be understood that this report covers two years:
| The balance in the Treasury at the close of the last fiscal period (March 31, 1870) was | $61,580.20 | |
| And there has been received from Foreign Imports | $396,418.15 | |
| " " " Fines, Penalties, and Costs | 47,289.13 | |
| " " " Internal Commerce | 98,982.51 | |
| " " " Taxes | 215,962.51 | |
| " " " Fees and Perquisites | 22,194.45 | |
| " " " Government Realizations | 124,071.37 | |
| " " " Miscellaneous Sources | 60,038.23 | |
| ---------------- | ||
| $964,956.35 | ||
| $1,026,536.55 |
The expenditures during two years are detailed thus in the same report:
| For Civil List | $50,000.00 | |
| " Permanent Settlements | 18,000.00 | |
| " Legislature and Privy Council | 15,281.63 | |
| " Department of Judiciary | 73,562.61 | |
| " " Foreign Affairs and War | 98,028.24 | |
| " " Interior | 396,806.41 | |
| " " Finance | 141,345.29 | |
| " " Attorney-general | 88,412.17 | |
| " Bureau of Public Instruction | 88,347.79 | |
| ---------------- | $969,784.14 | |
| Balance on hand March 31, 1872 | $56,752.41 | |
| ---------------- | ||
| $1,026,536.55 |
The internal taxes include the property tax, which is quite low, one and a half per cent. Every male adult pays a poll tax of one dollar, a school tax of two dollars, and a road tax of two dollars. The following is the detail of the internal taxes for the two years 1870-72:
| Real Estate and Personal Property | $97,685.11 |
| Horses | 53,006.00 |
| Dogs | 22,271.40 |
| Mules | 6,140.00 |
| Carriages | 3,125.00 |
| Poll | 27,841.00 |
| Native Seamen | 5,894.00 |
| -------- | |
| $215,962.51 |
Among the licenses the monopoly of opium selling brings the Government $22,248, a prodigious sum when it is considered that there are but 2500 Chinese in the Islands; these being the chief, though not the only consumers. There is, besides, a duty of ten per cent. on the opium when imported, and the merchant must make his profit. I had the curiosity to look a little into the opium consumption. It is said that its use is slowly spreading among the natives, particularly where these are employed with Chinese on the plantations. But the quantity used by the Chinese themselves is prodigious. I was shown one man, a cook, whose wages, fourteen dollars per month, were entirely spent on opium; and whose master supplied the poor creature with clothes, because he had nothing left out of his pay. In other cases the amount spent was nearly as great.
Eight thousand two hundred and sixty-five dollars were also realized for awa licenses. Awa is a root the use of which produces a frightful kind of intoxication, in which the victim falls into stupor, his features are contorted, and he has seizures resembling epilepsy. The body of the habitual awa drinker becomes covered with white scales; and it is said that awa drinking predisposes to leprosy. The manner of preparing awa is peculiarly disgusting. The root is chewed by women, and they spit out well-chewed mouthfuls into a calabash. Here it settles, and the liquor is then drunk. It is said that in old times the chiefs used to get together the prettiest young girls to chew awa for them.
The king receives a salary of $22,500 per annum; the cabinet ministers and the chief-justice receive $5000, and the two associate justices $4000 per annum. These are the largest salaries paid; and in general the public service of the Islands is very cheaply as well as ably and conscientiously conducted. There is an opportunity for retrenchment in abolishing some of the offices; but the saving which could thus be effected would after all not be great. The present Government means, I have been told, to undertake some reforms; these will probably consist in getting the king to turn the crown lands into public lands, to be sold or leased for the benefit of the treasury. They are now leased, and the income is a perquisite of the king, a poor piece of policy, for the chiefs from among whom a sovereign is selected are all wealthy; the present king, for instance, has an income of probably $25,000 per annum from private property of his own. It is also proposed to lessen the number of cabinet ministers; but this will scarcely be done. They are but four in number now, having charge of Foreign Affairs, Finance, and the Interior and Law Departments.
