The Hawaiian Archipelago - free ebook by Isabella L. (Isabella Lucy) Bird

The Hawaiian Archipelago, by Isabella L. Bird

This etext was produced by Les Bowler, St. Ives, Dorset....

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THE HAWAIIAN ARCHIPELAGO.

SIX MONTHS AMONG THE PALM GROVES, CORAL REEFS, AND VOLCANOES OF THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. BY ISABELLA L. BIRD. “Summer isles of Eden lying In dark purple spheres of sea.” To my sister, to whom these letters were originally written, they are now affectionately dedicated....

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PREFACE.

Within the last century the Hawaiian islands have been the topic of various works of merit, and some explanation of the reasons which have led me to enter upon the same subject are necessary. I was travelling for health, when circumstances induced me to land on the group, and the benefit which I derived from the climate tempted me to remain for nearly seven months. During that time the necessity of leading a life of open air and exercise as a means of recovery, led me to travel on horseback to

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INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

Canon Kingsley, in his charming book on the West Indies, says, “The undoubted fact is known I find to few educated English people, that the Coco palm, which produces coir rope, cocoanuts, and a hundred other useful things, is not the same plant as the cacao bush which produces chocolate, or anything like it. I am sorry to have to insist upon this fact, but till Professor Huxley’s dream and mine is fulfilled, and our schools deign to teach, in the intervals of Greek and Latin, some slight knowle

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LETTER I.

STEAMER NEVADA, NORTH PACIFIC, January 19. A white, unwinking, scintillating sun blazed down upon Auckland, New Zealand. Along the white glaring road from Onehunga, dusty trees and calla lilies drooped with the heat. Dusty thickets sheltered the cicada, whose triumphant din grated and rasped through the palpitating atmosphere. In dusty enclosures, supposed to be gardens, shrivelled geraniums scattered sparsely alone defied the heat. Flags drooped in the stifling air. Men on the verge of sun

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LETTER II.

HAWAIIAN HOTEL, HONOLULU, Jan. 26th. Yesterday morning at 6.30 I was aroused by the news that “The Islands” were in sight. Oahu in the distance, a group of grey, barren peaks rising verdureless out of the lonely sea, was not an exception to the rule that the first sight of land is a disappointment. Owing to the clear atmosphere, we seemed only five miles off, but in reality we were twenty, and the land improved as we neared it. It was the fiercest day we had had, the deck was almost too hot t

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LETTER III.

HAWAIIAN HOTEL, Jan. 28th. Sunday was a very pleasant day here. Church bells rang, and the shady streets were filled with people in holiday dress. There are two large native churches, the Kaumakapili, and the Kaiwaiaho, usually called the stone church. The latter is an immense substantial building, for the erection of which each Christian native brought a block of rock-coral. There is a large Roman Catholic church, the priests of which are said to have been somewhat successful in proselytizi

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LETTER IV.

I find that I can send another short letter before leaving for the volcano. I cannot convey to you any idea of the greenness and lavish luxuriance of this place, where everything flourishes, and glorious trailers and parasitic ferns hide all unsightly objects out of sight. It presents a bewildering maze of lilies, roses, fuschias, clematis, begonias, convolvuli, the huge appalling looking granadilla, the purple and yellow water lemons, also varieties of passiflora, both with delicious edible f

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LETTER V.

VOLCANO OF KILAUEA, Jan. 31. Bruised aching bones, strained muscles, and overwhelming fatigue, render it hardly possible for me to undergo the physical labour of writing, but in spirit I am so elated with the triumph of success, and so thrilled by new sensations, that though I cannot communicate the incommunicable, I want to write to you while the impression of Kilauea is fresh, and by “the light that never was on sea or shore.” By eight yesterday morning our preparations were finished, and Miss

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LETTER VI.

HILO, HAWAII, Feb. 3. My plans are quite overturned. I was to have ridden with the native mail-carrier to the north of the island to take the steamer for Honolulu, but there are freshets in the gulches on the road, making the ride unsafe. There is no steamer from Hilo for three weeks, and in the meantime Mr. and Mrs. S. have kindly consented to receive me as a boarder; and I find the people, scenery, and life so charming, that I only regret my detention on Mrs. Dexter’s account. I am already

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LETTER VII.

HILO, HAWAII. The white population here, which constitutes “society,” is very small. There are two venerable missionaries “Father Coan” and “Father Lyman,” the former pastor of a large native congregation, which, though much shrunken, is not only self-sustaining, but contributes $1200 a year to foreign missions, and the latter, though very old and frail, the indefatigable head of an industrial school for native young men. Their houses combine the trimness of New England, with the luxuriance of

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LETTER VIII.

