Wanderings in the Orient Part 5

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLAZA DE SANTO TOMAS.]

When tired of shopping or sight-seeing one may wander into a nearby church or rest in some public park or square, such as the Plaza de Santo Tomas. Many of these old squares are exceedingly picturesque and attractive.

The different sections of the city are given distinct names, as though they were separate towns, but they are separated by imaginary lines only. In one of the more residential of these sections is the great Manila General Hospital, an up-to-date, modern plant; nearby is the main part of the University of the Philippines, whose students, it is said, compare quite favorably with the average college students of America. In this same neighborhood is also the main part of the Philippine Bureau of Science, where trained chemists, geologists, botanists, zoologists, bacteriologists, engineers, and other scientific experts are engaged in numerous lines of investigation of importance to the welfare of the islands. Most of these experts have, in the past, been drawn from the United States, as have the professors in the University. Just what will be the condition of affairs in these high-grade inst.i.tutions when the islands are entirely under native control is somewhat problematic.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAIN BUILDING OF THE UNIVERSITY OF THE PHILIPPINES.]

While the hotels are not numerous in Manila one may secure the best of modern service by going to the Manila Hotel, down on the water-front, just off the great promenade and playground known as the Lunetta, where everybody goes at night to see everybody else and to listen to the band.

Or one may see more of the native, especially the Spanish, life of the town by stopping at the Hotel de Spain, in the heart of the town, just off the Escolta. Here one may be quite, if not luxuriously, comfortable at a much more reasonable rate, and may enjoy watching the Spanish and other foreign guests of the hotel instead of the usual crowd of military and other well-dressed Americans that frequent the Manila Hotel.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAIN BUILDING OF THE PHILIPPINE BUREAU OF SCIENCE.]

Although the population of Manila largely adheres to the Roman Catholic Church, many of the Protestant denominations have churches of their own, and a flourishing Y. M. C. A., with a fine, modern building, is available for the men of the city.

Life in such a town is certainly very attractive, and there is a charm about the place that makes one wish to return; but it is a long, long way from home and from many of the things that may be had only in the greater countries of Europe and America.

IX. A PACIFIC PARADISE, HONOLULU.

The long voyage to or from the Orient is delightfully interrupted by the stop at Honolulu, capital of the Hawaiian Islands, about 2,100 miles southwest of San "Francisco. This interesting group of volcanic islands named in 1778 by their discoverer, Jas. Cook, the Sandwich Islands after the Earl of Sandwich, then Lord of the British Admiralty, is said to be the most isolated group of inhabited islands in the world. It is possible that the real discoverer of the islands was not Jas. Cook, but a Spanish seaman named Juan Gaetano, who sighted them in 1555. Cook and his men were treated as supernatural beings and worshiped by the superst.i.tious natives as G.o.ds, until the death of one of the sailors showed that they were mere mortals; and in 1779, by their overbearing conduct, the Englishmen came into conflict with the irate natives and Jas. Cook was killed. "His body was taken to a _heiau_ or temple; the flesh was removed from the bones and burned, and the bones were tied up with red feathers and deified. Parts of the body were recovered, however, and committed to the deep with military honors, and a part of the bones were kept in the temple of Lono and worshiped until 1819, when they were concealed in some secret place. A monument erected by his fellow countrymen now marks the place where he fell on the sh.o.r.es of Kealakekua."

In 1893 the queen was deposed and a provisional government was established, to be succeeded, in 1894, by the Republic of Hawaii. In 1900, by an act of Congress, the Hawaiian Islands became a territory of the United States. Of the one hundred and ninety and odd thousands of inhabitants of the islands, in 1910, nearly eighty thousand were j.a.panese. The native Hawaiians come next in point of numbers and are the most interesting people to the average tourist. Though dark-skinned, they are quite different in appearance from the negro, and many of the young men and women are decidedly good-looking.

As the vessel enters the beautiful harbor, with the city of Honolulu spread out along the sh.o.r.e and the mountains rising abruptly in the immediate background, the well-formed young men and boys are seen alongside in the water or in native boats, ready to dive for the coins that the pa.s.sengers seem always ready to throw to them. These amphibious people, like most of those in the tropics, are perfectly at home in the water and seem never to tire, no matter how far they may go to meet the incoming vessels, as they slowly wind their way through the tortuous channels among the treacherous coral reefs.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DIAMOND HEAD, A FORTIFIED EXTINCT VOLCANO.

