The Strongest Of All Is, That If We Were To Stay Here For A Year, We Should Just Sit Down "Between The Sun And Moon Upon The Shore," And Forget "Our Island Home," And Be Content To Fall "Asleep In A Half Dream," And "Return No More!"

Of course you will have gathered from my letters that there are very many advantages here.

Indeed, the mosquitoes of the leeward coast, to whose attacks one becomes inured in a few months, are the only physical drawback. The open-air life is most conducive to health, and the climate is absolutely perfect, owing to its equability and purity. Whether the steady heat of Honolulu, the languid airs of Hilo, the balmy breezes of Onomea, the cool bluster of Waimea, or the odorous stillness of Kona, it is always the same. The grim gloom of our anomalous winters, the harsh malignant winds of our springs, and the dismal rains and overpowering heats of our summers, have no counterpart in the endless spring-time of Hawaii.

Existence here is unclogged and easy, a small income goes a long way, and the simplicity, refinement, kindliness, and sociability of the foreign residents, render society very pleasant. The life here is truer, simpler, kinder, and happier than ours. The relation between the foreign and native population is a kindly and happy one, and the natives, in spite of their faults, are a most friendly and pleasant people to live among. With a knowledge of their easily- acquired language, they would be a ceaseless source of interest, and every white resident can have the satisfaction of helping them in their frequent distresses and illnesses.

The sense of security is a very special charm, and one enjoys it as well in lonely native houses, and solitary days and nights of travelling, as in the foreign homes, which are never locked throughout the year. There are no burglarious instincts to dread, and there is no such thing as "a broken sleep of fear beneath the stars." The person and property of a white man are everywhere secure, and a white woman is sure of unvarying respect and kindness.

There are no inevitable hardships. The necessaries, and even the luxuries of civilization can be obtained everywhere, and postal communication with America is now regular and rapid.

When I began this letter, a long procession of counterbalancing disadvantages passed through my mind, but they become "beautifully less" as I set them down in black and white. If I put gossip first, it is because I seriously think that it is the canker of the foreign society on the islands. Its extent and universality are grotesque and amusing to a stranger, but to live in it, and share in it, and learn to enjoy it, would be both lowering and hurtful, and you can hardly be long here without being drawn into its vortex. By GOSSIP I don't mean scandal or malignant misrepresentations, or reports of petty strifes, intrigues, and jealousies, such as are common in all cliques and communities, but nuhou, mere tattle, the perpetual talking about people, and the picking to tatters of every item of personal detail, whether gathered from fact or imagination.

A great deal of this is certainly harmless, and in some measure arises from the intimate friendly relations which exist between the scattered families, but over-indulgence in it destroys the privacy of individual existence, and is deteriorating in more ways than one. From the north of Kauai to the south of Hawaii, everybody knows every other body's affairs, income, expenditure, sales, purchases, debts, furniture, clothing, comings, goings, borrowings, lendings, letters, correspondents, and every thing else: and when there is nothing new to relate on any one of these prolific subjects, supposed intentions afford abundant matter for speculation. All gossip is focussed here, being imported from every other district, and re-exported, with additions and embellishments, by every inter- island mail. The ingenuity with which nuhou is circulated is worthy of a better cause.

Some disadvantages arise from the presence on the islands of heterogeneous and ill-assorted nationalities. The Americans, of course, predominate, and even those who are Hawaiian born, have, as elsewhere, a strongly national feeling. The far smaller English community hangs together in a somewhat cliquish fashion, and possibly cherishes a latent grudge against the Americans for their paramount influence in island affairs. The German residents, as everywhere, are cliquish too. Then, since the establishment of the Honolulu Mission, church feeling has run rather high, and here, as elsewhere, has a socially divisive tendency. Then there are drink and anti-drink, pro and anti-missionary, and pro and anti- reciprocity-treaty parties, and various other local naggings of no interest to you.

The civilization is exotic, and owing to various circumstances, the government and constitution are too experimental and provisional in their nature, and possess too few elements of permanence to engross the profound interest of the foreign residents, although for reasons of policy they are well inclined to sustain a barbaric throne. In spite of a king and court, and titles and officials without number, and uniforms stiff with gold lace, and Royal dinner parties with menus printed on white silk, Americans, Republicans in feeling, really "run" the government, and in state affairs there is a taint of that combination of obsequious and flippant vulgarity, which none deplore more deeply than the best among the Americans themselves.

It is a decided misfortune to a community to be divided in its national leanings, and to have no great fusing interests within or without itself, such as those which knit vigorous Victoria to the mother country, or distant Oregon to the heart of the Republic at Washington. Except sugar and dollars, one rarely hears any subject spoken about with general interest. The downfall of an administration in England, or any important piece of national legislation, arouses almost no interest in American society here, and the English are ostentatiously apathetic regarding any piece of intelligence specially absorbing to Americans.

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