ONOMEA, HAWAII. JUDGE AUSTIN’S. Mrs. A. has been ill for some time, and Mrs. S. her sister and another friend “plotted” in a very “clandestine” manner that I should come here for a few days in order to give her “a little change of society,” but I am quite sure that under this they only veil a kind wish that I should see something of plantation life. There is a plan, too, that I should take a five days’ trip to a remarkable valley called Waipio, but this is only a “castle in the air.” Mr. A. se

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LETTER IX.

ONOMEA, HAWAII. This is such a pleasant house and household, Mrs. A. is as bright as though she were not an invalid, and her room, except at meals, is the gathering-place of the family. The four boys are bright, intelligent beings, out of doors, barefooted, all day, and with a passion for horses, of which their father possesses about thirty. The youngest, Ephy, is the brightest child for three years old that I ever saw, but absolutely crazy about horses and mules. He talks of little else, and

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LETTER X.

WAIPIO VALLEY, HAWAII. There is something fearful in the isolation of this valley, open at one end to the sea, and walled in on all others by palis or precipices, from 1,000 to 2,000 feet in height, over the easiest of which hangs the dizzy track, which after trailing over the country for sixty difficult miles, connects Waipio with the little world of Hilo. The evening is very sombre, and darkness comes on early between these high walls. I am in a native house in which not a word of English is

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LETTER X.--(continued.)

We were thoroughly rested this morning, and very glad of a fine day for a visit to the great cascade which is rarely seen by foreigners. My mule was slightly galled with the girth, and having a strong fellow feeling with Elisha’s servant, “Alas, master, for it was borrowed!” I have bought for $20 a pretty, light, half-broken bay mare, which I rode to-day and liked much. After breakfast, which was a repetition of last night’s supper, we three, with Halemanu’s daughter as guide, left on horseback

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LETTER XI.

HILO, HAWAII. There is a rumour that the king is coming as the guest of Admiral Pennock in the Benicia . If it turns out to be true, it will turn our quiet life upside down. We met with fearful adventures in the swollen gulches between Laupahoehoe and Onomea. It is difficult to begin my letter with the plain prose of our departure from Waipio, which we accomplished on the morning after I last wrote. On rising after a sound sleep, I found that my potted beef, which I had carefully hung from a

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LETTER XII.

HILO, February 22. My sojourn here is very pleasant, owing to the kindness and sociability of the people. I think that so much culture and such a variety of refined tastes can seldom be found in so small a community. There have been pleasant little gatherings for sewing, while some gentlemen read aloud, fern-printing in the verandah, microscopic and musical evenings, little social luncheons, and on Sunday evenings what is colloquially termed, “a sing,” at this most social house. One of the th

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LETTER XIII.

HILO. HAWAII. February. The quiet, dreamy, afternoon existence of Hilo is disturbed. Two days ago an official intimation was received that the American Government had placed the U.S. ironclad “Benicia” at the disposal of King Lunalilo for a cruise round Hawaii, and that he would arrive here the following morning with Admiral Pennock and the U.S. generals Scholfield and Alexander. Now this monarchy is no longer an old-time chieftaincy, made up of calabashes and poi , feather-cloaks, kahilis ,

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LETTER XIV.

HILO. HAWAII. The king “signified his intention to honour Mr. and Mrs. Severance with his company” on the evening of the day after the reception, and this involved a regular party and supper. You can hardly imagine the difficulties connected with “refreshments,” where few, if any, of the materials which we consider necessary for dishes suitable for such occasions can be procured at the stores, and even milk and butter are scarce commodities. I had won a reputation as a cook by making a much a

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LETTER XV.

WAIMEA. HAWAII. There is no limit to the oddities of the steam-ship “Kilauea.” She lay rolling on the Hilo swell for two hours, and two hours after we sailed her machinery broke down, and we lay-to for five hours, in what they here call a heavy gale and sea. It was a miserable night. No privacy: the saloon both hot and wet, almost every one sick. I lay in my berth in my soaked clothes watching the proceedings of a gigantic cockroach, and listening, not without amusement, to the awful groans

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LETTER XVI.

WAIMANU VALLEY. HAWAII. I am sitting at the door of a grass lodge, at the end of all things, for no one can pass further by land than this huge lonely cleft. About thirty natives are sitting about me, all staring, laughing, and chattering, and I am the only white person in the region. We have all had a meal, sitting round a large calabash of poi and a fowl, which was killed in my honour, and roasted in one of their stone ovens. I have forgotten my knife, and have had to help myself after the

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LETTER XVII.

