CHAPTER XI.SKETCHES OF HONOLULU.
BAY OF HONOLULU.—KANACKA FUNERAL.—THE MISSIONARIES.—HUTS AND HABITS OF THE NATIVES.—TARO-PLANT.—ROAST DOG.—SCHOOL OF THE YOUNG CHIEFS.—RIDE IN THE COUNTRY.—THE MAUSOLEUM.—COCOANUT-TREE.—CANOES.—HEATHEN TEMPLE.—KING’S CHAPEL.—RIDE TO EWA.—FATHER BISHOP.—HIS SABLE FLOCK.
Wednesday, June 10.The bay of Honolulu is only a bend in the shore. About a mile from the strand, a coral reef emerges, over which the rollers pour their perpetual surge. Through this reef, nature has left a narrow passage, which admits smaller vessels, but a ship of our depth is obliged to anchor outside, and nearly two miles distant from the shore.
The right extremity of the bay, as you enter it, is guarded by the steep cone of an exhausted volcano, which has taken the less terrific name of Diamond Hill. The left is defended by a bold bluff, which shoulders its way, with savage ferocity, into the roaring sea. The town of Honolulu stretches along the interval, while close in the background soars the wild crater of another extinguished volcano, under the bewildering name of the Punch-Bowl. The steeps beyond are broken into deep ravines, which wind off in rich verdure into the heart of the island.On its mountain crags the boldest eagle might build; in its glens the callow cygnet slumber.
While I was inquiring for a good hotel, the Rev. Mr. Damon, seamen’s chaplain at this port, came on board, and invited me to take quarters with him, an invitation which I cheerfully accepted. Months of boxing about at sea give a charm to the land-berth, which only they can fully appreciate who slumber over keels. On landing, my trunk was claimed by some twenty boys and porters. In the general strife I gave it to the one who appeared to need a shilling the most. His fellows took their disappointment in good humor. A short walk brought me to the domicile of my friend, where an agreeable lady welcomed me in.
Thursday, June 11.I had only seated myself in my new abode, when Mr. Damon invited me to accompany him to a funeral. The deceased was a foreigner, of some popularity among the natives, who attended his remains in large numbers to his grave. They were all on foot, moving in silent, but tumultuous order. There was no solemnity in their motions, but a subdued air in their faces. Some were helping along those who were bowed with the infirmities of age, and others were carrying piping infants in their arms, lashed to their backs.
The burial-ground is a mile, or more, from thetown, on a slight elevation, fenced in and shaded with native trees. Here the procession halted, and gathered in dark, silent masses around a new-dug grave. The coffin was lowered; a few words of appropriate admonition addressed to those around; a prayer offered; the earth returned to its place; a slight mound raised; flowers and sprigs of evergreen cast upon it, and the crowd wound their way back in the same silent disorder in which they came. Here was no pomp, no trappings of grief, but that simple homage of the heart, which bespeaks a sentiment of bereavement and respect. Let others have, if they will, a funeral pageant, but give me rather that flower which grief gathers and affection plants, or that tear which trembles in the eye of the untutored child of nature.
Before the missionaries introduced a change of customs, the natives were in the habit of expressing their grief, at the death of a favorite chief, by knocking out two or more of their front teeth. The strength of their attachment was evinced by the extent of this dental devastation, which sometimes involved the destruction of every tooth. This is the reason that so few of the older inhabitants have their teeth entire. The missionaries substituted for this act of self-inflicted violence, the innocent tokens of bereavement, and that tribute of respect which is conveyed in casting on the grave a sprig of evergreen,as a type of the soul’s immortality. Humanity and religion always go hand in hand.
Friday, June 12.The morning has been passed in receiving calls from the missionaries. They are plain in their apparel, easy in their manners, and intelligent in their conversation. They have none of that rigid solemnity, which a sectarian puts on, who would throw his religion into his looks; and yet they are free of that lightness and triviality which are incompatible with a high and earnest purpose. They have cheerfulness without levity, and sobriety without sternness. They are far from being men of one idea; their mental horizon is broad. They have impressed their genius upon all the social habits and civil institutions of the islanders among whom they dwell. Indeed, all that exists here, upon which the eye of the Christian philanthropist can dwell with complacency, has risen from a weltering tide of barbarism, through their agency, as the islands themselves have emerged from the ocean through the action of the volcano.
