University of Virginia Library

CLIMATE AND CUSTOMS

The climate of these islands is delightful, it is beautiful. In Honolulu the thermometer stands at about 80 or 82 degrees pretty much all the year round—don't change more than 12 degrees in twelve months. In the sugar districts the thermometer stands at 70 and does not change at all. Any kind of a thermometer will do—one without any quicksilver is just as good. That climate is very healthy—as healthy as ours; indeed, a man told me it was so hot in Wall Street the other day that gold went up to 160 in the shade.

If you would see magnificent scenery—scenery on a mighty scale—and get scenery which charms with its softness and delights you with its unspeakable beauty, at the same moment that it deeply impresses you with its grandeur and its sublimity, you should go to the islands.

Each island is a mountain or two or three mountains. They begin at the seashore—in a torrid climate where the cocoa palm grows and the coffee tree, the mango, orange, banana, and the delicious cherimoya; they begin down there in a sweltering atmosphere, rise with a grand and gradual sweep till they hide their beautiful regalia of living green in the folds of the drooping clouds, and higher and higher yet they rise among the mists till their emerald forests change to dull and stunted shrubbery, then to scattering constellations of the brilliant silver sword, then higher yet to dreary, barren desolation—no tree, no shrubs, nothing but torn and scorched and blackened piles of lava; higher yet, and then, towering toward heaven, above the dim and distant land, above the waveless sea, and high above the rolling plains of clouds themselves, stands the awful summit, wrapped in a mantle of everlasting ice and snow and burnished with a tropical sunshine that fires it with a dazzling splendor! Here one may stand and shiver in the midst of eternal winter and look down upon a land reposing in the loveliest hue of summer that hath no end.

The volcano of Kee-law-ay-oh is 17,000 feet in diameter and from 700 to 800 feet deep. Vesuvius is nowhere. It is the largest live volcano in the world; shoots up flames tremendously high. You witness a scene of unrivaled sublimity; and witness the most astonishing sights. When the volcano of Kee-law-ay-oh broke through a few years ago, lava flowed out of it for twenty days and twenty nights, and made a stream forty miles in length, till it reached the sea, tearing up forests in its awful fiery path, swallowing up huts, destroying all vegetation, rioting through shady dells and sinuous canyons. Amidst this carnival of destruction, majestic columns of smoke ascended and formed a cloudy, murky pall overhead. Sheets of green, blue, lambent flame were shot upwards and pierced this vast gloom, making all sublimely grand.

With all their kindly ways these people practice some cruelties. They will put a live chicken into the hot ashes simply to see it hop about. They would burn the flesh before the missionaries came, and would put out an eye, or a tooth, when a chief died. And if their grief was deep, and they could get relief in no other way, they would go out and scalp a neighbor. In the season of mourning for a great person they permit any crime that will best express sorrow.

They do everything differently from other people. They mount a horse from the off side. They turn to the left instead of the right. They say the same words for "good bye" and "how do you do." They always, in beckoning for you to come, motion in the opposite direction. Even the birds partake of this peculiarity. The native duck lives four thousand feet above the level of the sea, and never sees water except when it rains. They (the islanders) groan in a heartbroken way when they are particularly happy. They have some customs we might import with advantage. I don't call any to mind just now.

In Honolulu they are the most easygoing people in the world. Some of our people are not acquainted with their customs. They started a gas company once, and put the gas at $13 a thousand feet. They only took in $16 the first month. They all went to bed at dark. They are an excellent people. I speak earnestly. They do not know even the name of some of the vices in this country. A lady called on a doctor. She wanted something for general debility. He ordered her to drink porter. She called him again. The porter had done her no good. He asked her how much porter she had taken. She said a tablespoonful in a tumbler of water. I wish we could import such a blessed ignorance into this country. They don't do much drinking there; it is too expensive. When they have paid the tax for importing the liquor they have got nothing left to purchase the liquor with. They are very innocent and drink anything that is limpid—kerosene, turpentine, hair oil. In our town on a Fourth of July an entire community got drunk on a barrel of Mrs. Winslow's soothing syrup.