STR. KILAUEA. . . . I have been spending the day at Lahaina on Maui, on my way from Kawaihae to Honolulu. Lahaina is thoroughly beautiful and tropical looking, with its white latticed houses peeping out from under coco palms, breadfruit, candlenut, tamarinds, mangoes, bananas, and oranges, with the brilliant green of a narrow strip of sugar-cane for a background, and above, the flushed mountains of Eeka, riven here and there by cool green chasms, rise to a height of 6000 feet. Beautiful Lahai

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LETTER XVIII.

HAWAIIAN HOTEL, HONOLULU. March 20th. Oahu, with its grey pinnacles, its deep valleys, its cool chasms, its ruddy headlands, and volcanic cones, all clothed in green by the recent rains, looked unspeakably lovely as we landed by sunrise in a rose-flushed atmosphere, and Honolulu, shady, dew-bathed, and brilliant with flowers, deserved its name, “The Paradise of the Pacific.” The hotel is pleasant, and Mrs. D.’s presence makes it sweet and homelike; but in a very few days I have lost much of th

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LETTER XIX.

HAWAIIAN HOTEL, HONOLULU. My latest news of you is five months old, and though I have not the slightest expectation that I shall hear from you, I go up to the roof to look out for the “Rolling Moses” with more impatience and anxiety than those whose business journeys are being delayed by her non-arrival. If such an unlikely thing were to happen as that she were to bring a letter, I should be much tempted to stay five months longer on the islands rather than try the climate of Colorado, for I ha

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LETTER XX.

KOLOA, KAUAI, March 23rd. I am spending a few days on some quaint old mission premises, and the “guest house,” where I am lodged, is a dobe house, with walls two feet thick, and a very thick grass roof comes down six feet all round to shade the windows. It is itself shaded by date palms and algarobas, and is surrounded by hibiscus, oleanders, and the datura arborea (?), which at night fill the air with sweetness. I am the only guest, and the solitude of the guest house in which I am writing is

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LETTER XXI.

MAKAUELI, KAUAI. After my letters from Hawaii, and their narratives of volcanoes, freshets, and out of the world valleys, you will think my present letters dull, so I must begin this one pleasantly, by telling you that though I have no stirring adventures to relate, I am enjoying myself and improving again in health, and that the people are hospitable, genial, and cultivated, and that Kauai, though altogether different from Hawaii, has an extreme beauty altogether its own, which wins one’s love,

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LETTER XXII.

LIHUE. KAUAI. I rode from Makaueli to Dr. Smith’s, at Koloa, with two native attendants, a luna to sustain my dignity, and an inferior native to carry my carpet-bag. Horses are ridden with curb-bits here, and I had only brought a light snaffle, and my horse ran away with me again on the road, and when he stopped at last, these men rode alongside of me, mimicking me, throwing themselves back with their feet forwards, tugging at their bridles, and shrieking with laughter, exclaiming Maikai ! Ma

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LETTER XXIII.

LIHUE. KAUAI, April 17. Before leaving Kauai I must tell you of a solitary expedition I have just made to the lovely valley of Hanalei. It was only a three days “frolic,” but an essentially “good time.” Mr. Rice provided me with a horse and a very pleasing native guide. I did not leave till two in the afternoon, as I only intended to ride fifteen miles, and, as the custom is, ask for a night’s lodging at a settler’s house. However, as I drew near Mr. B.’s ranch, I felt my false courage oozi

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LETTER XXIV.

ULUPALAKUA. MAUI. May 12th. It is three weeks since I left the Hawaiian Hotel and its green mist of algarobas, but my pleasant visits in this island do not furnish much that will interest you. There was great excitement on the wharf at Honolulu the evening I left. It was crowded with natives, the king’s band was playing, old hags were chanting mêlés , and several of the royal family, and of the “upper ten thousand” were there, taking leave of the Governess of Hawaii, the Princess Keelikolani

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LETTER XXV.

KALAIEHA. HAWAII. My departure from Ulupalakua illustrates some of the uncertainties of island travelling. On Monday night my things were packed, and my trunk sent off to the landing; but at five on Tuesday, Mr. Whipple came to my door to say that the Kilauea was not in Lahaina roads, and was probably laid up for repairs. I was much disappointed, for the mild climate had disagreed with me, and I was longing for the roystering winds and unconventional life of windward Hawaii, and there was not

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LETTER XXVI.

