Bound for Hawaii (a hundred and fifty miles distant,) to visit
the great volcano and behold the other notable things which
distinguish that island above the remainder of the group, we
sailed from Honolulu on a certain Saturday afternoon, in the good
schooner Boomerang.
The Boomerang was about as long as two street cars, and about
as wide as one. She was so small (though she was larger than the
majority of the inter-island coasters) that when I stood on her
deck I felt but little smaller than the Colossus of Rhodes must
have felt when he had a man-of-war under him. I could reach the
water when she lay over under a strong breeze. When the Captain
and my comrade (a Mr. Billings), myself and four other persons
were all assembled on the little after portion of the deck which
is sacred to the cabin passengers, it was full—there was not
room for any more quality folks. Another section of the deck,
twice as large as ours, was full of natives of both sexes, with
their customary dogs, mats, blankets, pipes, calabashes of poi,
fleas, and other luxuries and baggage of minor importance. As
soon as we set sail the natives all lay down on the deck as thick
as negroes in a slave-pen, and smoked, conversed, and spit on
each other, and were truly sociable.
The little low-ceiled cabin below was rather larger than a
hearse, and as dark as a vault. It had two coffins on each
side—I mean two bunks. A small table, capable of accommodating
three persons at dinner, stood against the forward bulkhead, and
over it hung the dingiest whale oil lantern that ever peopled the
obscurity of a dungeon with ghostly shapes. The floor room
unoccupied was not extensive. One might swing a cat in it,
perhaps, but not a long cat. The hold forward of the bulkhead had
but little freight in it, and from morning till night a portly
old rooster, with a voice like Baalam’s ass, and the same
disposition to use it, strutted up and down in that part of the
vessel and crowed. He usually took dinner at six o’clock, and
then, after an hour devoted to meditation, he mounted a barrel
and crowed a good part of the night. He got hoarser all the time,
but he scorned to allow any personal consideration to interfere
with his duty, and kept up his labors in defiance of threatened
diphtheria.
Sleeping was out of the question when he was on watch. He was
a source of genuine aggravation and annoyance. It was worse than
useless to shout at him or apply offensive epithets to him—he
only took these things for applause, and strained himself to make
more noise. Occasionally, during the day, I threw potatoes at him
through an aperture in the bulkhead, but he only dodged and went
on crowing.
The first night, as I lay in my coffin, idly watching the dim
lamp swinging to the rolling of the ship, and snuffing the
nauseous odors of bilge water, I felt something gallop over me. I
turned out promptly. However, I turned in again when I found it
was only a rat. Presently something galloped over me once more. I
knew it was not a rat this time, and I thought it might be a
centipede, because the Captain had killed one on deck in the
afternoon. I turned out. The first glance at the pillow showed me
repulsive sentinel perched upon each end of it—cockroaches as
large as peach leaves—fellows with long, quivering antennae and
fiery, malignant eyes. They were grating their teeth like tobacco
worms, and appeared to be dissatisfied about something. I had
often heard that these reptiles were in the habit of eating off
sleeping sailors’ toe nails down to the quick, and I would not
get in the bunk any more. I lay down on the floor. But a rat came
and bothered me, and shortly afterward a procession of
cockroaches arrived and camped in my hair. In a few moments the
rooster was crowing with uncommon spirit and a party of fleas
were throwing double somersaults about my person in the wildest
disorder, and taking a bite every time they struck. I was
beginning to feel really annoyed. I got up and put my clothes on
and went on deck.
The above is not overdrawn; it is a truthful sketch of
inter-island schooner life. There is no such thing as keeping a
vessel in elegant condition, when she carries molasses and
Kanakas.
