Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania Part 25

The larger islands are great domes of lava built up by volcanic eruptions; many of the smaller ones are coral formations, and all are fringed with coral reefs. Dense forests of tropical vegetation cover the larger islands. Cocoanut and other palms are everywhere to be found. A species of pine, much like the kauri pine of New Zealand, grows on the larger islands. Among the forest trees are also several kinds of tree-ferns and a tree-nettle. When the pointed leaves of the latter p.r.i.c.k the skin they sting the flesh as badly as does a wasp.

The English have done well by both the islands and the islanders. They have made the islands yield a good yearly profit to the government itself, but they have also made the natives industrious and contented.

When the first British settlements were made in Fiji, the islanders were in a most degraded condition. They did no work except to grow a few yams, bananas, and breadfruit. Their chief employment was war, and this was carried on, not for conquest, but to capture as many as possible. A few captives were held as slaves, but most of them were fattened--to be killed and eaten at the royal feasts.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Native canoe, Fiji Islands]

Notwithstanding all this there was the making of a very superior people in them; for when the missionaries and the teachers got among them the natives proved very apt pupils. Now there are more than twelve hundred church buildings--and a school-house or two for every church. Some of the ministers and teachers are English, but there are about four thousand native teachers and ministers, nearly all of whom were trained for their work in the island schools.

They are fine farmers, probably the best in the islands of the Pacific.

They grow bananas, pineapples, peanuts, and lemons for the Australians, copra and tobacco for the British, and rice, taro, and garden vegetables for themselves. They have learned to irrigate their farms, using open ditches and bamboo mains. They make the finest canoes to be found in the Pacific. Some of the canoes are barges nearly one hundred feet in length; and not even the Hawaiians are more expert in using them.

Not a little profit to the islanders comes from the sea. They are expert divers and gather large quant.i.ties of pearl sh.e.l.ls, which find a ready market with the b.u.t.ton-makers of Europe. Fish are caught, dried, and sold in China. One sea product, the beche-de-mer, a marine animal commonly called "sea-cuc.u.mber," is highly prized by the Chinese, who use large quant.i.ties; most of it is gathered by the Fijians.

Sugar, however, is the chief product of the islands, and the sugar plantations are owned by great companies that have invested millions of pounds sterling in the business. The plantations altogether produce more than three million dollars' worth of sugar yearly. The native islanders will not work in the sugar fields; so coolies from India were brought to the islands to work on the plantations.

Suva (Viti Levu), and Leonka (Ovalu), the two largest towns, are much like European cities, except that the houses are low and have large yards filled with shade trees and flowers. In the native villages the dwellings are much like those in Samoa, though a trifle better, perhaps.

The side walls are covered with plaited reeds, and the roof is thatched with palm leaves securely fastened. In the lowlands it is customary to build a platform of rock upon which the house stands and into which the foundation poles are set. This is done for two reasons: when a typhoon sweeps over the islands, the lowland coast is sometimes flooded; moreover, the wind blows with such terrific force that none but the most strongly built house will withstand it.

In the centre of the floor is a pit, or fireplace, much like the cooking-place one sees in Samoa or in Hawaii. Chickens and pieces of meat to be roasted are hung from a frame over the pit. Yams and other vegetables are boiled in earthen vessels which the native potters make.

The floors are covered with closely woven mats; and in order to keep them clean an earthen vessel filled with water is kept outside so that whoever enters the house may bathe his feet. Inasmuch as the natives go barefoot one may see the usefulness of this custom.

Great Britain has many islands in this part of the Pacific; Gilbert, Ellice, Tonga, Cook, and some of the Solomon group all fly the Union Jack. There is an English governor, or "High Commissioner," as he is styled, who looks after British affairs in the islands. In Fiji he is the real governor, but in many of the islands native chiefs and kings govern their peoples about as they please, provided they do not interfere with British interests.

CHAPTER XXIX

THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS

Almost midway between the United States and China a mountain chain more than three thousand miles long crosses the tropic of Cancer. Only the highest peaks, however, reach above sea level; most of the range is fathoms deep in the waters of the Pacific. The eastern end of this great chain const.i.tutes the Hawaiian group of islands, or the Territory of Hawaii.

Altogether they are pretty nearly as large as the State of New Jersey, or five times the size of Rhode Island. All the islands are very rugged in surface--steep and high cliffs, deep valleys and canyons, and stupendous craters that have vomited great floods of lava. A little way from sh.o.r.e the Pacific has some of its deepest beds. If the sea could be removed the island of Hawaii would be a great dome five miles high.