There is a debt of about $300,000 which is entirely held within the kingdom; and the public property is of value sufficient to pay three times this sum. It is probable, however, that, like many other governments, the Hawaiian ministry will have to deal with a deficit when the next Legislature meets; and this will probably bring reform and retrenchment before them. There is not much hope of increasing the revenue from new and still untouched sources, for there are but few such.
The taxable industries and wealth of the Islands can not be very greatly increased. Finding yourself in a tropical country, with a charming and equable climate, and with abundant rains, you are apt to think that, given only a little soil, many things would grow and could be profitably raised. It is one of the surprises of a visitor to the Hawaiian group to discover that in reality very few products succeed here.
Coffee was largely planted, and promised to become a staple of the Islands; but a blight attacked the trees and proved so incurable that the best plantations were dug up and turned into sugar; and the export of coffee, which has been very variable, but which rose to 415,000 pounds in 1870, fell to 47,000 pounds in the next year, and to 39,276 pounds in 1872.
Sea-island cotton would yield excellent crops if it were not that a caterpillar devours the young plants, so that its culture has almost ceased. Only 10,000 pounds were exported in 1872. The orange thrives in so few localities on the Islands that it is not an article of commerce: only two boxes were exported last year, though San Francisco brings this fruit from Otaheite by a voyage of thirty days. A burr worse than any found in California discourages the sheep-raiser in some of the Islands. The cacao-tree has been tried, but a blight kills it. In the garden of Dr. Hillebrandt, near Honolulu, I saw specimens of the cinnamon and allspice trees; but again I was told that the blight attacked them, and did not allow them to prosper. Wheat and other cereals grow and mature, but they are subject to the attacks of weevil, so that they can not be stored or shipped; and if you feed your horse oats or barley in Honolulu, these have been imported from California. Silk-worms have been tried but failed. Rice does well, and its culture is increasing.
Moreover, there is but an inconsiderable local market. A farmer on Maui told me he had sent twenty bags of potatoes to Honolulu, and so overstocked the market that he got back only the price of his bags. Eggs and all other perishable products, for the same reason, vary much in price, and are at times high-priced and hardly attainable. It will not do for the farmer to raise much for sale. The population is not only divided among different and distant islands, but it consists for much the largest part of people who live sufficiently well on taro, sweet-potatoes, fish, pork, and beef—all articles which they raise for themselves, and which they get by labor and against disadvantages which few white farmers would encounter.
For instance, the Puna coast of Hawaii is a district where for thirty miles there is so little fresh water to be found that travelers must bring their own supplies in bottles; and Dr. Coan told me that in former days the people, knowing that he could not drink the brackish stuff which satisfied them, used to collect fresh water for his use when he made the missionary tour, from the drippings of dew in caves. Wells are here out of the question, for there is no soil except a little decomposed lava, and the lava lets through all the water which comes from rains. There are few or no streams to be led down from the mountains. There are no fields, according to our meaning of the word.
Formerly the people in this district were numbered by thousands: even yet there is a considerable population, not unprosperous by any means. Churches and schools are as frequent as in the best part of New England. Yet when I asked a native to show me his sweet-potato patch, he took me to the most curious and barren-looking collection of lava you can imagine, surrounded, too, by a very formidable wall made of lava, and explained to me that by digging holes in the lava where it was a little decayed, carrying a handful of earth to each of these holes, and planting there in a wet season, he got a very satisfactory crop. Not only that, but being desirous of something more than a bare living, this man had planted a little coffee in the same way, and had just sold 1600 pounds, his last crop. He owned a good wooden house; politely gave up his own mats for me to sleep on; possessed a Bible and a number of other works in Hawaiian; after supper called his family together, who squatted on the floor while he read from his Scriptures, and, after singing a hymn, knelt in family prayers; and finally spent half an hour before going to bed in looking over his newspaper. This man, thoroughly respectable, of good repute, hospitable, comfortable in every way so far as I could see, lived, and lived well, on twenty or thirty acres of lava, of which not even a Vermonter would have given ten cents for a thousand acres; and which was worthless to any one except a native Hawaiian.
