Forty Years On The Pacific/Honolulu and Hawaii

by Frank Coffee

Honolulu and Hawaii

HAWAII, the pearl of the Pacific! What a group of islands abounding with romance and beauty! Truly, this is the land of Arcadia, where fauns and dryads and all the other favorites of Pan must disport.

Of course it is not for me to wax eloquent over such a gorgeous place as this, for my eloquence would be puerile when compared with the wonderful word pictures of the islands which have been drawn by many gifted pens. But no book on the Pacific could be complete without some attempt at description and praise being given to the land of the leis, the ukelele, of sugar and pineapple plantations, or of the hundred and one things of interest that lure the tourist to Hawaii with the irresistible force of magic magnets.

The Hawaiian musicians that turn out to greet the tourists on arrival and also come to bid him Godspeed with the plaintive strains of Aloha Oi, the leis of flowers tossed around his neck by hospitable friends, the armfuls of curios offered by the dark-eyed, beautiful maidens on the wharf — these things, while I feel diffident about attempting to tell of Hawaii, compel me to devote a chapter to the islands.

Honolulu, two thousand miles southwest of San Francisco, is really an American city lifted bodily, as it were, from the mainland and dropped in the middle of the Pacific; for it has its street-cars, telephones, telegraphs, and up-to-date, attractive stores. And, yes, it has its majestic native policemen whose command of vehicular traffic is a wonderful thing to watch because of their grace. But when one has seen the native Hula Hula dance, it no longer puzzles one in seeing these policemen sweeping their arm-signals hither and thither, the while their bodies bend in pleasing unison.

When I passed through Honolulu in 1878 there were more telephones than in any other American city of the same size. When I passed through again in 1908 there were more automobiles in proportion than there were in any other city. And as a side remark I may say that if the price of sugar remains at its present high figure, I expect to find on my next visit to Honolulu more aeroplanes than in any other city of the world. Why not?

Honolulu might well be called the center-point of traffic on the Pacific. Visiting steamers generally spend the best part of a day there. Under normal conditions hotels and apartment houses are full of tourists. Stores and public buildings there compare most favorably with those found in cities of similar size in the United States. Private residences are constructed to suit the climate—semi-tropical, yet comfortable.

However, it is the people who interest the visitor more than anything else, probably. Next to Singapore, there are more mixed races in Honolulu than can be found elsewhere in the Pacific. Besides the natives, one meets Spanish, Russian, Koreans, Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, Costa Ricans, Samoans, negroes and other islanders, as well as various other white races, including the Portuguese. Also you meet with the offspring of the intermarriages of these different races. It is interesting to watch, as I did, a school of a thousand children of these mixed bloods at play, or to try to guess the origin and mixture of the polyglot folk who crowd the street-cars or come out of the churches. All the bright-eyed, smiling children meet you with a cheery "Aloha!"

In order to see the city and its suburbs best while you have but the length of the steamer's stay in port to do so, it is advisable for passengers to arrange a party and hire an automobile to carry them to the places where everyone is supposed to go. To help out the visitor, artistic folders are issued by the Hawaiian Promotion Committee, giving all the necessary information.

I have visited Honolulu during most months in the year, and my impression is that the city and its suburbs are always clothed in exquisite tropical flowers. The foliage is rich and luxuriant and the grass seems always green. Among the flowers are the Rigia (the scarlet umbrella fire tree of India), Cassia Nadosia, which have pink and white blossoms similar to apple blossoms, the golden shower of canary-colored wistaria, hibiscus hedges, with flaming red flowers, long rows of variegated croton shrubs, four varieties of bougainvillea, poinsettia of a deeper scarlet than I have ever seen—all looking vividly fresh from their supply of liquid sunshine.

Hawaii does not find it necessary to offer premiums to induce visitors to spend winters there. In some towns of Florida the newsboys make no charge for papers on a day when the sun does not shine, so sure are they of Old Sol. Hawaiian skies are always clear and the sun shines every day—even when the rain is falling, and from this phenomenon comes the term "liquid sunshine."

Future generations of white Hawaiian Islanders have a great load of responsibility to carry if they are to maintain the reputation that the present generation enjoys for hospitality and geniality. Some of the visitors are certainly trying. I have known some of them, who were made honorary members of a country club, and who had the privilege of playing golf, only to be guilty of breaches of etiquette and annoy the regular members.