The coral polyps have added their mite to the building of these islands, and coral reefs are the foundation of the coast plain that surrounds a considerable part of the girth of each.

An equable climate throughout the year, a soft and balmy air, brilliant coloring on bush and tree, magnificent pictures of sea and sky, and of mountain and plain, make the islands a veritable paradise.

It is thought that these islands were peopled by Samoan natives about the year 600, and that subsequently their number was augmented by emigrants from the Fiji and other southern islands. At first there was plenty of land for all, but as their number increased, quarrels arose.

Each island had its king or chief and some of the larger islands had two or more. The result was a condition very much like the feudal system; each king had petty chiefs, and these, in turn, their retainers, who were little better than slaves. Priests, who ranked equal to the petty chiefs, directed their pagan worship and occasionally made human sacrifices.

The kings were pretty apt to be at war with one another most of the time, but, about forty years before the American Revolution, there came a great soldier and leader, Kamehameha I. By the aid of European weapons and the counsel of foreign friends, he overcame his rivals and brought all the islands under his sway.

The Hawaiian Islands were made known to the rest of the world when that plucky English sailor, Captain James Cook, was making his third and last great voyage of discovery, in which he had set out to find the famous and tragic northwest pa.s.sage. On a roundabout way to Bering Strait, he called at the islands which seemed very attractive to him.

Perhaps it is not quite right to say that he discovered them, for it seems very probable that the Spanish explorer Gaetano discovered them in 1555.

[Ill.u.s.tration: General view of Volcano House, Kilauea, Hawaii]

It was 1789 when Cook first visited the islands, and after he had continued his voyage through Bering Strait, and had failed to find the northwest pa.s.sage, he turned about and sailed for the islands. While ash.o.r.e with a part of his crew at a landing that is now the village of Kealakekua, one of the ship's boats was stolen by natives.

Now Cook had learned to manage South Sea islanders in a very practical, though not the most tactful, way. When trouble occurred he used to send out a strong landing party, seize the king or chief and take him aboard the vessel--a proceeding which usually brought the natives to terms.

But at this particular time the landing party was driven to the boats and Cook was killed.

The group of islands was first named after Lord Sandwich, a patron and friend of Cook. At the time of Cook's discovery of the long-forgotten islands it was estimated that their population was not far from four hundred thousand. Missionaries went to the islands early in the nineteenth century and their reports brought many Americans and Europeans who settled there permanently. Then the chief business of the islands was the ordinary trade with the many whaling vessels that were in the Pacific.

For a time the islands were under the protection of Great Britain; then they became an independent kingdom. When it was found that the lava fields made the best sugar-growing soil in the world, American capital came in millions of dollars to be invested in great plantations of sugar cane.

Trouble between the queen and American business interests became so serious in time that the queen was dethroned and the Republic of Hawaii was established. The republic was short-lived, however; for when the Spanish-American war occurred, it was seen that Hawaii is the key to the Pacific Ocean. The Hawaiians, foreigners and natives, had long wished to become a part of the United States. So the islands were annexed and shortly became the Territory of Hawaii.

There are six large islands--Hawaii, Maui, Oahu, Kauai, Molokai, and Lanai. There are many small outlying islets, most of which are not inhabited. Wireless telegraph stations connect the princ.i.p.al islands; an ocean cable ties the Territory to San Francisco; and steamship lines carry on commerce with British, j.a.panese, and American ports. Even the railway-builder has not forgotten Hawaii, for there are not far from two hundred miles of railroad, about half of which carry the products of the sugar and coffee plantations to the near-by ports.

Hawaii, the largest island, is famous for its great volcanoes, Kea, Loa, and Kilauea. From the village or city of Hilo comfortable coaches take visitors over a fine road clear to the crater of Kilauea. At times one may stand on the edge of Kilauea's rampart and look down on a lake of white-hot, molten lava three miles long and half as wide. Every now and then bubbles of gas or steam come to the surface and exploding send long threads of viscous lava into the air. Some of the gla.s.sy threads are fine as the finest silk and a blast of air carries them off to the cliff; Pele's hair, they call it, and the sea-gulls gather it to make their nests.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A lake of white-hot molten lava. The volcano of Mauna-Loa, Hawaii]

The highest points of Hawaii island are nearly fourteen thousand feet above sea level. Below the line of about ten thousand feet easterly winds bring an abundance of rain; above that line westerly winds bring occasional showers and snow squalls. As a result one may find places only a few miles apart, one of which has almost daily rains while the other gets none at all along the lowland coasts.