Take next the grazing lands. In many parts they are so poorly supplied with water that they can not carry much stock. They also are often astonishingly broken up, for they frequently lie high up on the sides of the mountains, and in many parts they are rocky and lava-covered beyond belief. On Hawaii, the largest island, lava covers and makes desolate hundreds of thousands of acres, and on the other and smaller islands, except, perhaps, Kauai, there is corresponding desolation. Thus the area of grazing lands is less than one would think. But on the other hand, cattle are very cheaply raised. They require but little attention; and the stock-owners, who are now boiling down their cattle and selling merely the hides and tallow, are said to be just at this time the most prosperous people on the Islands. Sheep are kept too, but not in great flocks except upon the small island of Niihau, which was bought some years ago by two brothers, Sinclair by name, who have now a flock of fifteen or eighteen thousand sheep there, I am told; on Molokai and part of Hawaii; and upon the small island of Lanai, where Captain Gibson has six or eight thousand head.
One of the conspicuous trees of the Hawaiian forests is the Kukui or candle-nut. Its pale green foliage gives the mountain sides sometimes a disagreeable look; though where it grows among the Ko trees, whose leaves are of a dark green, the contrast is not unpleasant. From its abundance I supposed the candle-nut might be made an article of export; but the country is so rough that the gathering of the nuts is very laborious; and several persons who have experimented in expressing the oil from the nut have discovered that it did not pay cost. Only two thousand pounds of Kukui nuts were exported in 1872.
Sandal-wood was once a chief article of export. It grows on the higher mountain slopes, and is still collected, for 20,232 pounds were exported in 1872, and a small quantity is worked up in the Islands. The cocoa-nut is not planted in sufficient quantities to make it an article of commerce. Only 950 nuts were exported last year. Of pulu 421,227 pounds were shipped; this is a soft fuzz taken from the crown of a species of fern; it is used to stuff bedding, and is as warm, though not as durable, as feathers. Also 32,161 pounds of "fungus," a kind of toad-stool which grows on decaying wood, and is used in China as an article of food.
There has been no lack of ingenuity, enterprise, or industry among the inhabitants. The Government has imported several kinds of trees and plants, as the cinnamon, pepper, and allspice, but they have not prospered. Private effort has not been wanting either. But nature does not respond. Sugar and rice are and must it seems continue to be the staples of the Islands; and the culture of these products will in time be considerably increased.
This, it appears to me, decides the future of the Islands and the character of their population. A sugar or rice plantation needs at most three or four American workmen aside from the manager. The laboring force will be Hawaiians or Chinese; for they alone work cheaply, and will content themselves in the situation of plantation laborers. It is likely, therefore, that the future population of the Islands will consist largely, as it does now, of Hawaiians and Chinese, and a mixture of these two races; and, no doubt, these will live very happily there.
Native Hay Peddler
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For farming, in the American sense of the word, the Islands are, as these facts show, entirely unfit. I asked again and again of residents this question: "Would you advise your friend in Massachusetts or Illinois, a farmer with two or three thousand dollars in money, to settle out here?" and received invariably the answer, "No; it would be wrong to do so." Transportation of farm products from island to island is too costly; there is no local market except Honolulu, and that is very rapidly and easily overstocked; Oregon or California potatoes are sold in the Islands at a price which would leave the local farmer without a profit. In short, farming is not a pursuit in the Islands. A farmer would not starve, for beef is cheap, and he could always raise vegetables enough for himself; but he would not get ahead. Moreover, perishable fruits, like the banana, have but a limited chance for export. The Islands, unluckily, lie to windward of California; and a sailing vessel, beating up to San Francisco, is very apt to make so long a passage that if she carries bananas they spoil on the way. Hence but 4520 bunches were shipped from the Islands in 1872—which was all the monthly steamer had room for.