Saturday, June 13.The huts of the natives dot with a cheerful aspect the broad plain on which Honolulu stands, and stretch away into the green gorges of the mountains. They resemble in the distance ricks of hay, and you half persuade yourself thatyou have arrived in a community of thrifty farmers. This impression almost flashes into conviction, when you see herds of cattle reposing in the valleys, and goats bounding among the cliffs. But the rush of children from the interior of these hay-stacks, and their prattle and laughter among the vines which trail their porches, soon dispel the illusion. You find them human habitations, and possessing, in many instances, an air of surprising neatness and comfort.
True, you find in them no chairs, tables, or ordinary cooking utensils; nor do the habits of the inmates render these articles necessary. But you find thick mats, on which they sleep and sit, as Adam and Eve did on the leaves which the autumnal wind shook from their bowers. They need no fireplaces, no glowing grate, or crackling hearth,—a broad, bright sun, wheeling up in splendor out of a quiet ocean, reigns monarch of the seasons, and tempers the air aright. Their apparel extends but little beyond the simplest requirements of the nursery. It is a garment seemingly thrown on for the sake of modesty, as drapery is sometimes attached to a statue. But the proportions still swell in their roundness and strength on the eye. It was with no little difficulty the missionaries could persuade them to assume even this scanty garment. It seemed to them a superfluity, suggested neither by the characteristics of the climate, nor sentiments of delicacy. They wouldhave gone without it as readily to a church as to a carousal. Such is habit impressed on a people by the force of barbaric ages.
Near each cot you encounter an oven, not obtruded on your eye as if to mock your hunger, but modestly sunk in the earth. The cavity is lined with stones, in which a fire is kindled; when sufficiently heated, the embers are removed, a few taro-leaves thrown in, and on this the taro itself and meat. The whole is then covered over with taro-leaves and earth. The meat thus preserves its juices, and has an advantage in this respect over all modern inventions. This primitive process of cooking is called the lua.
The most esteemed roaster, that undergoes the lua, is one of the canine species. It is a dog resembling the larger-sized poodle, with smooth hair and soft flesh. It is nursed at the breast of the women, and never allowed to eat animal food. It is baked entire, like the pig, and is said to taste very much like that little grunter. This is considered the most choice dish which an epicurean chief can present to his distinguished guests. I was earnestly invited to partake of one, but the little fellow’s once cheerful bark, his wagging tail in token of recognition, his love of children, his participation in their sports, his gratitude and unsuspecting confidence, were all too warm in my imagination to permit the deed. I would nevertake life for the sake of animal food, and least of all the life of one that is
“The first to welcome, foremost to defend.”
“The first to welcome, foremost to defend.”
“The first to welcome, foremost to defend.”
“The first to welcome, foremost to defend.”
In another hut which we entered, we found the mother and her children seated around a large calabash, which contained poi. This is the dish on which the natives mostly subsist. It is made of the root of the taro plant, which resembles in shape the large beet. A plat of low ground is thrown up into little hills like a potatoe-patch, and water let in sufficient to fill the furrows. In these hills the taro grows, shaded only by its own luxuriant leaves. At maturity, which it reaches in a few months, the men and women dash into it, and, with the water ankle deep, commence pulling. The bottoms, which are intended for consumption, are conveyed to the earth-oven; being baked, they are then pounded, and water added till the mass assumes the consistency of paste. In this state it undergoes a partial fermentation, and is then in prime order for eating. It is conveyed to the mouth by the two forefingers, which are dipped into it, and to which it adheres in a pendulous globule, which a slight shake detaches.
This was the dish to which the mother invited us, and which it seemed almost discourteous to decline. Her little daughter exclaiming, “Mili, mili—good,” coaxed me to let her drop a globule of it from hersmall fingers into my mouth. Down it dropped, and down it went, leaving only a sour taste. I tried to keep up a look of relish, but the effort must have betrayed itself. This was the last time I attempted poi. On this the natives live, and their physical developments sufficiently attest its nutritious properties. Some of them, who are exempted by their means from labor, attain a giant stature. They become extremely fat, and roll along as if bone and muscle were hardly equal to the task of locomotion. What think ye of that, ye carnivorous tribe, who judge of a man’s bulk by the amount of roast beef which he consumes! The Hawaiian outdoes ye on paste!
Sunday, June 14.I have exchanged to-day with Mr. Damon; he taking the capstan of the Congress, and I the pulpit of the mariners’ chapel. The audience both morning and evening has been large, leaving hardly a vacant seat. It is composed of foreign residents and sailors in port. The music, led by a seraphine, would have been creditable in any place. I could hardly persuade myself that I was in an island of the Pacific, where but a few years since the homage of man rose only in howls to a pagan idol.