“MY CAMP,” HAWAIIAN SLOPES. May 21. This is the height of enjoyment in travelling. I have just encamped under a lauhala tree, with my saddle inverted for a pillow, my horse tied by a long lariat to a guava bush, my gear, saddle-bags, and rations for two days lying about, and my saddle blanket drying in the sun. Overhead the sun blazes, and casts no shadow; a few fleecy clouds hover near him, and far below, the great expanse of the Pacific gleams in a deeper blue than the sky. Far above, towe

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LETTER XXVII.

HILO. June 1. Mr. and Mrs. Severance and I have just returned from a three-days’ expedition to Puna in the south of Hawaii, and I preferred their agreeable company even to solitude! My sociable Kahélé was also pleased, and consequently behaved very well. We were compelled to ride for twenty-three miles in single file, owing to the extreme narrowness of the lava track, which has been literally hammered down in some places to make it passable even for shod horses. We were a party of four, and

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A CHAPTER ON THE LEPER SETTLEMENT ON MOLOKAI.

In 1865, the Hawaiian Legislature, recognizing the disastrous fact that leprosy is at once contagious and incurable, passed an act to prevent its spread, and eventually the Board of Health established a leper settlement on the island of Molokai for the isolation of lepers. In carrying out the painful task of weeding out and exiling the sufferers, the officials employed met with unusual difficulties; and the general foreign community was not itself aware of the importance of making an attempt to

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LETTER XXVIII.

HILO. June 2 nd . Often since I finished my last letter has Hazael’s reply to Elisha occurred to me, “Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?” For in answer to people who have said, “I hope nothing will induce you to attempt the ascent of Mauna Loa,” I always said, “Oh, dear, no! I should never dream of it;” or, “Nothing would persuade me to think of it!” This morning early, Mr. Green came in, on his way to Kilauea, to which I was to accompany him, and on my casually remarking tha

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LETTER XXIX. {381}

CRATER HOUSE, KILAUEA. June 4 th . Once more I write with the splendours of the quenchless fires in sight, and the usual world seems twilight and commonplace by the fierce glare of Halemaumau, and the fitful glare of the other and loftier flame, which is burning ten thousand feet higher in lonely Mokua-weo-weo. Mr. Green and I left Hilo soon after daylight this morning, and made about “the worst time” ever made on the route. We jogged on slowly and silently for thirty miles in Indian file, thr

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LETTER XXIX.--Continued.

KAPAPALA, June 8 th . The fleas at Ainepo quite fulfilled Mr. Gandle’s prognostications, and I was glad when the cold stars went out one by one, and a red, cloudless dawn broke over the mountain, accompanied by a heavy dew and a morning mist, which soon rolled itself up into rosy folds and disappeared, and there was a legitimate excuse for getting up. Our host provided us with flour, sugar, and dough-nuts, and a hot breakfast, and our expedition, comprising two natives who knew not a word of En

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LETTER XXX. {422}

RIDGE HOUSE, KONA, HAWAII. June 12. I landed in Kealakakua Bay on a black lava block, on which tradition says that Captain Cook fell, struck with his death-wound, a century ago. The morning sun was flaming above the walls of lava 1,000 feet in height which curve round the dark bay, the green deep water rolled shorewards in lazy undulations, canoes piled full of pineapples poised themselves on the swell, ancient cocopalms glassed themselves in still waters--it was hot, silent, tropical. The dis

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LETTER XXXI.

HAWAIIAN HOTEL, HONOLULU. August 6 th . My fate is lying at the wharf in the shape of the Pacific Mail Steamer Costa Rica , and soon to me Hawaii-nei will be but a dream. “Summer isles of Eden!” My heart warms towards them as I leave them, for they have been more like home than any part of the world since I left England. The moonlight is trickling through misty algarobas, and feathery tamarinds and palms, and shines on glossy leaves of breadfruit and citron; a cool breeze brings in at my ope

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A CHAPTER ON HAWAIIAN AFFAIRS.

A few facts concerning the Hawaiian islands may serve to supplement the deficiencies of the foregoing letters. The group is an hereditary and constitutional monarchy. There is a house of nobles appointed by the Crown, which consists of twenty members. The House of Representatives consists of not less than twenty-four, or more than forty members elected biennially. The Legislature fixes the number, and apportions the same. The Houses sit together, and constitute the Legislative Assembly. Th

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A CHAPTER ON HAWAIIAN HISTORY.

In the pre-historic days of Hawaii, for 500 years, as the bards sing, before Captain Cook landed, and indeed for some years afterwards, each island had its king, chiefs, and internal dissensions; and incessant wars, with a reckless waste of human life, kept the whole group in turmoil. Chaotic and legendary as early Hawaiian history is, there is enough to show that there must have been regularly organized communities on the islands for a very long period, with a civilization and polity which, th

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