Oahu is the best-known island because of Honolulu, the capital of the Territory. A most beautiful city it is; indeed, there is nothing elsewhere to surpa.s.s it in attractiveness--wide streets, beautiful parks, flower gardens of wonderful plants, fine dwellings, electric street cars, good government, and schools that are famous. All these things make Honolulu one of the most desirable and attractive cities of homes anywhere in the world.

Just back of Honolulu is a volcanic peak with its great crater--the "Punch Bowl," they call it, because of its shape. As one looks down from the rim of the Punch Bowl the city is half hidden among its palms and algeroba trees. Above the trees are the domes and turrets of the National Palace, the government building, and the school-houses. In the distance here and there are the great plantations--sugar, rice, and banana.

In the city streets one will see the people of many lands--Germans, English, Americans, native Hawaiians, Chinese, j.a.panese, Koreans, Malays, and Hindoos. Many of the native Hawaiians are rich and prosperous; some are in business, and others are in professional life.

Many of the Chinese are well-to-do merchants. The Hindoos, Malays, and j.a.panese were brought to Hawaii to work in the great plantations.

In the native villages one will frequently find a little church building and almost always the district school. Perhaps there may also be a Chinese store. Black-eyed children are running about dressed in long gowns, and some of them carry little bundles of school-books, each tied with stout cord or a leather strap.

The Hawaiians will not work in the sugar and the rice fields, and not many will stand the easier labor on the coffee plantations. In cultivating their little patches of bananas, breadfruit, ca.s.sava, and taro, however, they are pretty industrious. When the time of the royal feast comes, the natives, or "Kanakas," as they call themselves, get busy. The feast certainly is a royal one. Roast pig and roast chicken are smoking in a dozen dirt ovens. There are steaming yams and sweet potatoes by the bushel, great piles of all sorts of fruit--and poi. All the rest of the food is commonplace; poi is _the_ dish. It is one-finger poi, two-finger poi, or three-finger poi, according as it is thick enough to be lifted out of the pot sticking to one finger, or so thin as to require a dextrous swish of two or three.

Waikiki is the great resort of Honolulu. There is the finest of bathing the year round; and what is more interesting, the native surf swimmers.

With a piece of plank just large enough to support his weight in the water, the bather swims out to the reef in still water. Then he, or she--for young girls are most expert swimmers--makes for open water, where the combers are forming. Then, lying flat, bather and plank are borne along on the swift rolling surf until both are tossed high on the beach.

The aquarium is famous for its unique collection of fish and marine animals; it is one of the finest in the world. Near by is the race course and amphitheatre. What is still better is the winding road through ferns and flowers that leads to the crater rampart, Diamond Hill.

Half a dozen miles west of Honolulu one goes by rail around the sh.o.r.e of Pearl Lochs, or Harbor. Pearl Harbor is large enough and deep enough to float all the warships Uncle Sam will ever own, and the possession of this magnificent site for a naval station was a very strong inducement to annex Hawaii.

Less than one hundred miles away, at Kalaupapa, on the island of Molokai, is the leper settlement. Years ago Chinese settlers brought the disease to Hawaii; then the natives began to be stricken, and when it was found that leprosy was spreading, the lepers were sent to Molokai.

For many years they had but little care; the government fed and clothed the poor victims and that was about all.

In 1873 Father Damien, a plucky Catholic priest, went to Molokai and thereby made himself practically a prisoner for life. Father Damien procured physicians, trained nurses, and the best possible care for the lepers, and they could at least die in comfort if they could not live.

Then Father Damien himself was stricken and died. By this time, however, the government took the matter in hand. A fine hospital was built and a laboratory for the study of the disease was established. Those who are able to work can partly support themselves, and they are far better off when busy than when idle.

In 1848 the "Great Division" took place; that is, the lands for the king, for the public domain, and for the people were set aside, so that the people who so desired could own their farms and dwellings. At that time the islands were important only as a calling place for whaling vessels. At the present time Dame Nature is made to yield annually not far from one hundred million dollars' worth of products--sugar, rice, coffee, fruit, and cattle. A few years hence, tobacco, rubber, cotton, and honey will be added to the list of exported products.

Americans own the sugar plantations, which are mainly on the lava fields of Hawaii, Oahu, and Maui Islands. The Chinese and j.a.panese cultivate the rice along the coast lowlands of Oahu and Kauai. Sheep and cattle are grown on Lanai and Niihau.

Uncle Sam has brought some very valuable additions to his public domain, but no investment has paid better than Hawaii, the Paradise of the Pacific.