The Spell of the Hawaiian Islands and the Philippines Part 1

The Spell of the Hawaiian Islands and the Philippines.

by Isabel Anderson.

FOREWORD

It is my hope that this book about our islands in the Pacific ocean may be of some interest, if for no other reason than that there is at present so much discussion as to whether or not we should keep the Philippines.

Soon after the close of the Civil War my father, who was a naval officer, was sent on a cruise on the Pacific and stopped for a time both at Honolulu and Manila. During this cruise he took part in the occupation and survey of Midway Island, as it is now called--_our first possession in Pacific waters_. Many years later, when my husband and I started on our first trip to the East, I asked my father if he would give us letters of introduction to his many friends there. He replied, "It is a long time since I visited the islands in the Pacific; if my friends have forgotten me letters would do no good, and if they remember me letters are not necessary." Needless to say, they did remember him and extended to us the most cordial hospitality.

The charm of Hawaii will linger forever in our memory--those happy flower islands where the air is sweet with perfume and gay with the musical strains of the ukulele. We lived there for a time before the Islands were annexed to the United States and, on another visit, we had the privilege of accompanying the Secretary of War, Hon. J. M.

d.i.c.kinson, so that we had exceptional opportunities of seeing both Hawaii and the Philippines, and of making the acquaintance of leaders among the Americans and the natives.

We found the Philippines especially fascinating on account of the great variety they provide. The old world plazas, the flowering Spanish courtyards, and the pretty women in their distinctive costume of pina are all enchanting. Nowhere else in the Far East are the _mestizos_--those of mixed blood--socially above the natives. The Filipinos are unique in that they are the only Asiatics who are Christians. Among the hills, near civilization, live the savages who indulge in the exciting game of head-hunting. The Moros, the Mohammedans of the southern islands, stand quite by themselves. They are very picturesque and absolutely unlike their neighbours.

Secretary d.i.c.kinson and Governor Forbes we can never thank enough for the thousand and one strange sights we saw, as enchanting as the tales which Scheherezade told during those far-off Arabian Nights. I only wish I could describe them in her delightful style! Of all the spells what is more puissant than the spell of the tropics--the singing of dripping water, the rustle of the palm in the breeze. In this land you forget all trouble and dream of love and happiness, while the Southern Cross gleams brightly in the sky.

There it is indeed true that

"The flower of love has leisure for growing, Music is heard in the evening breeze, The mountain stream laughs loud in its flowing, And poesy wakes by the Eastern Seas."

I wish especially to say how grateful I am to those who have helped me in one way or another, with this book: Admiral George Dewey, General Thomas Anderson, Major J. R. M. Taylor, Major William Mitch.e.l.l, Mr.

William R. Castle, Jr., and Mr. C. P. Hatheway. Mr. R. K. Bonine was also very kind in allowing me to reprint some of his photographs of Hawaii. My thanks are also due to Miss Helen Kimball, Miss C. Gilman, Miss K. Crosby, and my husband, and to all the others who have been so good as to encourage me in writing the "Spell of the Hawaiian Islands and the Philippines."

THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS

CHAPTER I

THE BRIGHT LAND

On our first trip to Hawaii we sailed from San Francisco aboard the _Gaelic_ with good, jolly Captain Finch. He was a regular old tar, and we liked him. We little thought that in 1914 he would have the misfortune to be in command of the _Arabic_ when it was torpedoed in the Atlantic. He showed great gallantry, standing on the bridge and going down with his ship, but I take pleasure in adding that he was saved.

We had an ideal ocean voyage: calm, blue seas, with a favouring trade wind, a glorious moon, and strange sights of huge turtles, tropic birds, and lunar rainbows. We had, too, an unusual company on board--Captain Gridley, of Manila Bay fame, then on his way to take command of the _Olympia_; Judge Widemann, a German who had lived for many years in Honolulu, and had married a Hawaiian princess; Mr. Irwin, a distinguished American with a j.a.panese wife--all old friends of my father, who, as a naval officer, made several cruises in the Pacific--Dr. Furness of Philadelphia, a cla.s.smate of my husband's at Harvard, who was going out to study the head-hunters of Borneo; and Mr.

