The Nuhou Is Scurrilous And Diverting, And Appears "Run" With A Special Object, Which I Have Not As Yet Succeeded In Unravelling From Its Pungent But Not Always Intelligible Pages.

I think perhaps the writing in each paper has something of the American tendency to hysteria and convulsions, though these maladies are mild as compared with the "real thing" in the Alta California, which is largely taken here.

Besides these there are monthly sheets called The Friend, the oldest paper in the Pacific, edited by good "Father Damon," and the Church Messenger, edited by Bishop Willis, partly devotional and partly devoted to the Honolulu Mission. All our popular American and English literature is read here, and I have hardly seen a table without "Scribner's" or "Harper's Monthly" or "Good Words."

I have lived far too much in America to feel myself a stranger where, as here, American influence and customs are dominant; but the English who are in Honolulu just now, in transitu from New Zealand, complain bitterly of its "Yankeeism," and are very far from being at home, and I doubt not that Mr. M - -, whom you will see, will not confirm my favourable description. It is quite true that the islands are Americanized, and with the exception of the Finance Minister, who is a Scotchman, Americans "run" the Government and fill the Chief Justiceship and other high offices of State. It is, however, perfectly fair, for Americans have civilized and Christianized Hawaii-nei, and we have done little except make an unjust and afterwards disavowed seizure of the islands.

On looking over this letter I find it an olla podrida of tropical glories, royal festivities, finance matters, and odds and ends in general. I dare say you will find it dull after my letters from Hawaii, but there are others who will prefer its prosaic details to Kilauea and Waimanu; and I confess that, amidst the general lusciousness of tropical life, I myself enjoy the dryness and tartness of statistics, and hard uncoloured facts. I.L.B.

LETTER XIX.

HAWAIIAN HOTEL, HONOLULU.

My latest news of you is five months old, and though I have not the slightest expectation that I shall hear from you, I go up to the roof to look out for the "Rolling Moses" with more impatience and anxiety than those whose business journeys are being delayed by her non-arrival. If such an unlikely thing were to happen as that she were to bring a letter, I should be much tempted to stay five months longer on the islands rather than try the climate of Colorado, for I have come to feel at home, people are so very genial, and suggest so many plans for my future enjoyment, the islands in their physical and social aspects are so novel and interesting, and the climate is unrivalled and restorative.

Honolulu has not yet lost the charm of novelty for me. I am never satiated with its exotic beauties, and the sight of a kaleidoscopic whirl of native riders is always fascinating. The passion for riding, in a people who only learned equitation in the last generation, is most curious. It is very curious, too, to see women incessantly enjoying and amusing themselves in riding, swimming, and making leis. They have few home ties in the shape of children, and I fear make them fewer still by neglecting them for the sake of riding and frolic, and man seems rather the help-meet than the "oppressor" of woman; though I believe that the women have abandoned that right of choosing their husbands, which, it is said, that they exercised in the old days. Used to the down-trodden look and harrassed care-worn faces of the over-worked women of the same class at home, and in the colonies, the laughing, careless faces of the Hawaiian women have the effect upon me of a perpetual marvel. But the expression generally has little of the courteousness, innocence, and childishness of the negro physiognomy. The Hawaiians are a handsome people, scornful and sarcastic-looking even with their mirthfulness; and those who know them say that they are always quizzing and mimicking the haoles, and that they give everyone a nickname, founded on some personal peculiarity.

The women are free from our tasteless perversity as to colour and ornament, and have an instinct of the becoming. At first the holuku, which is only a full, yoke nightgown, is not attractive, but I admire it heartily now, and the sagacity of those who devised it. It conceals awkwardness, and befits grace of movement; it is fit for the climate, is equally adapted for walking and riding, and has that general appropriateness which is desirable in costume. The women have a most peculiar walk, with a swinging motion from the hip at each step, in which the shoulder sympathises. I never saw anything at all like it. It has neither the delicate shuffle of the Frenchwoman, the robust, decided jerk of the Englishwoman, the stately glide of the Spaniard, or the stealthiness of the squaw; and I should know a Hawaiian woman by it in any part of the world. A majestic wahine with small, bare feet, a grand, swinging, deliberate gait, hibiscus blossoms in her flowing hair, and a le of yellow flowers falling over her holuku, marching through these streets, has a tragic grandeur of appearance, which makes the diminutive, fair- skinned haole, tottering along hesitatingly in high-heeled shoes, look grotesque by comparison.

On Saturday, our kind host took Mrs. D. and myself to the market, where we saw the natives in all their glory. The women, in squads of a dozen at a time, their Pa-us streaming behind them, were cantering up and down the streets, and men and women were thronging into the market-place; a brilliant, laughing, joking crowd, their jaunty hats trimmed with fresh flowers, and leis of the crimson ohia and orange lauhala falling over their costumes, which were white, green, black, scarlet, blue, and every other colour that can be dyed or imagined.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 72 of 125
Words from 72619 to 73631 of 127766