The attendance at this chapel is the best evidence of the success with which Mr. Damon performs theduties assigned him by the American Seamen’s Friend Society. But his sphere of activity is not confined to these walls; it extends to the moral wants of the different ships entering the harbor, and embraces also the management of a periodical devoted to seamen. This publication was eagerly sought by our crew. To sustain it a subscription was proposed, which was headed by a liberal donation from Commodore Stockton, Captain Du Pont, and the officers.
Monday, June 15.There are two large churches for the natives in Honolulu. The services in these are conducted in the native language by the Rev. Mr. Armstrong and the Rev. Mr. Smith, both intelligent and devoted missionaries. These men and all their brethren occupy a difficult position in these islands. It is made so, less by the fickleness of the natives than the interference of foreigners. The very men who, coming as they do from civilized and Christian lands, should be the first to countenance and sustain them, are those from whom they experience the most opposition. It seems impossible to avoid their cavils. If the missionaries devote themselves exclusively to their spiritual duties, the complaint is, that the temporal interests of the community are neglected. If they interest themselves in the encouragement of agriculture and the mechanicarts, the cry is, that they are interfering in secular matters which do not belong to them. Between these two rocks no ship can pass without having her copper raked off on one side or the other.
The truth is, the missionaries are pursuing the only plan which can produce decisive and satisfactory results. They are inculcating the precepts and obligations of the Bible on all classes, and educating the young. Their schools embrace hundreds of native children, who will themselves become teachers. In one of these schools, which is under the superintendence of Mr. and Mrs. Cook, I found the children of the high chiefs, and among them the heir-apparent. They spoke the English language with entire freedom, and wrote it with surprising accuracy. Their acquirements, in all the branches of a useful education, would have done credit to youth of the same age in any country. In mental arithmetic, I have never seen them surpassed. They multiplied five decimals by five, named at random, and gave the result, with perfect accuracy, in less time than any one could possibly have reached it on a slate. We now adjourned with the scholars to the parlor, where Mrs. Cook placed one of the misses at the piano, while another took the guitar, and they all struck into a melody that might have gratified a more fastidious taste than ours.
Now these are the children of the chiefs—theirsons, and their daughters; those whose intelligence and influence are to shape the destinies of these islands. If this is not beginning at the right end of the business, I should like to have some one tell us where the right end is.
Tuesday, June 16.My kanacka brought me his horse this afternoon punctual at the hour. This horse, a noble animal, is all his capital. I give him a dollar a day for the use; can have him at any and all hours, though I seldom ride but once. This is enough, unless the showers hold up more than they have; for they now fall as easily as a hasty word from a heated heart; or a blow from the ferule of a vexed pedagogue; or a yellow leaf from the twig of a blighted tree; or a false smile from the eyes of a cunning coquette; or a hollow nut from the teeth of a squirrel; or a silver eel from the hand of a fisherman; or any thing else, which escapes very easily from its confinement.
My fair companion being firmly in her saddle, we started, at an easy canter, over the plain, which stretches away from the eastern section of the town. We passed on the right the royal mausoleum, lifting its sombre roof over the coffins of barbaric kings. Before Christianity, with her silent rites, reached these islands, the death of a monarch or sachem was followed by a wail that poured itself over hill andvale, in a roaring tide. Then followed a scene of promiscuous licentiousness, from which the orbs of heaven might have withdrawn their light. Over these obscene orgies Christianity has spread her influences, and the dead now go quietly to their rest, and the living lay it to heart.
Further on, we passed through a cocoanut-grove. This singular tree shoots up some fifty feet, without seeming to know for what purpose; it then suddenly branches out, and is so eager in this spreading business that it seems to lose its soaring ambition; and there it stands, like a naked shaft, with its umbrella-shaped top. Its broad leaves hang down as if to conceal its blushes. It is naked as sin driven from its last subterfuge. It fain would reconcile you to its deformity by its milk; but this is as insipid as its own look is foolish. This tree, with a half-naked kanacka climbing its shaft, is the most effective picture of poverty with which I have ever met. It is, if possible, worse than a monkey on the sign-post of a groggery, beckoning to his fellow-topers to come in. But the decoy, in this case, wiser than the dupe, never drinks.