To aid cultivation of their crops, the Hawaiian planters maintain at their own expense laboratories equipped to assist in improvement of the quality of sugar, pineapples, coffee, bananas, etc. The Government also directs a farm for experimentation for improvement of crops and also to teach animal husbandry and kindred subjects.

Prior to the discovery of gold in California, the islands shipped wheat, potatoes, onions and other vegetables to the Golden Gate, but now sugar is king, the crop in 1916 returning $63,000,000, while pineapple plantations yielded $8,000,000, coffee $298,000, and rice $166,000.

When Captain Cook discovered the Hawaiian, or Sandwich Islands, in 1778, the native population was about 200,000. Hawaii was annexed to the United States in July, 1898, and created a Territory in 1900. A governor is appointed by Congress. The machinery of government is perfect and works very smoothly. Hawaii is represented in Washington by a local member elected by the people. The estimated population of the Territory, in 1916, according to Thrum's Annual, was as follows, from a board of health report:

Race Number

American, British, German, Russian.... 30,118

Chinese: 22,100

Filipino: 19,100

Hawaiian: 23,450

Part Hawaiian: 15,850

Japanese: 102,479

Portuguese: 23,990

Porto Rican: 5,240

Spanish: 2,920

Korean: 4,734

Others: 643

Total: 250,624

Honolulu: A Motor Trip Around The Island Of Oahu

A charming motor drive of ninety miles can be taken around the Island of Oahu, via the Pali, where the troops of King Kamehameha drove those of King Kaina over the precipices to the valleys two thousand feet below. This road skirts the Pacific, and when you have covered about fifty miles, to the left you see the Mormon Tabernacle, which cost $100,000. On a few miles more is the beautiful chalet of the Castle family, facing the rolling waves of the Pacific, and with bubbling fountains and marble statuary amidst a rich setting of tropical foliage.

Stopping at Haleiwa, one can obtain luncheon at an excellently conducted hotel, and then, if one wishes, hire a boatman to explore the bottom of the bay in a glass-bottomed steam-launch. Looking into the water through the glass, one sees a vision of coral grottoes and reefs and caverns, separated by deep canyons with precipitous sides. In and out of these grottoes and reefs swim brilliantly colored fish of many shapes and sizes, some beautiful, some grotesque.

The country passed through during the motor ride is devoted for the most part to the cultivation of sugar-cane, pineapples and bananas. Water used for irrigating the plantations comes through a tunnel eighteen thousand feet long and seven feet in diameter, which cost $2,000,000 to construct.

On all sides during the ride one sees the castor-oil tree growing, the oil from which is of great value. Being a vegetable oil, it will not burn, grind, or clog the delicate parts of machinery, nor will it freeze at high altitudes as will a mineral oil. This is the reason that castor oil is exclusively used for airplane motors. The oil is extracted from the bean produced by the tree, the red bean being the most valuable for the purpose.

Trip To The Volcano Of Kilauea

During the many years of my travel on the Pacific I had heard from Hawaiians and fellow birds-of-passage thrilling descriptions of this most famous volcano, but somehow I never had a chance to pay a visit to Kilauea. Not to visit this volcano while one is in Hawaii is like leaving Hamlet out of Shakespeare's play.

However, on my arrival in San Francisco, in 1917, en route for Australia, I discovered that owing to war regulations I would have to apply to Washington for a special passport before I could leave America. I missed one boat, and having some spare time before the departure of another, I decided to go to the Hawaiian Islands and see what was to be seen, in particular the Kilauea volcano, and later on get a direct boat for Australia.

I carried out my plan and landed in Hawaii for my sightseeing tour. On a Wednesday I embarked from Honolulu for Hilo, two hundred miles distant, aboard a two-thousand ton steamer. We sailed at ten o'clock in the morning. Fortunately one of our party was Mr. Frank Halstead, of Honolulu, who proved a compendium of local information, and answered every question with authority.

It was about four o'clock when we went ashore at Lahaina on Maui. The first particular surprise awaiting me was a big six-foot-four Australian, Mr. George Freeland, who hails from Frankston, Victoria. Mr. Freeland owns the hotel, theater and other interests on the island of Maui.