These circumstances seem to settle the question of annexation, which is sometimes discussed. To annex the Islands would be to burden ourselves with an outlying territory too distant to be cheaply defended; and containing a population which will never be homogeneous with our own; a country which would neither attract nor reward our industrious farmers and mechanics; which offers not the slightest temptation to emigration, except a most delightful climate, and which has, and must by its circumstances and natural formation continue to have, chiefly a mixed population of Chinese and other coolies, whom it is assuredly not to our interest to take into our family. I suppose it is a proper rule that we should not encumber ourselves with territory which by reason of unchangeable natural causes will repel our farmers and artisans, and which, therefore, will not become in time Americanized. If this is true, we ought not to annex the Hawaiian Islands.
Moreover, there is no excuse for annexation, in the desire of the people. The present Government is mild, just, and liked by the people. They can easily make it cheaper whenever they want to. The native people are very strongly opposed to annexation; they have a strong feeling of nationality, and considerable jealousy of foreign influence. Annexation to our own or any other country would be without their consent.
As to the residents of foreign birth, a few of them favor annexation to the United States; but only a few. A large majority would oppose it as strenuously as the native people. Most of the planters see that it would break up their labor system, demoralize the workmen, and probably for years check the production of sugar.
One thing is certain, however. If the Islands ever offer themselves to any foreign power, it will be to the United States. Their people, foreign as well as native, look to us as their neighbors and friends; and the king last summer blurted out one day when too much wine had made him imprudent, this truth: that if annexation came, it must be to the United States.
As I write a negotiation has been opened with the United States Government, for the purpose of offering us Pearl River in exchange for a reciprocity treaty. Pearl River is an extensive, deep, and well-protected bay, about ten miles from Honolulu. It would answer admirably for a naval station; and if the United States were a second-rate power likely to be bullied by other nations, we might need a naval station in the Pacific Ocean. In our present condition, when no single power dares to make war with us, and when, unless we become shamelessly aggressive, no alliance of European powers against us for purposes of war is possible, the chief use of distant naval stations appears to me to be as convenient out-of-the-way places for wasting the public money. Pearl River would be an admirable spot for a dozen pleasant sinecures, and the expenditure of three or four millions of money. It seems to me, therefore, that it would be a dear bargain. For the accommodation of merchant steamers and ships and their repair, Honolulu offers sufficient facilities. There are ingenious American mechanics there who have even taken a frigate upon a temporary dry-dock, and repaired her hull.
Hula-Hula, Or Dancing-Girls
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But justice, kindly feeling, and a due regard for our future interests in the Pacific Ocean ought to induce us to establish at once a reciprocity treaty with the Hawaiian Government. We should lose but little revenue; and should make good that loss by the greater market which would be opened for our own products, in the Islands. Such a treaty would bring more capital to the Islands, increase their prosperity, and, at the same time, bind them still more closely and permanently to us. It would pave the way to annexation, if that should ever become advisable.
The politics of the Hawaiian Kingdom are not very exciting. In those fortunate Isles the Legislature troubles itself chiefly about the horse and dog tax. The late king, who was of an irascible temper, did not always treat his faithful Commons with conspicuous civility. He sometimes told them that they had talked long enough and had better adjourn; and they usually took his advice. The present king, who belonged to "his majesty's opposition" during the late reign, has yet to develop his qualities as a ruler. He has shown sound judgment in the nomination of his cabinet; and he is believed to have the welfare of the people at heart. He is unmarried; but is not likely to marry; and he will probably nominate a successor from one of the chief or ruling families still remaining. The list from which he can choose is not very long; and it is most probable, as this is written, that he will nominate to succeed him Mrs. Bernice Pauahi Bishop, wife of the present Minister of Foreign Affairs. Mrs. Bishop is a lady of education and culture, of fine presence, every way fit to rule over her people; and her selection would be satisfactory to the foreign residents as well as to the best of the Hawaiian people.
