The Hawaiian Archipelago - Six Months Among The Palm Groves, Coral Reefs, And Volcanoes Of The Sandwich Islands By Isabella L. Bird
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These Are Indeed The "Isles Of Eden," The "Sun Lands," Musical
With Beauty.
They seem to welcome us to their enchanted shores.
Everything is new but nothing strange; for as I enjoyed the purple
night, I remembered that I had seen such islands in dreams in the
cold gray North.
"How sweet," I thought it would be, thus to hear
far off, the low sweet murmur of the "sparkling brine," to rest, and
"Ever to seem
Falling asleep in a half-dream."
A half-dream only, for one would not wish to be quite asleep and
lose the consciousness of this delicious outer world. So I thought
one moment. The next I heard a droning, humming sound, which
certainly was not the surf upon the reef. It came nearer - there
could be no mistake. I felt a stab, and found myself the centre of
a swarm of droning, stabbing, malignant mosquitoes. No, even this
is not paradise! I am ashamed to say that on my first night in
Honolulu I sought an early refuge from this intolerable infliction,
in profound and prosaic sleep behind mosquito curtains.
I.L.B.
LETTER III.
HAWAIIAN HOTEL, Jan. 28th.
Sunday was a very pleasant day here. Church bells rang, and the
shady streets were filled with people in holiday dress. There are
two large native churches, the Kaumakapili, and the Kaiwaiaho,
usually called the stone church. The latter is an immense
substantial building, for the erection of which each Christian
native brought a block of rock-coral. There is a large Roman
Catholic church, the priests of which are said to have been somewhat
successful in proselytizing operations. The Reformed Catholic, or
English temporary cathedral, is a tasteful but very simple wooden
building, standing in pretty grounds, on which a very useful
institution for boarding and training native and half-white girls,
and the reception of white girls as day scholars, also stands. This
is in connection with Miss Sellon's Sisterhood at Devonport.
Another building, alongside the cathedral, is used for English
service in Hawaiian. There are two Congregational churches: the
old "Bethel," of which the Rev. S. C. Damon, known to all strangers,
and one of the oldest and most respected Honolulu residents, is the
minister; and the "Fort St. Church," which has a large and
influential congregation, and has been said to "run the government,"
because its members compose the majority of the Cabinet. Lunalilo,
the present king, has cast in his lot with the Congregationalists,
but Queen Emma is an earnest member of the Anglican Church, and
attends the Liturgical Hawaiian Service in order to throw the weight
of her influence with the natives into the scale of that communion.
Her husband spent many of his later days in translating the Prayer-
Book. As is natural, most of the natives belong to the denomination
from which they or their fathers received the Christian faith, and
the majority of the foreigners are of the same persuasion. The New
England Puritan influence, with its rigid Sabbatarianism, though
considerably worn away, is still influential enough to produce a
general appearance of Sabbath observance.
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