On landing I noted that this bit of the ocean resembled an extensive bay. Another of my earliest impressions was that on the hills and mountain-sides vast herds of cattle ranged. Upon inquiry, I was told that now the islands produce all the meat needed for home consumption.

About thirty miles inland is the Ulupalakua (Raymond McKee) Ranch of 37,000 acres, which carries 6,000 head of cattle, and the Haleakala (Baldwin Woodhouse) Ranch of 36,000 acres, which carries 5,000 head of cattle. The homesteads of these ranches are about 2,500 feet in altitude, but farther on the ranges attain a height of 6,000 feet. The Ulupalakua Ranch outfit slaughter their own cattle, and they have a refrigerating plant and a steamer fitted up with cold-storage apparatus. Thus they convey their meat to the Honolulu market. I learned that two-and-a-half-year-old bullocks will dress four hundred pounds of beef. Five other ranches on the islands are managed or owned by men from New Zealand, who left their own country many years ago. Why they should leave one of the most suitable cattle lands on the globe for a new and untried country is a puzzle to me.

We arrived at Hilo about seven o'clock Thursday morning. Breakfast over, we started out for the volcano, thirty miles away, where we arrived at about eleven o'clock. This haste is rather unfair to the curious, sight-seeing visitor. One of the things to take my eye were the eucalyptus trees, which any Australian would recognize at once. They thrive here very well at the altitude of 2,000 feet.

Hilo is a pretty tropical city. At a distance can be seen the highest snow-capped mountains in the Pacific, Mauna Kea, 14,000 feet high. In my opinion, the steamship company might have arranged for us to spend all forenoon in Hilo and still reach the volcano in plenty of time.

How to start or where to end in describing the greatest volcano on earth is a task for Dante. It is an enormous boiling cauldron which might keep busy a thousand invisible devils. But here are some facts:

The area in active operation, since 1823, varies at different times. The action is never the same two days in succession. Some years ago the crater was nineteen hundred feet deep. The day I visited the scene the lava came up to within fifty feet of the top of the crater and produced an effect of terrific grandeur which extended over many acres.

In the center of this "mouth of hell" are islands formed by lava shooting up, the red-hot streams mounting to considerable heights. These islands rise and fall and lean at different angles, which indicate that they are afloat on molten lava. The main stream of lava moves at a rate of two to four miles an hour, out of which a gusher will shoot forth, now and then, throwing up snakelike tongues of red and white molten lava, and spreading over the sullen gray crust. Again, the gray crust will crack across in a diabolic grin, or rainbow arches of red fire will suddenly appear, and these move slowly down to the boiling chasm where they vanish with a noise resembling artillery.

As we looked, to the right arose, at some distance, three pyramids of dazzling beauty discharging sparks like meteors, that reminded one of the beautiful fountains of Versailles, France, at night. But, as I said before, the effects are continually changing. Besides illuminated fountains, the masses of moving lava will resemble a flowing river, some of the tide rising six inches higher than other molten currents. I heard one person claim that it looked like the breaking up of ice in a big river, only the substance was red-hot lava instead of ice and water.

With the coming of dusk the scene became more weird and thrilling, the contrasts more dramatic. It suggested Walpurgis Night. A Portuguese chauffeur threw a bottle of gasoline on the heaving gray mass which immediately threw up a huge black volume of smoke followed by spurting geysers of fire, these attaining a height of about thirty feet. Snakes of flame darted hither and thither, the whole display eclipsing any pyrotechnic spectacle I ever witnessed.

At times, sparks of red lava would scatter over the walls of the crater, giving the illusion of fallen stars. A steel man from Detroit, Mr. Preston Henry, said that one phenomenon of the crater suggested a thousand open-hearth furnaces by night. A Californian present remarked that any one visiting the island, and having the time, was guilty of a criminal offense if he neglected to visit the Kilauea volcano.

Some time later I met a lady from Mauni, at sea, and she had visited Kilauea two weeks after I was there. She said that the red-hot lava had then risen to the brink of the crater and a stream forty feet wide was flowing over it. A thick crust had formed, enabling her to walk across this lava stream which was still flowing underneath.

I believe that years ago a thick steel hawser was suspended across a narrow place in the crater, but the heat and fumes had melted it.

Now, I have roasted eggs in the lava of Vesuvius, and visited many volcanoes in New Zealand, the South Sea Islands and Japan, but on the whole I consider Kilauea far more interesting than any of them.

