By and by, after a rugged climb, we halted on the summit of a
hill which commanded a far-reaching view. The moon rose and
flooded mountain and valley and ocean with a mellow radiance, and
out of the shadows of the foliage the distant lights of Honolulu
glinted like an encampment of fireflies. The air was heavy with
the fragrance of flowers. The halt was brief.—Gayly laughing and
talking, the party galloped on, and I clung to the pommel and
cantered after. Presently we came to a place where no grass
grew—a wide expanse of deep sand. They said it was an old battle
ground. All around everywhere, not three feet apart, the bleached
bones of men gleamed white in the moonlight. We picked up a lot
of them for mementoes. I got quite a number of arm bones and leg
bones—of great chiefs, may be, who had fought savagely in that
fearful battle in the old days, when blood flowed like wine where
we now stood—and wore the choicest of them out on Oahu
afterward, trying to make him go. All sorts of bones could be
found except skulls; but a citizen said, irreverently, that there
had been an unusual number of “skull-hunters” there lately—a
species of sportsmen I had never heard of before.
Nothing whatever is known about this place—its story is a
secret that will never be revealed. The oldest natives make no
pretense of being possessed of its history. They say these bones
were here when they were children. They were here when their
grandfathers were children—but how they came here, they can only
conjecture. Many people believe this spot to be an ancient
battle-ground, and it is usual to call it so; and they believe
that these skeletons have lain for ages just where their
proprietors fell in the great fight. Other people believe that
Kamehameha I. fought his first battle here. On this point, I have
heard a story, which may have been taken from one of the numerous
books which have been written concerning these islands—I do not
know where the narrator got it. He said that when Kamehameha (who
was at first merely a subordinate chief on the island of Hawaii),
landed here, he brought a large army with him, and encamped at
Waikiki. The Oahuans marched against him, and so confident were
they of success that they readily acceded to a demand of their
priests that they should draw a line where these bones now lie,
and take an oath that, if forced to retreat at all, they would
never retreat beyond this boundary. The priests told them that
death and everlasting punishment would overtake any who violated
the oath, and the march was resumed. Kamehameha drove them back
step by step; the priests fought in the front rank and exhorted
them both by voice and inspiriting example to remember their
oath—to die, if need be, but never cross the fatal line. The
struggle was manfully maintained, but at last the chief priest
fell, pierced to the heart with a spear, and the unlucky omen
fell like a blight upon the brave souls at his back; with a
triumphant shout the invaders pressed forward—the line was
crossed—the offended gods deserted the despairing army, and,
accepting the doom their perjury had brought upon them, they
broke and fled over the plain where Honolulu stands now—up the
beautiful Nuuanu Valley—paused a moment, hemmed in by
precipitous mountains on either hand and the frightful precipice
of the Pari in front, and then were driven over—a sheer plunge
of six hundred feet!
The story is pretty enough, but Mr. Jarves’ excellent history
says the Oahuans were intrenched in Nuuanu Valley; that
Kamehameha ousted them, routed them, pursued them up the valley
and drove them over the precipice. He makes no mention of our
bone-yard at all in his book.
Impressed by the profound silence and repose that rested over
the beautiful landscape, and being, as usual, in the rear, I gave
voice to my thoughts. I said:
“What a picture is here slumbering in the solemn glory of the
moon! How strong the rugged outlines of the dead volcano stand
out against the clear sky! What a snowy fringe marks the bursting
of the surf over the long, curved reef! How calmly the dim city
sleeps yonder in the plain! How soft the shadows lie upon the
stately mountains that border the dream-haunted Mauoa Valley!
What a grand pyramid of billowy clouds towers above the storied
Pari! How the grim warriors of the past seem flocking in ghostly
squadrons to their ancient battlefield again—how the wails of
the dying well up from the—”
At this point the horse called Oahu sat down in the sand. Sat
down to listen, I suppose. Never mind what he heard, I stopped
apostrophising and convinced him that I was not a man to allow
contempt of Court on the part of a horse. I broke the back-bone
of a Chief over his rump and set out to join the cavalcade
again.
Very considerably fagged out we arrived in town at 9 o’clock
at night, myself in the lead—for when my horse finally came to
understand that he was homeward bound and hadn’t far to go, he
turned his attention strictly to business.
This is a good time to drop in a paragraph of information.
There is no regular livery stable in Honolulu, or, indeed, in any
part of the Kingdom of Hawaii; therefore unless you are
acquainted with wealthy residents (who all have good horses), you
must hire animals of the wretchedest description from the
Kanakas. (i.e. natives.) Any horse you hire, even though it be
from a white man, is not often of much account, because it will
be brought in for you from some ranch, and has necessarily been
leading a hard life. If the Kanakas who have been caring for him
(inveterate riders they are) have not ridden him half to death
every day themselves, you can depend upon it they have been doing
the same thing by proxy, by clandestinely hiring him out. At
least, so I am informed. The result is, that no horse has a
chance to eat, drink, rest, recuperate, or look well or feel
well, and so strangers go about the Islands mounted as I was
to-day.
In hiring a horse from a Kanaka, you must have all your eyes
about you, because you can rest satisfied that you are dealing
with a shrewd unprincipled rascal. You may leave your door open
and your trunk unlocked as long as you please, and he will not
meddle with your property; he has no important vices and no
inclination to commit robbery on a large scale; but if he can get
ahead of you in the horse business, he will take a genuine
delight in doing it. This traits is characteristic of horse
jockeys, the world over, is it not? He will overcharge you if he
can; he will hire you a fine-looking horse at night
(anybody’s—may be the King’s, if the royal steed be in
convenient view), and bring you the mate to my Oahu in the
morning, and contend that it is the same animal. If you make
trouble, he will get out by saying it was not himself who made
the bargain with you, but his brother, “who went out in the
country this morning.” They have always got a “brother” to shift
the responsibility upon. A victim said to one of these fellows
one day:
“But I know I hired the horse of you, because I noticed that
scar on your cheek.”
The reply was not bad: “Oh, yes—yes—my brother all same—we
twins!”
A friend of mine, J. Smith, hired a horse yesterday, the
Kanaka warranting him to be in excellent condition.
Smith had a saddle and blanket of his own, and he ordered the
Kanaka to put these on the horse. The Kanaka protested that he
was perfectly willing to trust the gentleman with the saddle that
was already on the animal, but Smith refused to use it. The
change was made; then Smith noticed that the Kanaka had only
changed the saddles, and had left the original blanket on the
horse; he said he forgot to change the blankets, and so, to cut
the bother short, Smith mounted and rode away. The horse went
lame a mile from town, and afterward got to cutting up some
extraordinary capers. Smith got down and took off the saddle, but
the blanket stuck fast to the horse—glued to a procession of raw
places. The Kanaka’s mysterious conduct stood explained.
Another friend of mine bought a pretty good horse from a
native, a day or two ago, after a tolerably thorough examination
of the animal. He discovered today that the horse was as blind as
a bat, in one eye. He meant to have examined that eye, and came
home with a general notion that he had done it; but he remembers
now that every time he made the attempt his attention was called
to something else by his victimizer.
One more instance, and then I will pass to something else. I
am informed that when a certain Mr. L., a visiting stranger, was
here, he bought a pair of very respectable-looking match horses
from a native. They were in a little stable with a partition
through the middle of it—one horse in each apartment. Mr. L.
examined one of them critically through a window (the Kanaka’s
“brother” having gone to the country with the key), and then went
around the house and examined the other through a window on the
other side. He said it was the neatest match he had ever seen,
and paid for the horses on the spot. Whereupon the Kanaka
departed to join his brother in the country. The fellow had
shamefully swindled L. There was only one “match” horse, and he
had examined his starboard side through one window and his port
side through another! I decline to believe this story, but I give
it because it is worth something as a fanciful illustration of a
fixed fact—namely, that the Kanaka horse-jockey is fertile in
invention and elastic in conscience.
You can buy a pretty good horse for forty or fifty dollars,
and a good enough horse for all practical purposes for two
dollars and a half. I estimate “Oahu” to be worth somewhere in
the neighborhood of thirty-five cents. A good deal better animal
than he is was sold here day before yesterday for a dollar and
seventy-five cents, and sold again to-day for two dollars and
twenty-five cents; Williams bought a handsome and lively little
pony yesterday for ten dollars; and about the best common horse
on the island (and he is a really good one) sold yesterday, with
Mexican saddle and bridle, for seventy dollars—a horse which is
well and widely known, and greatly respected for his speed, good
disposition and everlasting bottom.
You give your horse a little grain once a day; it comes from
San Francisco, and is worth about two cents a pound; and you give
him as much hay as he wants; it is cut and brought to the market
by natives, and is not very good it is baled into long, round
bundles, about the size of a large man; one of them is stuck by
the middle on each end of a six foot pole, and the Kanaka
shoulders the pole and walks about the streets between the
upright bales in search of customers. These hay bales, thus
carried, have a general resemblance to a colossal capital
‘H.’
The hay-bundles cost twenty-five cents apiece, and one will
last a horse about a day. You can get a horse for a song, a
week’s hay for another song, and you can turn your animal loose
among the luxuriant grass in your neighbor’s broad front yard
without a song at all—you do it at midnight, and stable the
beast again before morning. You have been at no expense thus far,
but when you come to buy a saddle and bridle they will cost you
from twenty to thirty-five dollars. You can hire a horse, saddle
and bridle at from seven to ten dollars a week, and the owner
will take care of them at his own expense.
It is time to close this day’s record—bed time. As I prepare
for sleep, a rich voice rises out of the still night, and, far as
this ocean rock is toward the ends of the earth, I recognize a
familiar home air. But the words seem somewhat out of joint:
“Waikiki lantoni oe Kaa hooly hooly wawhoo.”
Translated, that means “When we were marching through
Georgia.”