Castle, grandson of one of the early missionaries to Hawaii. He has since written a charming book on the Islands.

After six days on the smooth Pacific, we caught sight of Oahu, the fairy island on which Honolulu is situated. Diamond Head stretches far out into the blue, like a huge lizard guarding its treasure--a land of fruits and flowers, of sugar-cane and palm. The first view across the bay of the town with its wreath of foliage down by the sh.o.r.e, just as the golden sun was setting over the mountain range, was a picture to be remembered. And in the distance, above Honolulu, the extinct crater called Punchbowl could be seen, out of which the G.o.ds of old no doubt drank and made merry.

An ancient Hawaiian myth of the creation tells how Wakea, "the beginning," married Papa, "the earth," and they lived in darkness until Papa produced a gourd calabash. Wakea threw its cover into the air, and it became heaven. The pulp and seeds formed the sky, the sun, moon and stars. The juice was the rain, and out of the bowl the land and sea were created. This country they lived in and called it Hawaii, "the Bright Land." There are many legends told of Papa by the islanders of the Pacific. She traveled far, and had many husbands and children, among whom were "the father of winds and storms," and "the father of forests."

As we approached the dock, we forgot to watch the frolicking porpoises and the silver flying fish, at sight of the daring natives on their boards riding the surf that broke over the coral reef. The only familiar face we saw on the wharf as we landed was Mr. George Carter, a friend of my husband's, who has since been Governor of the Islands.

Oahu is a beautiful island, and the town of Honolulu at once casts its spell upon you, with the luxuriance of its tropical gardens. There is the spreading Poinciana regia, a tree gorgeous with flowers of flame colour, and the "pride of India," with delicate mauve blossoms; there are trees with streaming yellow cl.u.s.ters, called "golden showers," and superb date and cocoanut and royal palms, and various kinds of acacia.

Bougainvilleas, pa.s.sion-flowers, alamanders and bignonias drape verandas and cover walls. There are hedges of hibiscus and night-blooming cereus, and ma.s.ses of flowering shrubs. Everywhere there is perfume, colour and profusion, the greatest wealth of vegetation, all kept in the most perfect freshness by constant little pa.s.sing showers--"marvelous rain, that powders one without wetting him!" Honolulu is well named, the word meaning "abundance of peace," for we found the gardens of the town filled with cooing doves. It is said the place was called after a chief by that name in the time of Kakuhihewa, the only great king of Oahu who is mentioned before Kamehameha I.

At the time of this visit, in 1897, the total isolation of the Islands was impressive, absolutely cut off, as they were, except for steamers.

Sometimes, moreover, Hawaii was three weeks without an arrival, so that the coming of a steamer was a real event. To cable home, one had to send the message by a ship to j.a.pan and so on around the world.

After a night at the old Royal Hawaiian Hotel, big and rambling, in the center of a pretty garden, we started housekeeping for ourselves in a little bungalow on the hotel grounds, with a Chinaman for maid of all work. Here we lived as if in a dream, reveling in the beauty of land and sea, of trees and flowers, enjoying the hospitality for which the Islands are famous, and exploring as far as we could some of the enchanting spots of this heaven on earth.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ROYAL HAWAIIAN HOTEL.]

We were pleased with our little house, with its wide veranda, or _lanai_, as it is called there, which we made comfortable and pretty with long wicker chairs and Chinese lanterns. Mangoes falling with a thump to the ground outside, and lizards and all sorts of harmless creatures crawling or flying about the house, helped to carry out the tropical effect.

In the four visits that we have made on different occasions we have found the climate perfect; the temperature averages about 73 degrees.