We passed near the shore a large number of canoes, in which the natives were engaged in fishing. They keep them pointed towards the sea, and one person vigorously at work with the paddles, so that the rollers, which set in here with great force, maynot heave them high and dry on the beach. They show great skill in the management of these treacherous canoes. A novice would upset one before he was well in. They are often themselves capsized, but it costs them only a ducking; the canoe is instantly righted, and they are back again in its hollow. As for the water, it is almost as much their element as that of the fish for which they angle. They can dive from ten to fifteen fathoms, and bring up shells; or swim many miles without apparent fatigue. There is a native woman, now living in Honolulu, who, being wrecked at sea, swam twenty miles to the shore of a neighboring island. Her husband, of feebler constitution, gave out; she buoyed him up, swimming with him till they had come in sight of the shore, when he sank overpowered. Still she clung to him, and brought the lifeless form to the beach. Give me a kanacka wife in a gale.
Winding around a bay which circles up, with a rippling verge, into the mainland, we arrived at the blackened ruins of a celebrated heathen temple. The rude foundations only remain; the superstructure has been swept away with the savage rites which it enshrined. The smoke of human victims here appeased the violated tabu, and the putrid exhalations of decaying beasts cancelled the turpitude of human guilt. But Revelation has poured its clear light into its dark recesses. The sorcerer has fled, the victimbeen unbound, and the guilty have gone to that mercy-seat where penitence never pleads in vain.
High over these fearful ruins soars the steep crater of an extinguished volcano, to which a capricious fancy has given the appellation of Diamond Hill. It still stands in all the stern ruggedness which its adamantine features assumed, when, ages since, its burning torrents of lava stiffened into rock. It is now the beacon of the mariner; the first that greets his glance, and the last that fades upon his eye. Against its base the broad Pacific heaves its swelling strength; but it will stand unshaken till the pillars of nature’s vast fabric fall.
We passed, on our return, the king’s chapel, a spacious edifice, of one hundred and fifty-four feet by seventy-eight. It is reared of coral rock, hewn into uniform blocks, and impresses you with its architectural sobriety and strength. The interior of its high walls is relieved by a substantial gallery, while the ample area of its floor presents to the eye, in the form of seats, the varied means and ingenuity of their occupants. The pulpit is the same which once gravely dignified the central church in New Haven, Conn., but which a more fastidious taste recently set aside. It answers its sacred design very well here. Sinners are converted under its droppings just as readily as if the marbles of Carrara gleamed from its panels. The truth of God fallswith the same power in the sumptuous shrine of the prince and the wigwam of the savage. The towers of the triple crown, and the tent of the Arab, tremble alike beneath its force.
The sun had set before we reached our home. The bustle through many of the streets had subsided; but the loud words and laughter of the crowd that had gathered to witness the approach of a strange sail, came floating on the wind. The hour of ten is announced by a gun from the fort,—a signal for the keepers of pulperias and places of amusement to close their doors. The king himself, if abroad, though engaged in a game of chess, would forego the triumph of a checkmate, and return to his palace. He aims, in this particular at least, to maintain a wholesome regulation through the influence of his own example. Prouder potentates may laugh at this punctilio of his Hawaiian majesty, but were they to imitate it, their thrones would be quite as safe and their subjects quite as virtuous. A good example is like a guinea, which shines just as bright, however deep and dark the mine from which it came. Our wisest lessons often come from our inferiors, as the choicest fruit is frequently found on the humblest shrub. The condor may dwell in the lofty steeps of the mountain, but it is to the modest thrush or meadow-lark that we turn for a gush of music.
Wednesday, June 17.Mr. Damon and myself took horses this morning for Ewa, lying in a valley, which opens on the sea, and distant some twelve miles. Our horses were in fine spirits, and started off at a hand-gallop, across the broad lagoon, which skirts the western extremity of the town. Over this fertile interval swell many round knolls, crowned with kanacka huts, and surrounded with thrifty taro patches. Ascending the spur of a mountain range, a deep, green valley opened on the right, through which a winding rivulet babbled, and where herds were seen cropping the grass, or ruminating in the shade. From its bosom rose the walls of a spacious enclosure, into which the cattle, horses, and sheep are driven at night,—to protect them, as one would suppose, from ravenous beasts; but there are none in the island: the object is to keep them from straying off among the mountains, and becoming too wild for domestic purposes; for every thing here runs instinctively to wildness.
