Explanatory Notes
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Apparatus Notes
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CHAPTER 66
[begin page 450]

CHAPTER 66emendation

Passing emendation through the market place we saw that feature of Honolulu under its most favorable auspices—that is, in the full glory of Saturday afternoon, which is a festive day with the natives.

sandwich island girls.
The native girls by twos and threes and parties of a dozen, and sometimes in whole platoons and companies, went cantering up and down the neighboring streets astride of fleet but homely horses, and with their gaudy riding habits streaming like banners behind them. Such a troop of free and easy riders, in their natural home, theemendation saddle, makes a gay and gracefulemendation spectacle. The riding habit I [begin page 451] speak of is simply a long, broad scarf, like a tavern table-clothemendation brilliantly colored, wrapped around the loins once, then apparently passedemendation between the limbs and each end thrown backwardsemendation over the same, and floating and flapping behind on both sides beyond the horse’s tail like a couple of fancy flags; then, slipping the stirrup-irons between her toes, the girlemendation throws her chest forward,emendation sits up like a Major General and goes sweeping by like the wind.emendation

The girls put on all the finery they canemendation on Saturday afternoon—fine black silk robes; flowing red ones that nearly put your eyes out; others as white as snow; still others that discount the rainbow; and they wear their hair in nets, and trim their jaunty hats with fresh flowers, and encircle their dusky throats with home-madeemendation necklaces of the brilliant vermillion-tinted blossom of the ohia explanatory note; and they fill the markets and the adjacent streets with their bright presences, and smell like a rag factory on fireemendation with their offensiveemendation cocoanut oil.

Occasionally you see a heathen from the sunny isles away down in the South Seas, with his face and neck tattooedemendation till he looks like the customary mendicant from Washoeemendation who has been blown up in a mine. Some are tattooed a dead blue color down to the upper lip—masked, as it were—leaving the natural light yellow skin of Micronesia unstained from thence down; some with broad marks drawn down from hair to neck, on both sides of the face, and a strip of the original yellow skin, two inches wide, down the centreemendation—a gridiron with a spoke broken out; and some with the entire face discolored with the popular mortification tint, relieved only by one or two thin, wavy threads of natural yellow running across the face from ear to ear, and eyes twinkling out of this darkness, from under shadowing hat-brims, like stars in the dark of the moon.

Movingemendation among the stirring crowds, you come to the poi merchants, squatting in the shade on their hams, in true native fashion, and surrounded by purchasers. (The Sandwich Islanders always squat on their hams, and who knows but they may be the old original “ham sandwiches?” The thought is pregnant with interest.) The poi looks like common flour paste, and is kept in large bowls formed of a species of gourd, and capable of holding from one to three or four gallons. Poi is the chief article of food among the [begin page 452] natives, and is prepared from the taro plantemendation. The taro emendation root looks like a thick, or, if you please, a corpulent sweet potato, in shape, but is of a light purple color when boiled.

original ham sandwich.
When boiled it answers as a passable substitute for bread. The buck Kanakas bake it under ground, then mash it up well with a heavy lava pestle, mix water with it until it becomes a paste, set it aside and let it ferment, and then it is poi—and an unseductiveemendation mixture it is, almost tasteless before it ferments and too sour for a luxury afterward. But nothingemendation is more nutritious. When solely used, however, it produces acrid humorsexplanatory note, a fact which sufficiently accounts for the humorousemendation character of the Kanakas. I think there must be as much of a knack in handling poi as there is in eating with chopsticks. The forefinger is thrust into the mess and stirred quickly round several times and drawn as quickly out, thickly coated, just as if it were poulticed; the head is thrown back, the finger inserted in the mouth and the delicacyemendation stripped off and swallowed—the eye closing gently, meanwhile, in a languid sort of ecstasy. Many a different finger goes into the same bowl and many a different kind of dirt and shade and quality of flavor is added to the virtues of its contents.emendation

Around a small shanty was collected a crowd of natives buying the awa root. It is said that but for the use of this root the destruction of the people in former times by certain importedemendation diseases would have been far greater than it was, and by others it is said that this is merely a fancy. All agree that poi will rejuvenate a man who is used up and his vitality almost annihilated by hard drinking, and that in some kinds of diseases it will restore health after all medicines have failed; but all are not willing to allow to the awa the virtues claimed for it. The natives manufacture an intoxicating drink from it which is fearful in its effects when persistently indulged in. It covers the body with dry, white scales, inflames the eyes, and [begin page 453] causes premature decrepitudeexplanatory note. Although the man before whose establishment we stopped has to pay a Government license of eight hundred dollars a year for theemendation exclusive right to sell awa root, it is said that he makes a small fortune every twelve-month; while saloon-keepersemendation, who pay a thousand dollars a year for the privilege of retailing whisky, etc., only make a bare living.

We found the fish market crowded; for the native is very fond of fish, and eats the article raw and alive! emendation Let us change the subject.