The trade winds blowing from the northeast across the Pacific are refreshing as well as the tiny showers, which follow you up and down the streets. There is not a poisonous vine or a snake, or any other creature more harmful than the bee; but I must confess that the first night at the old hotel, the apparently black washstand turned white on my approach as the water bugs scuttled away. Nothing really troubled us but the mosquitoes, which, by the way, did not exist there in the early days, so must have been taken in on ships.

The Islands have been well called "the Paradise of the Pacific" and "the playground of the world." The five largest in the group, and the only important ones, are Hawaii, about the size of Connecticut, Maui, Oahu, Kauai and Molokai. The small ones are not worth mentioning, as they have only cattle and sheep and a few herdsmen upon them. They are formed of lava--the product of numberless volcanic eruptions--and the action of the sea and the rain, combined with the warm climate and the moisture brought by the trade winds, has resulted in the most varied and fascinating scenery. Mark Twain, who spent many months there, said of them, "They are the loveliest group of islands that ever anch.o.r.ed in an ocean," and indeed we were of his opinion.

At that time the Islands formed an independent republic, under Sanford B. Dole as President, the son of Rev. Daniel Dole, one of the early missionaries. He was educated at Punahou, meaning new spring, now called Oahu College, and at Williams College in the States. He came to Boston to study law, and was admitted to the bar. But Hawaii called him, as if with a forecast of the need she would have of his services in later days, and he went back to Oahu, where he took high rank among the lawyers in the land of his birth, and became judge of the Supreme Court.

After the direct line of Kamehameha sovereigns became extinct, and the easy-going rule of their successors culminated in the high-handed attempt of Queen Liliuokalani to restore the ancient rites and also to turn the island into a Monte Carlo, Judge Dole was the one man who understood both parties and had the confidence of both, and he was the unanimous choice of the best element of the population for president.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HON. SANFORD B. DOLE.]

Of course we visited the buildings and localities in Honolulu that were of interest because of their connection with the existing government or their history in the past. The Executive Building--the old palace, built by King Kalakaua and finished in the finest native woods--and the Court House, which was the Government Building in the days of the kings; the big Kawaiahao Church, built of coral blocks in 1842, and the Queen's Hospital, all are in the city, but they have often been described, so I pa.s.s them by with only this mention. The first frame house ever erected in the Islands deserves a word, as it was sent out from Boston for the missionaries. It had two stories, and in the early days its tiny rooms were made to shelter four mission families and twenty-two native children, who were their pupils.

Oahu College, too, interested us. It was built on the land given by Chief Boki to Hiram Bingham, one of the earliest missionaries, who donated it to his coworkers as a site for a school for missionary children. The buildings stand in a beautiful park of ninety acres, in which are superb royal palms and the finest algaroba trees in Honolulu.

Long ago, in the days of the rush for gold to California, boys were sent there for an education from the Pacific Coast.

The great aquarium at Waikiki, the bathing suburb of Honolulu, I found particularly fascinating. There does not exist in the world an aquarium with fishes more peculiar in form or colouring than those at Waikiki, unless the new one in the Philippines now surpa.s.ses it. About five hundred varieties of fish are to be found in the vicinity of the Islands. The fish are of many curious shapes and all the colours of the rainbow. Some have long, swordlike noses, and others have fins on their backs that look like feathers. One called the "bridal veil" has a lovely filmy appendage trailing through the water. The unusual shapes of the bodies, the extraordinary eyes and the fine colouring give many of them a lively and comical appearance. Even the octopus, the many-armed sea creature, seemed wide awake and gazed at the onlookers through his gla.s.s window.