At the entrance to the harbor of Honolulu.]

To the south of the entrance to the harbor, which it guards with batteries of concealed cannon and mortars, is the extinct volcanic mountain known as Diamond Head, shown from the land side in the picture.

A gra.s.s-covered, bowl-shaped crater of perhaps half a mile diameter may be entered through a tunnel on the land side, where Fort Ruger is situated. The rim of the crater, which is only a few hundred feet high, may be easily scaled and in most places affords easy walking and a fine view of the harbor. In the higher portion of the rim, seen in the right of the photograph, is a heavy battery of big guns, concealed in pa.s.sages in the solid rock, that could probably protect the entrance of the harbor below from any ordinary fleet. Visitors are not allowed to see these rock-hidden batteries, whose existence would never be suspected from the smooth, apparently unbroken surface of the rock as seen from the harbor.

Like many other beautiful places, Hawaii is said to have the "most perfect climate in the world." Add to this wonderful climate and beautiful scenery, of sea and mountains combined, the fact that there is supposed to be not a snake nor a poisonous plant nor an insect worse than bees in all the islands, it would seem that this is truly a paradise, without even the serpent to cause trouble.

For the tourist there are excellent hotels and all the conveniences of a continental city, and amus.e.m.e.nts of sufficient variety to suit the most blase. For those who are merely stopping off for a day on the way to or from more distant ports it is hard to decide which of the many interesting places to visit. If it be his first visit, the mere city streets with the royal palms and other magnificent trees, the stores, the cosmopolitan crowds and other strange sights and sounds will be fascinating. A drive to the Punchbowl, the Poli, or more distant points, may be taken in a few hours, while if interested in natural history the gorgeous fishes and other marine forms to be seen at the Aquarium will be a revelation to one accustomed only to the life of the temperate zone.

At the Bishop Museum the natural history, ethnology, etc., of the islands may be studied in a synoptic form. It is here that the famous war-cloak of Kamehameha I is on exhibition. It is a truly wonderful garment, four feet long, with a spread of ten feet or more at the bottom. It is made of the yellow feathers of the mama bird, and when it is realized that each bird furnishes but two small tufts of feathers, one under each wing, it will be imagined how many thousands of these small birds were sacrificed to make this one robe. It is valued at $150,000. It is carefully protected from dust and light but is exhibited to visitors to the museum.

In the cool of the evening, when tired from a day of sight-seeing, the traveler may listen to the Honolulu Band, on some public square. It is composed of native musicians, but the instruments are those of the ordinary American bra.s.s band, and but for the cosmopolitan character of the audience one might imagine himself in a city of southern California or some other subtropical part of the United States.

Besides having the most equable climate in the world Honolulu claims the most perfect bathing-resort on earth, Waikiki Beach. The water is certainly all that could be desired, but the not infrequent sharp ma.s.ses of coral that project up through the white sand of the otherwise perfect beach are decidedly objectionable, and the writer cut a gash in his foot, by stepping on one of these pieces of coral, that was many days in healing.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ROYAL PALMS, HONOLULU.]

Another of the points of interest in the city is the Royal Mausoleum, where are the bodies of many of the royalty of the Hawaiian dynasties.

The Hawaiian alphabet consists of but twelve letters, and the preponderance of vowels in many words seems remarkable to an English-speaking person. For example one of the bodies in the Royal Mausoleum is that of "Kaiminaauao, sister of Queen Kalakaua"; it will be noticed that eight of the eleven letters in this name are vowels. In this Mausoleum doubtless now rest the remains of Liliuokalani, the last queen of Hawaii, who was deposed in 1893 for attempting to force a less liberal const.i.tution upon the people. She married an American and twice visited the United States, after his death.

If time permit, and the pocketbook too, most interesting side trips to the other islands of the group may be made, especially to the active volcano, Mauna Loa, 13,760 feet high, with Kilauea on its eastern slope, situated on the Island of Hawaii.

While the Hawaiian Islands may not be as perfect as they are advertised, they nevertheless give a very fair imitation of Paradise, and a better place in which to rest and enjoy nature in her kindest moods would be hard to find.