Hawaiian Style of Dress
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CHAPTER VII.
THE LEPER ASYLUM ON MOLOKAI.
So much has been said and written of late about the disease called leprosy and its ravages in the Sandwich Islands that I had the curiosity to visit the asylum for lepers at Molokai, where now very nearly all the people suffering from this disease have been collected, under a law which directs this seclusion.
The steamer Kilauea left Honolulu one evening at half-past five o'clock, and dropped several of us about two o'clock at night into a whale-boat near a point on the lee side of Molokai. Here we were landed, and presently mounted horses and rode seven or eight miles to the house of a German, Mr. Meyer, who is the superintendent of the leper settlement, and also, I believe, of a cattle farm which belongs to the heirs of the late king.
Mr. Meyer has lived on Molokai since 1853. He is married to a Hawaiian, and has a large family of sons and daughters who have been carefully and excellently brought up, I was told. Mrs. Meyer, who presided at breakfast, is one of those tall and grandly proportioned women whom you meet among the native population not infrequently, who enable you to realize how it was that in the old times the women exercised great influence in Hawaiian politics. She seemed born to command, and yet her benevolent countenance and friendly smile of welcome showed that she would probably rule gently.
From Mr. Meyer's we rode some miles again, until at last we dismounted at the top or edge of the great precipice, at the foot of which, two thousand feet below, lies the plain of Kalawao, occupied by the lepers. At the top we four dismounted, for the trail to the bottom, though not generally worse than the trail into the Yosemite Valley, has some places which would be difficult and, perhaps, dangerous for horses.
From the edge of the Pali or precipice the plain below, which contains about 16,000 acres, looks like an absolute flat, bounded on three sides by the blue Pacific. Horses awaited us at the bottom, and we soon discovered that the plain possessed some considerable elevations and depressions. It is believed to have been once the bottom of a vast crater, of which the Pali we clambered down formed one of the sides, the others having sunk beneath the ocean, leaving a few traces on one side. It has yet one considerable cone, a hill two hundred feet high, a well-preserved subsidiary crater, on whose bottom grass is now growing, while a little pool of salt water, which rises and falls with the tide, shows a connection with the ocean. A ride along the shore showed me also several other and smaller cones.
The whole great plain is composed of lava stones, and to one unfamiliar with the habits of these islanders would seem to be an absolutely sterile desert. Yet here lived, not very many years ago, a considerable population, who have left the marks of an almost incredible industry in numerous fields inclosed between walls of lava rock well laid up; and in what is yet stranger, long rows of stones, like the windrows of hay in a grass field at home, evidently piled there in order to secure room in the long, narrow beds thus partly cleared of lava which lay between, to plant sweet-potatoes. As I rode over the trails worn in the lava by the horses of the old inhabitants, I thought this plain realized the Vermonter's saying about a piece of particularly stony ground, that there was not room in the field to pile up the rocks it contained.
Yet on this apparently desert space, within a quarter of a century more than a thousand people lived contentedly and prosperously, after their fashion; and this though fresh water is so scarce that many of them must have carried their drinking water at least two or even three miles. And here now live, among the lepers, or rather a little apart from them at one side of the plain, about a hundred people, the remnant of the former population, who were too much attached to their homes to leave them, and accepted sentence of perpetual seclusion here, in common with the lepers, rather than exile to a less sterile part of the island.
When we had descended the cliff, a short ride brought us to the house of a luna, or local overseer, a native who is not a leper; and of this house, being uncontaminated, we took possession.
By a law of the kingdom it is made the duty of the Minister of the Interior, and under him of the Board of Health, to arrest every one suspected of leprosy; and if a medical examination shows that he has the disease, to seclude the leper upon this part of Molokai.
Leprosy, when it is beyond its very earliest stage, is held to be incurable. He who is sent to Molokai is therefore adjudged civilly dead. His wife, upon application to the proper court, is granted a decree of absolute divorce, and may marry again; his estate is administered upon as though he were dead. He is incapable of suing or being sued; and his dealings with the world thereafter are through and with the Board of Health alone.
