The Hawaiian Archipelago by Isabella Lucy Bird (best fiction novels to read txt) 📕

in state. It was a cloudless moonlight; not a leaf stirred or bird sang, and the crowd, consisting of several thousands, opened to the right and left to let the dismal death-train pass, in a stillness which was only broken by the solemn tramp of the bearers.

The next day the corpse lay in state, in all the splendour that the islands could bestow, dressed in the clothes the king wore when he took the oath of office, and resting on the royal robe of yellow feathers, a fathom square. {468} Between eight and ten thousand persons passed through the palace during the morning, and foreigners as well as natives wept tears of genuine grief; while in the palace grounds the wailing knew no intermission, and many of the natives spent hours in reciting kanakaus in honour of the deceased. At midnight the king's remains were placed in a coffin, his aged father, His Highness Kanaina, who was broken-hearted for his loss, standing by. When the body was raised from the feather robe, he ordered that it should be wrapped in it, and thus be deposited in its resting place. "He is the last of our race," he said; "it belongs to him." The natives in attendance turned pale at this command, for the robe was the property of Kekauluohi, the dead king's mother, and had descended to her from her kingly ancestors.

Averse through his life to useless parade and display, Lunalilo left directions for a simple funeral, and that none of the old heathenish observances should ensue upon his death. So, amidst unbounded grief, he was carried to the grave with hymns and anthems, and the hopes of Hawaii were buried with him.

He died without naming a successor, and thus for the second time within fourteen months, a king came to be elected by ballot.

The proceedings at the election of Lunalilo were marked by an order, regularity, and peaceableness which reflected extreme credit on the civilization of the Hawaiians, but in the subsequent period the temper of the people had considerably changed, and they had been affected by influences to which some allusions were made in Letter XIX.

In politics, Lunalilo's views were essentially democratic, and he showed an almost undue deference to the will of the people, giving them a year's practical experience of democracy which they will never forget.

An antagonism to the foreign residents, or rather to their political influence, had grown rapidly. Some of the Americans had been unwise in their language, and the discussion on the proposed cession of Pearl River increased the popular discontent, and the jealousy of foreign interference in island affairs. "America gave us the light," said a native pastor, in a sermon which was reported over the islands, "but now that we have the light, we should be left to use it for ourselves." This sentence represented the bulk of the national feeling, which, if partially unenlightened, is intensely, passionately, almost fanatically patriotic.

The biennial election of delegates to the Legislative Assembly occurred shortly before Lunalilo's death, and the rallying-cry, "Hawaii for the Hawaiians," was used with such effect that the most respectable foreign candidates, even in the capital, had not a chance of success, and for the first time in Hawaiian constitutional history, a house was elected, consisting, with one exception, of natives. Immediately on the king's death, Kalakaua, who was understood to represent the foreign interest as well as the policy indicated by the popular rallying-cry, and Queen Emma, came forward as candidates; the walls were placarded with addresses, mass meetings were held, canvassers were busy night and day, promises impossible of fulfilment were made, and for eight days the Hawaiian capital presented those scenes of excitement, wrangling, and mutual misrepresentation which we associate with popular elections elsewhere, and everywhere.

The day of election came, and thirty-nine votes were given for Kalakaua, and six for Emma. On the announcement of this result, a hoarse, indignant roar, mingled with cheers from the crowd without, was heard within the Assembly chamber, and on the committee appointed to convey to Kalakaua the news of his election, attempting to take their seats in a carriage, they were driven back, maimed and bleeding, into the Courthouse; the carriage was torn to pieces, and the spokes of the wheels were distributed as weapons among the rioters. The "gentle children of the sun" were seen under a new aspect; they became furious, the latent savagery came out, the doors of the Hall of Assembly were battered in, the windows were shattered with clubs and volleys of stones, nine of the representatives, who were known to have voted for Kalakaua, were severely injured; the chairs, tables, and furnishings of the rooms were broken up and thrown out of the windows, along with valuable public and private documents; kerosene was demanded to fire the buildings; the police remained neutral, and conflagration and murder would have followed, had not the ministers dispatched an urgent request for assistance to the United States' ships of war, Portsmouth and Tuscarora, and H.B.M. ship Tenedos, which was promptly met by the landing of such a force of sailors and marines as dispersed the rioters.

Seventy arrests were made, the foreign marines held possession of the Courthouse, Palace, and Government offices, Kalakaua took the oath of office in private; the Representatives, with bandaged heads, and arms in slings, limped, and in some instances were supported, to their desks, to be liberated from their duties by the king in person, and in ten days the joint protectorate was withdrawn.

