It has taken
to convert its hard basalt into the rich soil which now sustains
trees of enormous size. If this theory be correct, the volcanoes
must have gone on dying out from west to east, from north to south,
till only Kilauea remains, and its energies appear to be declining.
The central mountain of this island is built of a heavy ferruginous
basalt, but the shore ridges contain less iron, are more porous, and
vary in their structure from a compact phonolite, to a ponderous
basalt.
The population of Kauai is a widely scattered one of 4,900, and as
it is an out of the world region the people are probably better, and
less sophisticated. They are accounted rustics, or "pagans," in the
classical sense, elsewhere. Horses are good and very cheap, and the
natives of both sexes are most expert riders. Among their feats,
are picking up small coins from the ground while going at full
gallop, or while riding at the same speed wringing off the heads of
unfortunate fowls, whose bodies are buried in the earth.
There are very few foreigners, and they appear on the whole a good
set, and very friendly among each other. Many of them are actively
interested in promoting the improvement of the natives, but it is
uphill work, and ill-rewarded, at least on earth. The four sugar
plantations employ a good deal of Chinese labour, and I fear that
the Chinamen are stealthily tempting the Hawaiians to smoke opium.
All the world over, however far behind aborigines are in the useful
arts, they exercise a singular ingenuity in devising means for
intoxicating and stupifying themselves. On these islands
distillation is illegal, and a foreigner is liable to conviction and
punishment for giving spirits to a native Hawaiian, yet the natives
contrive to distil very intoxicating drinks, specially from the root
of the ti tree, and as the spirit is unrectified it is both fiery
and unwholesome. Licences to sell spirits are confined to the
capital. In spite of the notoriously bad effect of alcohol in the
tropics, people drink hard, and the number of deaths which can be
distinctly traced to spirit drinking is quite startling.
The prohibition on selling liquor to natives is the subject of
incessant discussions and "interpellations" in the national
legislature. Probably all the natives agree in regarding it as a
badge of the "inferiority of colour;" but I have been told generally
that the most intelligent and thoughtful among them are in favour of
its continuance, on the ground that if additional facilities for
drinking were afforded, the decrease in the population would be
accelerated. In the printed "Parliamentary Proceedings," I see that
petitions are constantly presented praying that the distillation of
spirits may be declared free, while a few are in favour of "total
prohibition." Another prayer is "that Hawaiians may have the same
privileges as white people in buying and drinking spirituous
liquors."
A bill to repeal the invidious distinction was brought into the
legislature not long since; but the influence of the descendants of
the missionaries and of an influential part of the white community
is so strongly against spirit drinking, as well as against the sale
of drink to the natives, that the law remains on the Statute-book.