In order that no doubtful cases may be sent to Molokai there is a hospital at Kalihi, near Honolulu, where the preliminary examinations are made, and where Dr. Trousseau, the skillful physician of the Board of Health, son of the famous Paris physician of the same name, retains people about whom he is uncertain.
The leper settlement at Molokai was begun so long ago as 1865; but the law requiring the seclusion of lepers was not enforced under the late king, who is believed to have been himself a sufferer from this disease, and who, at any rate, by constantly granting exemptions, discouraged the officers of the law. Since the accession of the present king, however, it has been rigidly enforced, and it is this which has caused the sudden and great outcry about leprosy, which has reached even to the United States, and has caused many people, it seems, to fear to come to the Islands, as though a foreigner would be liable to catch the disease.
You must understand that the native people have no fear of the disease. Until the accession of the present king lepers were commonly kept in the houses of their families, ate, drank, smoked, and slept with their own people, and had their wounds dressed at home. If the disease were quickly or readily contagious, it must have spread very rapidly in such conditions; and that it did not spread greatly or rapidly is one of the best proofs that it is not easily transmitted. When I remember how commonly, among the native people, a whole family smokes out of the same pipe, and sleeps together under the same tapa, I am surprised that so few have the disease.
There are at this time eight hundred and four persons, lepers, in the settlement, besides about one hundred non-lepers, who prefer to remain there in their ancient homes. Since January, 1865, when the first leper was sent here, one thousand one hundred and eighty have been received, of whom seven hundred and fifty-eight were males and four hundred and twenty-two females. Of this number three hundred and seventy-three have died, namely, two hundred and forty-six males and one hundred and twenty-seven females. Forty-two died between April 1 and August 13 of the present year. The proportion of women to men is smaller than I thought; and there are about fifty leper children, between the ages of six and thirteen. Lepers are sterile, and no children have been born at the asylum.
So great has been the energy and the vigilance of the Board of Health and its physician, Dr. Trousseau, that there are not now probably fifty lepers at large on all the islands, and these are persons who have been hidden away in the mountains by their relatives. In fact if there was ever any risk to foreign visitors from leprosy, this is now reduced to the minimum; and as the disease is not caused by the climate, and can be got, as the widest experience and the best authorities agree, only by intimate contact, united with peculiar predisposition of the blood, there is not the least ground for any foreign visitor to dread it.
When a leper is sent to Molokai, the Government provides him a house, and he receives, if an adult, three pounds of paiai or unmixed poi, per day, and three pounds of salt salmon, or five pounds of fresh beef, per week. Beef is generally preferred.
They are allowed and encouraged to cultivate land, and their products are bought by the Health Board; but the disease quickly attacks the feet and hands, and disables the sufferers from labor.
There are two churches in the settlement, one Protestant, with a native pastor, and one Catholic, with a white priest, a young Frenchman, who has had the courage to devote himself to his co-religionists.
There is a store, kept by the Board of Health, the articles in which are sold for cost and expenses. The people receive a good deal of money from their relatives at home, which they spend in this store. The Government also supplies all the lepers with clothing; and there is a post-office. The little schooner which carried me back to Honolulu bore over two hundred letters, the weekly mail from the leper settlement.
For the bad cases there is a hospital, an extensive range of buildings, where one hundred patients lay when I visited it. These, being helpless, are attended by other lepers, and receive extra rations of tea, sugar, bread, rice, and other food.
Almost every one strong enough to ride has a horse; for the Hawaiians can not well live without horses. Some of the people live on the shore and make salt, which you see stored up in pandanus bags under the shelter of lava bubbles. When I was there a number were engaged in digging a ditch in which to lay an iron pipe, intended to convey fresh water to the denser part of the settlement.