Inemendation old times here Saturday was a grand gala day indeed. All the native population of the town forsook their labors, and those of the surrounding country journeyed to the city. Then the white folks had to stay indoors, for every street was so packed with charging cavaliers and cavalieresses that it was next to impossible to thread one’s way through the cavalcades without getting crippled.emendation

At night they feasted and the girls danced the lascivious hula-hula emendation—a dance that is said to exhibit the very perfection of educated motion of limb and arm, hand, head and body, and the exactest uniformity of movement and accuracy of “time.” It was performed by a circle of girls with no raiment on them to speak of, who went throughemendation an infinite variety of motions and figures without prompting, and yet so true was their “time,” and in such perfect concert did they move that when they were placed in a straight line, hands, arms, bodies, limbs and heads waved, swayed, gesticulated, bowed, stooped, whirled, squirmed, twisted and undulated as if they were part and parcel of a single individual; and it was difficult to believe they were not moved in a body by some exquisite piece of mechanism.

Of late years, however, Saturday has lost most of its quondam gala features. This weekly stampede of the natives interfered too much with labor and the interests of the white folks, and by sticking in a law here, and preaching a sermon there, and by various other means, they gradually broke it up. The demoralizing hula-hula emendation was forbidden to be performed, save at night, with closed doors, in presence of few spectators, and only by permission duly procured from the authorities and the payment of ten dollarsexplanatory note for the same. There are few girls now-a-days able to dance this ancient national dance in the highest perfection of the art.emendation explanatory note

The missionaries have christianized and educated all the natives. [begin page 454] They all belong to the Church, and there is not one of them, above the age of eight years, but can read and write with facility in the native tongue. It is the most universally educated race of peopleexplanatory note outside of China. They have any quantity of books, printed in the Kanaka language, and all the natives are fond of reading. They are inveterate church-goers—nothing can keep them away. All this ameliorating cultivation has at last built up in the native women a profound respect for chastity—in other people. Perhaps that is enough to say on that head. The national sin will die out when the race does, but perhaps not earlier.emendation But doubtless this purifying is not far off, when we reflect that contact with civilization and the whites has reduced the native population from four hundred thousand (Capt.emendation Cook’s estimate,) to fifty-five thousand explanatory note in something over eighty years!

Society is a queer medley in this notable missionary, whaling and governmental centre. Ifemendation you get into conversation with a strangeremendation, and experience that natural desire to know what sort of ground you are treading on by finding out what manner of man your stranger is, strike out boldly and address him as “Captain.” Watch him narrowly, and if you see by his countenance that you are on the wrong tack, ask him where he preaches. It is a safe bet that he is either a missionary or captain of a whaler. I am now personally acquainted with seventy-two captains and ninety-six missionaries. The captains and ministers form one-half of the population; the third fourth is composed of common Kanakas and mercantile foreigners and their families, and the final fourth is made up of high officers of the Hawaiian Government. And there are just about cats enough for three apiece all around.

A solemn stranger met me in the suburbs the other dayemendation, and said:

“Good morning, your reverence. Preach in the stone church yonder, no doubt?”

“No, I don’t. I’m not a preacher.”

“Really, I beg your pardon, Captain. I trust you had a good season. How much oil—”emendation

“Oil? Whatemendation do you take me for? I’m not a whaler.”

“Oh, I beg a thousand pardons, your Excellency. Major General in the household troops, no doubt? Minister of the Interior, likely? [begin page 455] Secretary of War? First Gentleman of the Bed-chamberemendation? Commissioner of the Royal—”emendation

Stuff!emendation I’m no official. I’m not connected in any way with the Government.”

“Bless my life! Then, who the mischief are you? what the mischief are you? and how the mischief did you get here, and where in thunder did you come from?”

“I’m only a private personage—an unassuming stranger—lately arrived from America.”

i kissed him for his mother. emendation

“No? Not a missionary! not a whaler! not a member of his Majesty’s Government! not even Secretary of the Navy! Ah, Heaven! it is too blissful to be true; alas, I do but dream. And yet that noble, honest countenance—those oblique, ingenuous eyes—that massive head, incapable of—of—anything; your hand; give me your [begin page 456] hand, bright waif. Excuse these tears. For sixteen weary years I have yearned for a moment like this, and—”emendation

Here his feelings were too much for him, and he swooned away. I pitied this poor creature from the bottom of my heart. I was deeply moved. I shed a few tears on him and kissed him for his mother. I then took what small change he had and “shoved.”explanatory note emendation