Those who know the natives best were taken by surprise, and are compelled to recognise that a restive, half-sullen, half-defiant spirit is abroad among them, and that the task of governing them may not be the easy thing which it has been since the days of Kamehameha the Great. Nor do the foreign residents, especially the Americans, feel so safe as formerly, without the presence of a man-of-war in the harbour, since the people of Oahu have so unexpectedly developed one of the prominent arts of civilized democracy, cruel, reckless, and unreasoning mobbing.

Of King Kalakaua, who began his reign under such unfortunate auspices, little at present can be said. Island affairs have not settled down into their old quietude, and party spirit, arising out of the election, has not died out among the natives. The king chose his advisers wisely, and made a concession to native feeling by appointing a native named Nahaolelua to a seat in the cabinet as Minister of Finance, but his first arrangement was upset, and a good deal of confusion has subsequently prevailed.

The Queen, Kapiolani, is a Hawaiian lady of high character and extreme amiability, and both King and Queen have been exemplary in their domestic relations.

Kalakaua's first act was to proclaim his brother, Prince Leleiohoku, his successor, investing him at the same time with the title, "His Royal Highness," and his second was to reorganize the military service, with the view of making it an efficient and well- disciplined force.

There is something melancholy in the fact that this small Pacific kingdom has to fall back upon the old world resource of a standing army, as large, in proportion to its population, as that of the German Empire.

Those readers who have become interested in the Sandwich Islands through the foregoing Letters, will join me in the earnest wish that this people, which has advanced from heathenism and barbarism to Christianity and civilization in the short space of a single generation, may enjoy peace and prosperity under King Kalakaua, that the extinction which threatens the nation may be averted, and that under a gracious Divine Providence, Hawaii may still remain the inheritance of the Hawaiians.


NOTES.


{0} A native word used to signify an old resident.

{14} A Frugiferous bat.

{28} The kahili is shaped like an enormous bottle brush. The fines are sometimes twenty feet high, with handles twelve or fifteen feet long, covered with tortoiseshell and whale tooth ivory. The upper part is formed of a cylinder of wicker work about a foot in diameter, on which red, black, and yellow feathers are fastened. These insignia are carried in procession instead of banners, and used to be fixed in the ground near the temporary residence of the king or chiefs. At the funeral of the late king seventy-six large and small kahilis were carried by the retainers of chief families.

{40} A week after her sailing, this unlucky ship put back with some mysterious ailment, and on her final arrival at San Francisco, her condition was found to be such that it was a marvel that she had made the passage at all.

{44} Dear old craft! I would not change her now for the finest palace which floats on the Hudson, or the trimmest of the Hutchesons' beautiful West Highland fleet.

{47} This temperature is, of course, in shallow water. The United States surveying vessel, Tuscarora, lately left San Diego, California, shaping a straight course for Honolulu, and found a nearly uniform temperature of from 33 degrees to 34 degrees Fahrenheit at all depths below 1100 fathoms. The following table gives a good idea of the temperature of ocean water in this region of the Pacific:--

100 . . 64 degrees 7 200 . . 48 degrees 7 300 . . 42 degrees 4
400 . . 40 degrees 4 500 . . 39 degrees 4 600 . . 38 degrees 6
700 . . 38 degrees 3 800 . . 37 degrees 5 900 . . 36 degrees 6
1000 . . 35 degrees 6 1200 . . 35 degrees 4 3054 . . 33 degrees 2

The Tuscarora found the extraordinary depth of 3023 fathoms at a distance of only 43 miles from Molokai.

{59a} Metrosideros Polymorpha.

{59b} Colocasia antiquorum (arum esculentum).

{59c} Morinda Citrifolia.

{62} I have since learned that it is the same as the Kaldera bush of Southern India, and that the powerful fragrance of its flowers is the subject of continual allusions in Sanskrit poetry under the name of Ketaka, and that oil impregnated with its odour is highly prized as a perfume in India. The Hawaiians also used it to give a delicious scent to the Tapa made for their chiefs from the inner bark of the paper mulberry.

{65} See Brigham, on the "Hawaiian Volcanoes."

{66} In explorations some months later, I found nearly similar phenomena, in two other of the streams on the windward side of Hawaii.

{95} "Reef Rovings."

{121} In 1873 the export of sugar reached a total of upwards of 23,000,000 lbs.

{128} NOTE.--Throughout these letters the botanical names given are only those which are current on the Islands. Those specimens of ferns which survived the rough usage which befel them, are to be seen in the Herbarium of the Botanical Garden at Oxford, and have been named and classified by my cousin, Professor Lawson.

{138} "The road from Hilo to Laupahoehoe, a distance of thirty miles, runs somewhat inland, and is one of the most remarkable in the world. Ravines, 1,800 or 2,000 feet deep, and less than a mile wide, extend far up the slopes of Mauna Kea. Streams, liable to sudden and tremendous freshets, must be traversed on a path of indescribable steepness, winding zig-zag up and down the beautifully-wooded slopes or precipices, which are ornamented with