Such is the life on the leper settlement of Molokai; a precipitous cliff at its back two thousand feet high; the ocean, looking here bluer and lovelier than ever I saw it look elsewhere on three sides of it; the soft trade-wind blowing across the lava-covered plain; eternal sunshine; a mild air; horses; and the weekly excitement of the arrival of the schooner from Honolulu with letters. There is sufficient employment for those who can and like to work—and the Hawaiian is not an idle creature; and altogether it is a very contented and happy community. The Islander has strong feelings and affections, but they do not last long, and the people here seemed to me to have made themselves quickly at home. I saw very few sad faces, and there were mirth and laughter, and ready service and pleasant looks all around us, as we rode or walked over the settlement.
And now, you will ask, what does a leper look like? Well, in the first place, he is not the leper of the Scriptures; nor, I am assured, is the disease at all like that which is said to occur in China. Indeed, the poor Chinese have been unjustly accused of bringing this disease to the Islands. With the first shipload of Chinese brought to these Islands came two lepers "white as snow," having, that is to say, a disease very different from that which now is called leprosy here. They were not allowed to land, but were sent back in the ship which brought them out.
The Hawaiian leprosy, on the other hand, has been known here for a quarter of a century, and men died of it before the first Chinese were brought hither. The name Mai-Pakeh was given it by an accident, a foreigner saying to a native that he had a disease such as they had in China. There are but six Chinese in the Molokai leper settlement, and there are three white men there.
The leprosy of the Islands is a disease of the blood, and not a skin disease. It can be caught only, I am told, by contact of an abraded surface with the matter of the leprous sore; and doubtless the familiar habit of the people, of many smoking the same pipe, has done much to disseminate it.
Its first noticeable signs are a slight puffiness under the eyes, and a swelling of the lobes of the ears. To the practiced eyes of Dr. Trousseau these signs were apparent where I could not perceive them until he laid his finger on them. Next follow symptoms which vary greatly in different individuals; but a marked sign is the retraction of the fingers, so that the hand comes to resemble a bird's claw. In some cases the face swells in ridges, leaving deep furrows between; and these ridges are shiny and without feeling, so that a pin may be stuck into one without giving pain to the person. The features are thus horribly deformed in many instances; I saw two or three young boys of twelve who looked like old men of sixty. In some older men and women, the face was at first sight revolting and baboon-like; I say at first sight, for on a second look the mild sad eye redeemed the distorted features; it was as though the man were looking out of a horrible mask.
At a later stage of the disease these rugous swellings break open into festering sores; the nose and even the eyes are blotted out, and the body becomes putrid.
In other cases the extremities are most severely attacked. The fingers, after being drawn in like claws, begin to fester. They do not drop off, but seem rather to be absorbed, the nails following the stumps down; and I actually saw finger-nails on a hand that had no fingers. The nails were on the knuckles; the fingers had all rotted away.
The same process of decay goes on with the toes; in some cases the whole foot had dropped away; and in many the hands and feet were healed over, the fingers and toes having first dropped off. But the healing of the sore is but temporary, for the disease presently breaks out again.
Emaciation does not seem to follow. I saw very few wasted forms, and those only in the hospitals and among the worst cases. There appears to be an astonishing tenacity of life, and I was told they mostly choke to death, or fall into a fever caused by swallowing the poison of their sores when these attack the nose and throat.
Those diseased give out soon a very sickening odor, and I was much obliged to a thoughtful man in the settlement, who commanded the lepers who had gathered together to hear an address from the doctor to form to leeward of us. I expected to be sickened by the hospitals; but these are so well kept, and are so easily ventilated by the help of the constantly blowing trade-wind, that the odor was scarcely perceptible in them.
You will, perhaps, ask how the disease is contracted. I doubt if any one knows definitely. But from all I heard, I judge that there must be some degree of predisposition toward it in the person to be contaminated. I believe I have Dr. Trousseau's leave to say that the contact of a wounded or abraded surface with the matter of a leprous sore will convey the disease; this is, of course, inoculation; and he seemed to think no other method of contamination probable. I was careful to provide myself with a pair of gloves when I visited the settlement, to protect myself in case I should be invited to shake hands; but I noticed that the doctor fearlessly shook hands with some of the worst cases, even where the fingers were suppurating and wrapped in rags.