The trip back to Hilo lay aiong fields of sugar-cane, through which flumes had been constructed. Our Mr. Halstead explained that they were not for irrigation purposes, but that the sugar-cane was floated down them to the mills. Also, after the day's work is done, the laborer will often weave for himself a raftlike seat out of the sugar-cane husks, place himself thereon and float along in the flume to the region of his home. Some of these flumes are twenty miles long.

On our return to Honolulu from Hilo, we steamed all day along the shores of the island of Hawaii. The passing view was altogether one of beauty, with numerous waterfalls leaping down the rocky shore, and as far as the eye could see vast sugar fields spread to the right and the left. At daylight on Saturday we reached Honolulu, having experienced placid seas and wonderful weather.

An interesting anecdote was told me that gives a fair sample of Hawaiian superstition. The waters of the northern Pacific contain a red edible fish called Alalau which rarely comes close inshore. When, however, the fish does make an appearance, usually in large numbers, the natives claim that it is a sure sign some member of the royal family is going to die. To illustrate: In 1891 the Hawaiian king, Kalakaua, was taken ill in San Francisco, and died on January 30th. Of course, at this time there was no cable or wireless communication to send the sad news. But one morning it was noticed that the Alalau was approaching Hawaii in shoals of millions. Noting this, the natives concluded that inasmuch as none of the royal family on the island was ill, Kalakaua was dead, and they promptly entered upon a season of mourning. Some of the less superstitious natives, however, flouted the omen and decorated the city in preparation for a welcome to their monarch when he would return. Strange to say, on that very date the United States man-o'-war The Charleston was seen from an outlook on Diamond Head, coming toward the island, with a flag at half mast and the yards crossed and draped in black. She bore the remains of the dead Kalakaua. Immediately the festive arches put up in the city were covered with crape, and by the time that the man-o'-war had docked the city was in a complete state of public mourning.

Mauna Loa

To the east of Kilauea, in 1880, a terrible volcanic outbreak occurred at Mauna Loa, 13,000 feet above sea-level. In connection with the phenomenon two features are very arresting and call for deep thought.

Following the eruption, huge streams of lava flowed down the mountain-sides, cooling as it came into contact with the air and forming a crust several inches thick, under which the molten lava continued to flow. Now, such a crust will bear the weight of many hundreds of pounds. Moreover, upon entering a cavity or gulch, it will maintain its original thickness and still continue to flow up the other side—in other words uphill, without spreading in the bed of the gulch except to cover the space of the lava tube or "frozen" casing. In instances where the pressure from within proves too great, the lava will often break away from the main stream at the weakest spot. Again, the air quickly cooling the lava at this breaking point will strengthen the casing and the lava again flows on its straight course.

The city of Hilo, though on the ocean beach, and far away enough from the volcano, still was in the direct way of the lava flow. Great consternation spread everywhere. Hawaiians, as all of us know, are very superstitious and appealed to their Princess Ruth, the last of the Kamehameha dynasty, to use her influence with the gods to stop Mauna Loa's evil. They believed that she had the power to stop the lava avalanche. Princess Ruth was a lady who weighed somewhere in the neighborhood of four hundred pounds, and her residence was in Honolulu. Heeding her people's outcry, without delay she summoned her retinue of servants and proceeded to Hilo, taking with her a white pig. Widespread and intense interest was aroused in Honolulu by this unique expedition, and an excursion steamer, carrying a capacity crowd and a brass band, left the chief city for the scene of incantation.

Lo, the strange and awe-inspiring sequel! Princess Ruth went to a spot one mile north of Hilo and proclaimed that the lava would cease flowing at that particular point. It did, after having flowed continuously for nine months. The homes of her people were thus saved. But what significance the pig had in halting the stream of molten lava is known only to the Hawaiians.

While in Honolulu I had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Emma Nakiuna, one of the most intelligent and well-educated Hawaiian ladies of the present day, and while conversing with her I referred to this Mauna Loa miracle. She replied that the Hawaiian race possesses certain mystic powers which have been handed down by their departed chiefs. Call it superstition, if you like, Mrs. Nakiuna said, but she added that the white people at the time of the lava overflow were mighty glad to enlist this "power" in their behalf when they wanted their homes saved from destruction.