It was compensation for my sufferings to come unexpectedly
upon so beautiful a scene as met my eye—to step suddenly out of
the sepulchral gloom of the cabin and stand under the strong
light of the moon—in the centre, as it were, of a glittering sea
of liquid silver—to see the broad sails straining in the gale,
the ship heeled over on her side, the angry foam hissing past her
lee bulwarks, and sparkling sheets of spray dashing high over her
bows and raining upon her decks; to brace myself and hang fast to
the first object that presented itself, with hat jammed down and
coat tails whipping in the breeze, and feel that exhilaration
that thrills in one’s hair and quivers down his back bone when he
knows that every inch of canvas is drawing and the vessel
cleaving through the waves at her utmost speed. There was no
darkness, no dimness, no obscurity there. All was brightness,
every object was vividly defined. Every prostrate Kanaka; every
coil of rope; every calabash of poi; every puppy; every seam in
the flooring; every bolthead; every object; however minute,
showed sharp and distinct in its every outline; and the shadow of
the broad mainsail lay black as a pall upon the deck, leaving
Billings’s white upturned face glorified and his body in a total
eclipse.
Monday morning we were close to the island of Hawaii.
Two of its high mountains were in view—Mauna Loa and
Hualaiai. The latter is an imposing peak, but being only ten thousand
feet high is seldom mentioned or heard of. Mauna Loa is said to
be sixteen thousand feet high. The rays of glittering snow and
ice, that clasped its summit like a claw, looked refreshing when
viewed from the blistering climate we were in. One could stand on
that mountain (wrapped up in blankets and furs to keep warm), and
while he nibbled a snowball or an icicle to quench his thirst he
could look down the long sweep of its sides and see spots where
plants are growing that grow only where the bitter cold of Winter
prevails; lower down he could see sections devoted to production
that thrive in the temperate zone alone; and at the bottom of the
mountain he could see the home of the tufted cocoa-palms and
other species of vegetation that grow only in the sultry
atmosphere of eternal Summer. He could see all the climes of the
world at a single glance of the eye, and that glance would only
pass over a distance of four or five miles as the bird flies!
By and by we took boat and went ashore at Kailua, designing to
ride horseback through the pleasant orange and coffee region of
Kona, and rejoin the vessel at a point some leagues distant. This
journey is well worth taking. The trail passes along on high
ground—say a thousand feet above sea level—and usually about a
mile distant from the ocean, which is always in sight, save that
occasionally you find yourself buried in the forest in the midst
of a rank tropical vegetation and a dense growth of trees, whose
great bows overarch the road and shut out sun and sea and
everything, and leave you in a dim, shady tunnel, haunted with
invisible singing birds and fragrant with the odor of flowers. It
was pleasant to ride occasionally in the warm sun, and feast the
eye upon the ever-changing panorama of the forest (beyond and
below us), with its many tints, its softened lights and shadows,
its billowy undulations sweeping gently down from the mountain to
the sea. It was pleasant also, at intervals, to leave the sultry
sun and pass into the cool, green depths of this forest and
indulge in sentimental reflections under the inspiration of its
brooding twilight and its whispering foliage. We rode through one
orange grove that had ten thousand tree in it! They were all
laden with fruit.
At one farmhouse we got some large peaches of excellent
flavor. This fruit, as a general thing, does not do well in the
Sandwich Islands. It takes a sort of almond shape, and is small
and bitter. It needs frost, they say, and perhaps it does; if
this be so, it will have a good opportunity to go on needing it,
as it will not be likely to get it. The trees from which the fine
fruit I have spoken of, came, had been planted and replanted
sixteen times, and to this treatment the proprietor of the
orchard attributed his-success.
We passed several sugar plantations—new ones and not very
extensive. The crops were, in most cases, third rattoons.
[NOTE.—The first crop is called “plant cane;” subsequent crops
which spring from the original roots, without replanting, are
called “rattoons.”] Almost everywhere on the island of Hawaii
sugar-cane matures in twelve months, both rattoons and plant, and
although it ought to be taken off as soon as it tassels, no
doubt, it is not absolutely necessary to do it until about four
months afterward. In Kona, the average yield of an acre of ground
is two tons of sugar, they say. This is only a moderate yield for
these islands, but would be astounding for Louisiana and most
other sugar growing countries. The plantations in Kona being on
pretty high ground—up among the light and frequent rains—no
irrigation whatever is required.