There are several women on the Islands, confirmed lepers, whose husbands are at home and sound; one, notably, where the husband is a white man. On the other hand, a woman was pointed out to me who had had three husbands, each of whom in a short time after marrying her became a leper. There are children lepers, whose parents are not lepers; and there are parents lepers, whose children are at home and healthy.
There are three white men on the island, lepers, two of them in a very bad state. So far as I could learn the particulars of their previous history, they had lived flagitiously loose lives; such as must have corrupted their blood long before they became lepers. In some other cases of native lepers I came upon similar histories; and while I do not believe that every case, or indeed perhaps a majority of cases, involves such a previous career of vice, I should say that this is certainly a strongly predisposing cause.
As to the danger of infection to a foreign visitor, there is absolutely none, unless he should undertake to live in native fashion among the natives, smoking out of their pipes, sleeping under their tapas, and eating their food with them; and even in such an extreme case his risk would be very slight now, so thoroughly has the disease been "stamped out" by the energetic action of Mr. Hall, the Minister of the Interior, Mr. Samuel G. Wilder, the head of the Board of Health, and Dr. Trousseau, its physician. In short, there is no more risk of a white resident or traveler catching leprosy in the Hawaiian Islands than in the city or State of New York.
 Native Pipe Click Thumbnail for full-size Illustration |  Necklace of Human Hair Click Thumbnail for full-size Illustration |
I have heard one reason given why this disease has been more frequent in the last ten years. Ten or twelve years ago the Islands were visited by smallpox. This disease made terrible ravages, and the Government at once ordered the people to be vaccinated. There seems to be no doubt that the vaccine matter used was often taken from persons not previously in sound health; this was perhaps unavoidable; but intelligent men, long resident in the Islands, believe that vaccination thus performed with impure matter had a bad effect upon the people, leaving traces of a resulting corruption of their blood.
The choice of the plain of Kalawao as the spot on which to seclude the lepers from all the Islands was very happy. It can not be said that to an agile native the place is inaccessible, for there are, no doubt, several points in the great precipice where men and women could make their way down or up; and there are instances of women swimming around the precipitous and surf-beaten shore, seven or eight miles, to reach husbands or friends in the settlement to whom they were devotedly attached. But it is easily guarded, and, for all practical purposes, the seclusion is perfect.
A singular tradition, related to me on the island, points to its use for such a purpose and gives a sad significance to the leper settlement. It is said that in the time of the first Kamehameha, the conqueror and hero of his race, upon an occasion when he visited Molokai, an old sorceress or priestess sent him word that she had made a garment for him—a robe of honor—which she desired him to come and get. He returned for answer a command that she should bring it to him; and when the old hag appeared, the king desired her to tell him something of the future. She replied that he would conquer all the Islands, and rule over them but a brief time; that his own posterity would die out; and that finally all his race would be gathered together on Molokai; and that this small island would be large enough to hold them all.
It is probable, of course, that this tale is of recent origin, and that no priestess of Kamehameha the First possessed so fatal and accurate a gift of prophecy; but the tale, told me in the midst of the leper asylum, pointed to the gloomy end of the race with but too plain a finger. The Hawaiians, once so numerous as to occupy almost all the habitable parts of all the Islands, have so greatly decreased that they might almost find their support on the little island of Molokai alone. Happily the decrease has now ceased.
The great Pali of Molokai, one of the most remarkable and picturesque sights of the Islands, stretches for a dozen miles along its windward coast. It is a sheer precipice, in most parts from a thousand to two thousand feet high, washed by the sea at its base, and having, in most parts, not a trace of beach. This vast wall of rock is an impressive sight; here the shipwrecked mariner would be utterly helpless; but would drown, not merely in sight of land, but with his hands vainly grasping for even a bush, or root, or a projecting rock.
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