63. CHAPTER LXIII.
ON a certain bright morning the Islands hove in sight, lying
low on the lonely sea, and everybody climbed to the upper deck to
look. After two thousand miles of watery solitude the vision was a
welcome one. As we approached, the imposing promontory of
Diamond Head rose up out of the ocean its rugged front softened
by the hazy distance, and presently the details of the land began to
make themselves manifest: first the line of beach; then the plumed
coacoanut trees of the tropics; then cabins of the natives; then the
white town of Honolulu, said to contain between twelve and
fifteen thousand inhabitants spread over a dead level; with streets
from twenty to thirty feet wide, solid and level as a floor, most of
them straight as a line and few as crooked as a corkscrew.
The further I traveled throught the town the better I liked it.
Every step revealed a new contrast—disclosed something I was
unaccustomed to. In place of the grand mud-colored brown fronts
of San Francisco, I saw dwellings built of straw, adobies, and
cream-colored pebble-and-shell-conglomerated coral, cut into
oblong blocks and laid in cement; also a great number of neat
white cottages, with green window-shutters; in place of front yards
like billiard-tables with iron fences around them, I saw these
homes surrounded by ample yards, thickly clad with green grass,
and shaded by tall trees, through whose dense foliage the sun could
scarcely penetrate; in place of the customary geranium, calla lily,
etc., languishing in dust and general debility, I saw luxurious banks
and thickets of flowers, fresh as a meadow after a rain, and
glowing with the
richest dyes; in place of the dingy horrors of San Francisco's
pleasure grove, the "Willows," I saw huge-bodied, wide-spreading
forest trees, with strange names and stranger appearance—trees that
cast a shadow like a thunder-cloud, and were able to stand alone
without being tied to green poles; in place of gold fish, wiggling
around in glass globes,
assuming countless shades and degrees of distortion through the
magnifying and diminishing qualities of their transparent prison
houses, I saw cats—Tom-cats, Mary Ann cats, long-tailed cats,
bob-tailed cats, blind cats, one-eyed cats, wall-eyed cats,
cross-eyed cats, gray cats, black cats, white cats, yellow cats,
striped cats, spotted cats, tame cats, wild cats, singed cats,
individual cats, groups of cats, platoons of cats, companies of cats,
regiments of cats, armies of cats, multitudes of cats, millions of
cats, and all of them sleek, fat, lazy and sound asleep.
I looked on a multitude of people, some white, in white coats,
vests, pantaloons, even white cloth shoes, made snowy with chalk
duly laid on every morning; but the majority of
the people were almost as dark as negroes—women with comely
features, fine black eyes, rounded forms, inclining to the
voluptuous, clad in a single bright red or white garment that fell
free and unconfined from shoulder to heel, long black hair falling
loose, gypsy hats, encircled with wreaths of natural flowers of a
brilliant carmine tint; plenty of dark men in various costumes, and
some with nothing on but a battered stove-pipe hat tilted on the
nose, and a very scant breech -clout;—certain smoke-dried
children were clothed in nothing but sunshine—a very neat fitting
and picturesque apparel indeed.
In place of roughs and rowdies staring and blackguarding on
the corners, I saw long-haired, saddle-colored Sandwich Island
maidens sitting on the ground in the shade of corner houses, gazing
indolently at whatever or whoever happened along; instead of
wretched cobble-stone pavements, I walked on a firm foundation
of coral, built up from the bottom of the sea by the absurd but
persevering insect of that name, with a light layer of lava and
cinders overlying the coral, belched up out of fathomless perdition
long ago through the seared and blackened crater that stands dead
and harmless in the distance now; instead of cramped and crowded
street-cars, I met dusky native women sweeping by, free as the
wind, on fleet horses and astride, with gaudy riding-sashes,
streaming like banners behind them; instead of the combined
stenches of Chinadom and Brannan street slaughter-houses, I
breathed the balmy fragrance of jessamine, oleander, and the Pride
of India; in place of the hurry and bustle and noisy confusion of
San Francisco, I moved in the midst of a Summer calm as tranquil
as dawn in the Garden of Eden; in place of the Golden City's
skirting sand hills and the placid bay, I saw on the one side a
frame-work of tall,
precipitous mountains close at hand, clad in refreshing green, and
cleft by deep, cool, chasm-like valleys—and in front the grand
sweep of the ocean; a brilliant, transparent green near the shore,
bound and bordered by a long white line of foamy spray dashing
against the reef, and further out the dead blue water of the deep
sea, flecked with "white caps," and in the far horizon a single,
lonely sail—a mere accent-mark to emphasize a slumberous calm
and a solitude that were without sound or limit. When the sun
sunk down—the one intruder from other realms and persistent in
suggestions of them—it was tranced luxury to sit in the perfumed
air and forget that there was any world but these enchanted
islands.
It was such ecstacy to dream, and dream—till you got a bite.
A scorpion bite. Then the first duty was to get up out of the grass
and kill the scorpion; and the next to bathe the bitten place with
alcohol or brandy; and the next to resolve to keep out of the grass
in future. Then came an adjournment to the bed-chamber and the
pastime of writing up the day's journal with one hand and the
destruction of mosquitoes with the other—a whole community of
them at a slap. Then, observing an enemy approaching,—a hairy
tarantula on stilts—why not set the spittoon on him? It is done, and
the projecting ends of his paws give a luminous idea of the
magnitude of his reach. Then to bed and become a promenade for
a centipede with forty-two legs on a side and every foot hot enough
to burn a
hole through a raw-hide. More soaking with alcohol, and a
resolution to examine the bed before entering it, in future. Then
wait, and suffer, till all the mosquitoes in the neighborhood have
crawled in under the bar, then slip out quickly, shut them in and
sleep peacefully on the floor till morning. Meantime it is
comforting to curse the tropics in occasional wakeful
intervals.
We had an abundance of fruit in Honolulu, of course.
Oranges, pine-apples, bananas, strawberries, lemons, limes,
mangoes, guavas, melons, and a rare and curious luxury called the
chirimoya, which is deliciousness itself. Then there is the
tamarind. I thought tamarinds were made to eat, but that was
probably not the idea. I ate several, and it seemed to me that they
were rather sour that year. They pursed up my lips, till they
resembled the stem-end of a tomato, and I had to take my
sustenance throught a quill for twenty-four hours.
They sharpened my teeth till I could have shaved with them, and
gave them a "wire edge" that I was afraid would stay; but a citizen
said "no, it will come off when the enamel does"—which was
comforting, at any rate. I found, afterward, that only strangers eat
tamarinds—but they only eat them once.