Further on, we passed upon the left a lofty rock, over the steep stern face of which a convolvulus had spread its verdure, throwing out its green leaves and delicate blossoms, like smiles on the face of a hypochondriac. Here we met a native driving two large pigs to market, and carrying a third lashed to his back. I expected to hear a squeal at least from his living knapsack; but the mouth had been tied up,leaving only room through the nostril for air. When the pig is to be killed, no knife is drawn, no blood taken; but this cord around the nose is tightened till respiration ceases, and death ensues. Rather a hard end awaits the poor pig, whether it come by knife or cord; and yet no other animal, in his last struggles, has so little sympathy. That he is uncomely, is most true, but he did not select his own shape; and true it is, that his habits are not quite neat, but he has been turned out of doors, and left to shirk and shack for himself. It was not his fault that the devil once got into him, and run him down a steep ledge into the sea. The devil leads his betters to a much worse place. I see not therefore why all feeling should be denied the pig in death. But let that pass.
Proceeding on, we soon reached the precipice which overhangs the deep ravine, through which the Pearl river holds its exulting course. Here we might have stopped; but our horses, which well understand these difficult paths, and are as sure of foot as the chamois, wound down the steep, and hurried, with clattering hoof, over the bridge which spans the rushing stream; and then swept up the opposite elevation at the top of their speed. Ewa now broke on the eye, swelling from a wide verdant plain, embowered in shade, and looking out on the sea. A winding path, which obeyed the curve of the shore, took us into the heart of the little village, where we alightedat the door of our venerable host, the Rev. Mr. Bishop.
This devoted missionary was at the time with his sable flock in the church, where he meets them once a week, independent of the Sabbath. They look up to him with feelings which only goodness can merit and reverence inspire; and well may they pay him these tokens of love and respect. He has been long with them, restraining their wild propensities, training them to habits of industry, and leading them to the path of immortal life. This is with him a labor of love. The stipend allowed him by our Board of Foreign Missions is all spent in maintaining schools and destitute places of worship. He lives on the proceeds of a dairy, which his good wife manages. If this be not Christian benevolence, will some opponent of the missionary enterprise tell me what is.
The house of Father Bishop, as he is familiarly called, is a plain, one-story building, with a rude porch running around it, covered with the vines of the creeping-grape. It stands in the midst of fruit and shade trees, which throw their shadows to the verge of a garden, where the varied plants of a tropical clime are in luxuriant bloom. Yet every thing seemed as free of display and mechanical arrangement as if its growth had been spontaneous. The family consisted of Mrs. B., two sprightly native children, whose mother had recently died, and a kanackadomestic. At two o’clock we sat down to dinner, which consisted of mullet, presented our host by a native chief, and a turkey of his own raising. Then came figs and milk, with the fruits of his garden. All presenting a pleasing specimen of pastoral life.
After a siesta, to which the climate here inclines one, we rambled over the parsonage, among the neat huts of the natives, and, at about two hours to sunset, took our departure. We soon fell in with a herd of cattle, which two or three noisy kanackas on horseback were driving to their enclosure for the night. When a beast attempted to break away, one of these started in pursuit; and instead of heading off the animal, brought him up with the lasso, which he threw, with surprising dexterity, over his horns. In one of the narrow runnels which crosses the last lagoon, we found a horse, which had missed his step on the two logs which compose the bridge. The channel was only broad enough to let in the length of the horse, and on each bank stood a kanacka, the one hold of the bridle, the other hold of the tail, trying to lift the animal out. We told one of them to jump in and turn the head of the horse up stream, and the other to drop the tail and take his whip. These orders obeyed, the animal gave a spring, and was soon out of his difficulties.
We reached home before dark: we had rodetwenty-four miles on a road running over steep ledges, across deep ravines, and around toppling crags: I was bruised and fatigued, and determined to try, before retiring to rest, the bath and the “lomi-lomi.” The latter is a kind of shampooing much resorted to here to relieve fatigue. A kanacka who understood it was at hand, and, on my coming out of the bath, commenced his kneading process. He used me much as a baker would a lump of dough. He worked me into this shape, then into that, then into no shape at all. My limbs became flat, or round, or neither, at his will. My muscles were all relaxed, and my joints seemed to have lost a sense of location. He put me back into the shape in which I came from nature’s mould, and I sunk to sleep softly as an infant in its cradle. Ye who take to anodynes and inebriating potations to relieve a sense of pain, restlessness, or fatigue, try the lomi-lomi.