An afternoon was spent in the Bishop Museum, which is very fine and well equipped, its collection covering all the Pacific islands. I was chiefly interested in the Hawaiian curios,--the finely woven mats of gra.s.s work and the implements of the old days. Here, too, was the famous royal cloak of orange, made of feathers from the _mamo_ bird.[1] It was a work of prodigious labour, covering a hundred years. This robe is one of the most gorgeous things I have ever seen and is valued at a million dollars. There were others of lemon yellow and of reds, besides the plumed insignia of office, called _kahili_, which were carried before the king. Our guide through the museum was the curator, Professor Brigham, who had made it the greatest inst.i.tution of its kind in the world.

This museum is a memorial, created by her husband, to Bernice Pauahi Bishop, great-granddaughter of Kamehameha I and the last descendant of his line. Bernice Pauahi was the daughter of the high chief Paki and the high chieftainess Konia. She was born in 1831, and was adopted in native fashion by Kinau, sister of Kamehameha III, who at that time had no daughters of her own. Her foster sister, Queen Liliuokalani, said of her, "She was one of the most beautiful girls I ever saw."

At nineteen she married an American, Hon. Charles R. Bishop, who was collector of customs in Honolulu at that time. She led a busy life, and used her ability and her wealth to help others. She understood not only her own race but also foreigners, and she used her influence in bringing about a good understanding between them.

In 1883, the year before her death, she bequeathed her fortune to found the Kamehameha School for Hawaiian boys and girls. This school has now a fine group of stone buildings not far from Honolulu.

The Lunalilo Home was founded by the king of that name for aged Hawaiians. When we visited it, we were particularly interested in one old native who was familiar with the use of the old-time musical instruments. This man, named Keanonako, was still alive two years ago.

He was taught by his grandfather, who was retained by one of the old chiefs. He played on three primitive instruments--a conch sh.e.l.l, a jew's-harp and a nose flute. The last is made of bamboo, and is open at one end with three perforations; the thumb of the left hand is placed against the left nostril, closing it. The flute is held like a clarinet, and the fingers are used to operate it. Keanonako played the different notes of the birds of the forest, and really gave us a lovely imitation.

The musical instruments in use to-day are the guitar, the mandolin, and the _ukulele_. The native Hawaiians are very musical and sing and play well, but the music is now greatly mixed with American and European airs.

It was always entertaining to drive in the park, where we listened to the band and watched the women on horseback. In those days the native women rode astride wonderfully well and looked very dignified and stately, but one does not see this superb horsemanship and the old costumes any more. They did indeed make a fine appearance, with the _paus_, long flowing scarfs of gay colours, which some of them wore floating over their knees and almost reaching the ground, while their horses curvetted and pranced.

One of the amus.e.m.e.nts was to go down to the dock to see a steamer off and watch the pretty custom of decorating those who went away with _leis_--wreaths of flowers--which were placed around the neck till the travelers looked like moving bouquets and the whole ship at last became a garden. When large steamers sailed the whole town went to the wharf, and the famous Royal Hawaiian Band--which Captain Berger, a German, led for forty years--played native airs for an hour before the time of sailing. It was an animated and pretty sight at the dock, for the natives are so fond of flowers that they, too, wear leis continually as bands around their hats, and they bring and send them as presents and in compliment. Steamers arriving at the port were welcomed in the same charming fashion.

Judge Widemann kindly asked us to dine and view his wonderful hedge of night-blooming cereus. The good old Judge who had married the Princess had three daughters; two of the girls were married to two brothers, who were Americans. All the daughters were attractive, and the youngest, who was the wife of a German, was remarkably pretty. It was strange at first to see brown-skinned people in low-necked white satin dinner gowns, and to find them so cultured and charming.

We dined with Mr. and Mrs. Castle, also with old Mrs. Macfarlane at Waikiki. We enjoyed our evening there immensely. Sam Parker, "the prince of the natives," and Paul Neumann, and Mrs. Wilder, too, all great characters in those days, were very kind to us. Many of them have pa.s.sed away, but I shall always remember them as we knew them in those happy honeymoon months.

All the mystic spell of those tropical evenings at Waikiki lives in these lines by Rupert Brooke: