USA > Hawaii > Hawaiian sketches > Part 3
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" Do you know any stories or legends con- nected with Haleakala, William? " I inquired.
" Yes, I know one; my grandma always telling."
" That's right, William," said the humor- ist, " take down your harp from the weeping lahala tree and sing to us of the departed glories of your race."
" You see my grandma great old woman,
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she kahuna, live at Hana. I hear this story every since I was kaiki. She says it comes down from some old poets."
And after gazing across the crater for a while, William began, in his native tongue:
" In former times from the distant islands of the southern sea came a strange people to Hawaii. On their spears were the great sharks' teeth, and their tabu staffs were crowned with kapa, black or white. They were great of stature and became the mois of Hawaii. Then followed a people from be- yond the rising sun. Small and broad they were, and came in ships such as were never before seen within the Hawaiian seas. But stranger than these peoples was an alien race that came from out the distant north from whence the great trees come which float down to us upon the rivers of the sea, and where the trade winds take their rise, which come to cool our valleys and the burning sea.
" It was in the days when Hua, the impious king, reigned in Hana. It chanced on the
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third day before the feast of Lono in the early morning when the fishermen were returning, six canoes came from out a mist that floated on the sea, and moved quickly in even line towards the curving beach. The night be- fore the omens had portended some dire event. The sacrifices had risen from the blood-stained lele and stalked beyond the heiau's gate, while from the heights of Haleakala issued the groanings of the Thun- der God. As the aliens strode upon the beach they were taller than our tallest chiefs. Their skins were red as Pele's blood that beats with- in her heart, but their eyes were black as is that blood when it cools upon the mountain sides, yet their glance shot fire as lightning from the thunder clouds. Their heads were encircled by high feather leis which swept backwards almost to the ground. Feathers were they, gray and white, such as never grew upon the birds that fly within the forests or float upon the sea.
" The King took the strangers to his royal
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Hale and gave them food and drink. There was a woman with them, the wife of their great chief. She appeared like a prophetess, only young. Her skin was pale as is the white sea foam. Her dark eyes seemed to gaze afar off, and her smile was like the flash of the sun upon the sea. When Hua saw her he desired her for himself, and his women be- came as nothing in his eyes. Therefore Hua urged the red men to make their home near his Hale and they should be aliis in the land, though the priest, Luahomoe, warned the king that their coming would cast a shadow on his
life. But the strangers would not dwell with the king nor with his people, but made their home far up on the slope of Haleakala, where the gray clouds ever hang and the white rain falls silently to the ground.
" Sometimes when the feather hunters sought the mamo and the oo upon the moun- tains, they would see a figure of one of these men standing on the highest mountain peak against the black clouds as though carved of
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stone, then suddenly he would raise his arms towards the sky and a cry would come quick as a javelin piercing to the heart, or they would hear a rustling in the ferns and see a shape like a red moe moving through the green, but whence it came or whither it went they could never tell.
" It chanced that on a certain day their great chief came down to the plain and went to see the king, who was stretched at ease in front of his Hale on a kapa moe. The great chief stood and would not sit upon the mat- ting brought by the attendant. Then the king made a sign to one of his retainers, who, in a short time, brought twelve maidens, with flowers decking their dark hair and ornaments of pearl and shells upon their ankles and their arms. They were the fairest in Hua's court. The king waved his hand towards where they stood and said:
"' Take these, O chief, they are yours, but let the white queen dwell with me.'
" Then the great chief folded his arms and
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looked down at the king, while Hua's guard gathered close around him, for there was evil in the great chief's eye, and the king was a very little man before him. Then he grunted ' Umph,' and, turning, left the presence of the king and went quickly to his mountain home.
" But Hua's heart was hot within his breast, so he vowed to take the great chief's life and bring the white queen to his royal Hale. Forthwith he sent his lunapais into every valley and along the sea to summon the alii and their warriors, but a messenger came the following day from the great chief, say- ing:
" I know your plotting and your heart, O king. We will make an end of this matter. Place your kingdom against the possession of the white queen. Choose your mightiest warrior, and I will meet him. If I die, take the white queen, but if your warrior dies, your people and your lands are mine, O king. But this one condition; I will choose the place where this combat is to be fought.'
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" The crafty Hua thought within his heart, ' I will accept this challenge, and if my cham- pion fall my warriors will surround him and his men and slay them. Then the white queen shall not escape me.' So he assented. The messenger then took the king, and, point- ing where the clouds were flowing through the Kaupo gap, he said: 'In yonder hollow mountain fights the chief.'
" The king's heart was troubled then, but he dare not return upon his spoken word. Among the alii there was none so tall and powerful as the young Kuala. In all the sports of peace he was pre-eminent. While in war none could hurl the spear so swiftly, nor use the javelin with such skillful hands, and when he whirled the battle axe above his head none could see it for the speed. He was chosen champion by the king.
" For many days the priests consulted the oracles within the enclosure of the sacred anu, but the omens puzzled them, and they said the Gods were not at peace among themselves.
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" It was on the evening before the day set, just as the sun sank into the sea, there came a cloud, blacker than the kapa for the dead, moving slowly above the sea, and the gray rain following as a veil behind it. The air around was very still. Then suddenly the cloud turned to crimson and the mountain and the thousands on the beach were reddened as though by the glow from a great fire. All were frightened, but Kuala only laughed and said: ' If it storms now it will be cooler on the morrow.' The old priest shook his head and said: 'My son, that mountain height will be plenty cool enough for thee.'
" Late in the afternoon of the destined day the hosts of Maui were gathered in the arms of the great mountain. Foremost stood the king. Around his shoulders fell the yellow mamo cloak, and on his head a helmet yellow as his robe, save its crest, which was red with the feathers of the scarlet bird. Behind him stood the priests in feather cloaks red as the blood of their sacrifices, while in a half circle
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rose the hundred alii in cloaks with colors mingled of the royal yellow and the priestly red. As the sunlight shone upon them they were in form and color as the rainbows bent above the valleys green, and on the rounded hills of sand above them stood the warriors thicker than the leaves upon the forest trees, and their thousand spears made the red hills black. A murmur ran amongst them as when the voice of the sea comes on the south wind and the sky is gray. The priests chanted in low tones the meles of Kuala's race, and waved their arms as they sang of heroic deeds. Kuala stood quietly by the king and looked across the lava plain where, in the distance, could be seen the red men moving, one behind the other in a line. They came very swiftly. When they reached a hundred paces from where stood the king they stopped. The
white queen stood forth before them. Her color was no longer as the pale foam, for the blood beat quickly in her cheeks, and she breathed as though she had been running,
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while her eyes shone so that even Hua turned his glance away. The great chief stood near her, but impassive as though carved of stone. Behind them the warriors stood lean and red with strange colors on their faces, and their heads were crowned with warlike feathers. They moved not, nor looked upon the war- riors on the hills, regardless of them as though they were but crawling ants. Then the mes- senger of the chief advanced across the sand and stood before the king.
"'O, King, the chief is ready now to offer the victim chosen by you for the sacrifice.'
" Hua replied: 'My champion is here at my right hand, and to-night we will wrap your chief in the funereal kapa, and the black sharks will dine upon his flesh.' He would have spoken more, but the messenger turned upon his heel and left the king.
" Kuala threw aside his feathered cloak and advanced slowly towards the level sand. Then there rose a shout from the hosts upon the hills louder than the thunder of the great
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waves falling on the beach, and the priests chanted in loud tones, beating wildly on their sacred drums. The great chief advanced to meet his foe, then stopped, and with arms out- stretched towards the sun, gazed straight into its burning light while his voice reached to the remotest warrior on the hills, though none could understand the words, so strange they were. Then he turned and faced Kuala, who stood twenty paces distant. All was quiet as is the air before a coming storm. Kuala slowly raised his spear above his head, and bending quickly forward, sent it with such force that none could see it in the air, but the great chief was quicker than the spear, and it went past him deep into the sand. His spear flew so close to Kuala that he felt the wind of its speed upon his cheek. The second time they raised their arms together and sent the weapons whirling through the air. The war- rior's spear struck some feathers from the great chief's head, but his spear went straight toward Kuala's heart, yet before it touched
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his body he caught it with his hands and turned its course aside, but staggered back- wards with the force. Then the warriors cried in lamentation on the hills, but when they saw he was unhurt a shout arose louder than the first. The last spear Kuala poised above his head was of polished koa, tipped with ivory, whose point had been dipped in Po's dark waters, and carrying death upon its slightest touch. But it never reached the red chief, for the two spears met in the air with 'a great clash and fell broken on the sand. Then the two warriors rushed towards each other and met midway on the sand, their jave- lins clashing as they met. Suddenly the light had faded, while gray clouds covered the crater as with a roof, and the white rain began to fall thick and fast, laying like white stars on cloaks of alii and of king. Kuala and the great chief could be dimly seen as they whirled around each other in the strife, faster than seabirds on the wing. Now rushing to- gether, now stepping quick aside, but Kuala's
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breathing could be heard by the king and his alii standing near, while the great chief moved quicker than the red lightning from the clouds, without a sound save when his javelin struck the warrior's. But moving back- ward from Kuala's rush, his heel struck upon a stone, and he swayed slightly. Then the warrior's javelin tore his shoulder till the red blood came. With a cry that made the king and all his followers shiver as with cold, he sprang past Kuala's javelin and fastened his teeth within his flesh, and his face was like a demon as he tore the warrior's throat, and Kuala fell slowly back upon the sand, writh- ing in quick death. Then the Hulumanu, standing by the king, threw his spear and pierced the great chief, who fell face down- ward on the sand. From the hills the war- riors came with a mighty rush, as slides the land from the steep mountain sides, while the red men waited their coming with faces lean and fierce. They stood as does a rock within the sea when the great waves surge upon it
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and fall back in beaten foam until one mightier than the rest o'erwhelms it. So stood, so fell the red men on that day. Hua marked not the raging of the strife, but through the tumult pushed his way toward where the white queen stood alone. She fled with exceeding swiftness, moving like a shadow through the falling mist. Hua, in furious anger, raised his spear and sent it straight towards her as she fled. Then the cloud grew thicker and closed around them. Instantly a great cry was heard, and the king's people found him bleeding on the sand, with his spear point centering in his breast. Whither the white queen went none ever knew. But sometimes the hunter, following his lonely trail through the great mountain, sees a woman's form wrapped in moving mist, and with dark hair floating wildly around the pallor of her face."
" That's all," said the guide.
" That's quite a lie, William," said the humorist.
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" I don't know; the old lady says it is just so."
As we started on our homeward trail the clouds began rolling through the two gaps and an opaque mist soon lay around us. William headed the procession, and we had gone about a quarter of a mile and were near the great cone when William stopped sud- denly and grasped the humorist by the arm, almost white with terror.
" Look," he said, pointing towards where the fog had lifted somewhat, and a current of air was whirling the mist, and in the mist a woman's form and face could be clearly seen. I looked inquiringly at the humorist.
" Can such things be," he said, " and over- come us like a summer cloud, without our special wonder."
" There are more things in earth and Heaven, Horatio," I suggested.
Then we went on in silence through the falling mist, but the humorist took the lead,
THE SOUTHERN CROSS.
Thou hangest at the girdle of the night When night is the dark priestess of the seas. Soft shines, emblem of love, the Pleiades; In Orion's belt the sword of war is bright, But thou dost show unto our earthly sight A deeper vision than can come from these- Of Him who drained earth's grief unto the lees,
Whose cross of wood is changed to stars of light.
Thou art low set in depths of tropic skies While sleeps the sea beneath the balmy air; Yet where far south the stormy waters rise In waves of tossing gray, clear thou dost bear On high thy sign of hope for searching eyes; The gloom of night but shrines thy presence there. 1
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A SAUNTER THROUGH HONOLULU.
I use the word saunter advisedly. You are not. apt to rush wildly through the streets of this tropical town, spurred on by the devils of competition and haste. The American im- petus in your blood has died down gradually as the soothing spell of the tropics has as- serted itself more and more. You realize that the natives know what they are about as they lie stretched out on the grass beneath the spreading trees, drinking with much enjoy- ment the stimulating swipes. For beyond the cool line of the shade is the glaring light, flow- ing down from the sun, deep set in the depths of blue, and it falls on burning streets, glisten- ing sea and shadowless mountains. The kanaka's energy reaches its climax in the evening when he strolls out in the moonlight
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with his guitar swung before him to serenade his dark-eyed beloved, dressed in a red holoku, as she leans from some balcony overhanging the street.
As you loiter along the road your eye is held by the wonderful foliage filling the yards. There are the green crotons, spotted with yellow, as if nature had used her brush somewhat recklessly upon them. Bordering the sidewalks are the hibiscus hedges, with their flaming red flowers, looking out from amid the green leaves and staring open-eyed at the passerby on the highway. Then there are the avenues of royal palms. What strik- ing trees they are! With their wonderful grace and beauty! the plumes springing from their crests like fountains of living green. In another yard you see rows of date palms along the driveway, their rough hewn trunks making them look like barbarians, compared with their brethren, the royal palms. In the center of some green lawn you notice the fan palm, with its wide spread of leaves, their
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stems close set together as the scales of a fish. It is a tropical harp, this tree, on which the soft south wind plays its lingering melodies, and every now and then there comes to you the fragrance from the flowering trees, whose branches and stems are covered as thickly with blossoms as a bending twig is with a swarm of honey bees. They vary in color, some lilac, some purple, others pale pink or white.
It is a characteristic of Honolulu to have the houses merely accessory to the yards, and the houses are simply incidental to the broad lanais. They are a very pleasant feature, these lanais, in the shadows of which swing the ham- mocks, and with potted ferns and plants set here and there. As you draw near the down- town portion of the city there is a noticeable increase in the number of small shops, mostly Chinese. Honolulu is the pake's paradise. It is the ambition of every Chinaman, after his term of service on the plantation has ex- pired, to come down to the metropolis and
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open a shop, wherein he will expose for sale watermelons, bananas, lichee nuts, soda-pop and ginger ale.
The Chinaman seems to enjoy life in his simple oriental way. He delights to forgather with his friends in the evening, in the back part of his store, sitting on bags of rice, or other merchandise, or, if it is a more ambi- tious establishment, he and his friends sit on ebony chairs, inlaid with cheap pearl, and placed around the inevitable tea table, with the china teapot on it, ornamented with a blue dragon, and before each one is placed a small china bowl, and there they talk by the hour. Of what they find to say, we Occidentals Their's is an unknown have no conception.
Be- country, both of speech and of thought. sides these conversational parties and the for- bidden opium, their principal amusement is frequenting the theater. You see them going in droves in the evening, dressed in silk shirts of varied hues, lilac, black and purple, worn a la oriental outside their trousers.
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Honolulu being the home of many and varied nationalities, is naturally the place for numerous curious signs. Here is a very mild sample which I recollect:
M. MURASIGE Cleaner and Dyer Very, too active.
This equals the epitaph of a Japanese damsel in the little church-yard at Lihue, Kauai. It is printed on an upright board and is striking in its simplicity. It runs thus:
She born Tokio she die
Lihue August 15th 1896.
But to resume our walk. We are glad to hurry through the business part of the town, which is hot and ugly, with its concrete stores and the heavy iron shutters fastened before the windows. Here you see misguided men rushing along the sidewalks in their shirt sleeves intent on business or speculation. If
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ยท a steamer is in from the Colonies the sidewalks will be filled with peculiar looking people. The men, generally dressed in heavy gray suits, with knickerbockers, and with short black pipes stuck in their faces. The women wearing either tam-o'shanters or bonnets with thick green veils. Their naturally ruddy English complexions are apt to take on an added hue under the tropical sun. On the corners near the saloons stand the steerage passengers, with flaming hibiscus flowers in their button holes, gazing with open-mouthed interest at the specimens of tropical foliage which come under their observation.
A steamer being in, one naturally drifts down to the water front. From there you can look back into Nuuanu Valley, with its symmetrical sweep of green stretching from mountain height to height, and with its ever present gateway of clouds rolled massively together at the northern end; while far out to seaward, almost on the level with your eye, stretches the white line of foam, where the waves roll on the coral reefs, and still farther beyond is the blue of the horizon, tinged with
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bronze. All is activity along the wharves. The little inter-island steamers are unloading their cargoes into the ships. Portuguese and native stevedores swarm everywhere. Bags of sugar are swung aloft, and lowered into the deep holds of the ships, to the accompaniment of the throbbing donkey engines, while mer- chandise is taken out and deposited on the wharves so that you can hardly move around amongst the piles of coal, fertilizers and pro- visions of all sorts. The great ships lie quietly in their berths, enjoying the calm after the hazards of the sea. Far up towards the blue sky, on the tops of their masts, the metal balls glisten in the sun, while the furled sails lie upon the cross masts like drifted snow. Re- flected from the water, the sunbeams shine upon their bows in a network of wavering light. Out in the harbor lies the cruiser Bal- timore, held in her anchorage by two chains drawn taut from her flaming nostrils into the bay. Very peaceful she looks, all in white, resting upon the smooth blue waters of the harbor, with the eight-inch guns closed and the tropical breezes wandering underneath her
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awnings-but that was many months before the first of May, 1898.
One of the most striking incidents of life along the water front occurs when a steamer leaves for the coast. The wharf is jammed with people down to see their friends off for 'Frisco. The unfortunates who are about to depart are loaded down with leis of all kinds and colors, carnations, maile, tube-rose, et al., until they look like hanging gardens. As the steamer swings out into the stream the Hawaiian band plays the Star Spangled Ban- ner, Auld Lang Syne, and closes with Hawaii Ponoi, and from the decks comes the flutter- ing of many handkerchiefs and salt tears are dropping silently into the salty sea. The
steamship heads into the narrow path marked by the red buoys, with a blast of farewell to Honolulu, which lies hidden beneath her spreading trees, and with the great mountains clothed in green rising in the background.
It is really too hot to walk through all of Honolulu in the day time, so let us see the Oriental part in the evening. The windows of the Japanese stores first attract one's atten-
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tion. They are filled with fabrics beautiful and rare. Silks and laces and screens, the last covered with wonderful birds and foliage, which certainly must have come from some Japanese paradise. Then there are the vases ornamented with dragons of remarkable hues, with astonishing mouths, or perhaps they are cast in simple bronze, with gold chrys- anthemums on either side. It is indeed a new world of beauty these people have opened to our eyes. Passing on we come to where the Chinaman is working with his never-ceasing industry, in his varied callings. Through the windows of a shop you see among a dozen others an old Chinaman working over a piece of gold, fashioning it into curious shapes with his delicate tools of steel. The light from a tray of oil, in which is burning slender pieces of tallow, shines into his yellow face, and re- flects in his huge glasses as he bends hour after hour over his work. In the next store is a mer- chant going over his accounts behind a screen of ground glass, his eyes intent on the curious hieroglyphics marked in long black and red lines on the account paper that lies before
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him. At his elbow is the abacus of slid- ing beads, which he invariably uses in mak- ing calculations. The next store perhaps is a tea shop, the wall divided into squares, each one bearing a red label with Chinese charac- ters upon it. In the back of the store are several tea tables, where the merchant and his friends can drink this cheering but not inebriating liquid. The Chinaman must have his tea with the same regularity that the Ger- man requires his beer, the Frenchman his ab- sinthe and the American his mixed drinks.
The Chinaman has his own gods. And in every store whether it belongs to a wealthy merchant or to some petty dealer in vegeta- bles, one sees the peacock feathers of many eyes, framing the piece of red cloth on the wall, on which is inscribed in gilt letters the mystic signs of his religion.
Through the streets there flows in the even- ing a mixed human stream, crowds of natives decked with flowers and carrying guitars, singing and shouting and more or less intoxi- cated. Japanese women shuffling along the sidewalks, with their heavy wooden clogs and
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dressed in tight-fitting kimonas, which hamper their every step. There are blue jackets from the men-of-war, sailors from the merchantmen and Chinamen on their way to the theaters, and the cheerful Chinese music can be heard in its creaking melody across the Nuuanu stream. Back from the streets, reached by narrow, tortuous alleys, are mis- erable hovels, where burns the opium lamp with its devotees around it, engaged in smok- ing the black drug, till their eyes are glazed and the dark poison is transmuted for them into glorious visions, carrying them far, far into a dreamy eternity.
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