Editorial Emendations CHAPTER 66
  Translated . . . CHAPTER 66 (C)  ●  Translated . . . CHAPTER LXVI. (A)  flush left means “When We Were Marching Through Georgia.” If it would have been all the same to General Sherman, I wish he had gone around by the way of the Gulf of Mexico, instead of marching through Georgia. indented from right Mark Twain. (SU) 
  Passing  (A)  ●  indented from right Honolulu (S.I.), April, 1866. centered Off. [¶] Mounted on my noble steed Hawaii (pronounced Hah-wy-ye—stress on second syllable), a beast that cost thirteen dollars and is able to go his mile in three—with a bit of margin to it—I departed last Saturday week for—for any place that might turn up. centered Saturday in Honolulu. [¶] Passing (SU) 
  the (A)  ●  which is the (SU) 
  graceful (A)  ●  graceful and exhilarating (SU) 
  table-cloth (C)  ●  table cloth (SU) 
  passed (A)  ●  passed up (SU) 
  backwards (C)  ●  backward (SU) 
  then, . . . girl (A)  ●  and then, with a girl that (SU) 
  forward, (A)  ●  forward and (SU) 
  wind. (A)  ●  wind. “Gay?” says Brown, with a fine irony; “oh, you can’t mean it!” (SU) 
  can (A)  ●  can scare up (SU) 
  home-made (A)  ●  home-  |  made (SU) 
  a rag factory on fire (A)  ●  thunder (SU) 
  offensive (A)  ●  villainous (SU) 
  tattooed (C)  ●  tatooed (SU) 
  mendicant from Washoe (A)  ●  unfortunate from Reese River (SU) 
  centre (C)  ●  center (SU) 
  Moving (A)  ●  centered Poi for Sale. [¶] Moving (SU) 
  taro plant (A)  ●  kalo or taro plant (k and t are the same in the Kanaka alphabet, and so are l and r) (SU) 
  taro  (C)  ●  taro (SU) 
  an unseductive (A)  ●  a villainous (SU) 
  nothing (A)  ●  nothing in the world (SU) 
  humorous (A)  ●  blithe and humorous (SU) 
  delicacy (A)  ●  poultice (SU) 
  contents. (A)  ●  contents. One tall gentleman, with nothing in the world on but a soiled and greasy shirt, thrust in his finger and tested the poi, shook his head, scratched it with the useful finger, made another test, prospected among his hair, caught something and eat it; tested the poi again, wiped the grimy perspiration from his brow with the universal hand, tested again, blew his nose—“Let’s move on, Brown,” said I, and we moved. centered Awa For Sale—Ditto Fish.  (SU) 
  certain imported (A)  ●  venereal (SU) 
  the (A)  ●  an (SU) 
  saloon-keepers (C)  ●  saloon keepers (SU) 
  eats . . . alive!  (A)  ●  eats the article raw. (SU) 
  In (A)  ●  centered Old-Time Saturdays. [¶] In (SU) 
  crippled. (A)  ●  crippled. In the afternoon the natives were wont to repair to the plain, outside the town, and indulge in their ancient sports and pastimes and bet away their week’s earnings on horse races. One might see two or three thousand, some say five thousand, of these wild riders, skurrying over the plain in a mass in those days. And it must have been a fine sight. (SU) 
  hula-hula  (C)  ●  hula hula  (SU) 
  through (A)  ●  through with (SU) 
  hula-hula  (C)  ●  hula hula  (SU) 
  art. (A)  ●  art. centered The Government Prison. [¶] Cantering across the bridge and down the firm, level, gleaming white coral turnpike that leads toward the south, or the east, or the west, or the north (the points of the compass being all the same to me, inasmuch as, for good reasons, I have not had an opportunity thus far of discovering whereabouts the sun rises in this country—I know where it sets, but I don’t know how it gets there nor which direction it comes from), we presently arrived at a massive coral edifice which I took for a fortress at first, but found out directly that it was the Government prison. A soldier at the great gate admitted us without further authority than my countenance, and I suppose he thought he was paying me a handsome compliment when he did so; and so did I until I reflected that the place was a penitentiary. However, as far as appearances went, it might have been the king’s palace, so neat, and clean, and white, and so full of the fragrance of flowers was the establishment, and I was satisfied. [¶] We passed through a commodious office, whose walls were ornamented with linked strands of polished handcuffs and fetters, through a hall, and among the cells above and below. The cells for the men were eight or ten feet high, and roomy enough to accommodate the two prisoners and their hammocks, usually put in each, and have space left for several more. The floors were scrubbed clean, and were guiltless of spot or stain of any kind, and the painfully white walls were unmarred by a single mark or blemish. Through ample gratings, one could see the blue sky and get his hair blown off by the cool breeze. They call this a prison—the pleasantest quarters in Honolulu. [¶] There are four wards, and one hundred and thirty-two prisoners can be housed in rare and roomy comfort within them. [¶] There were a number of native women in the female department. Poor devils, they hung their heads under the prying eyes of our party as if they were really ashamed of being there. [¶] In the condemned cell and squatting on the floor, all swathed in blankets, as if it were cold weather, was a brown-faced, gray-bearded old scalliwag, who, in a frolicsome mood, had massacred three women and a batch of children—his own property, I believe—and reflects upon that exploit with genuine satisfaction to this hour, and will go to the gallows as tranquilly indifferent as a white man would go to dinner. centered Out at the Back Door. [¶] The prison-yard—that sad inclosure which, in the prisons of my native America, is a cheerless barren and yieldeth no vegetation save the gallows-tree, with its sorrowful human fruit—is a very garden! The beds, bordered by rows of inverted bottles (the usual style here), were filled with all manner of dainty flowers and shrubs; Chinese mulberry and orange trees stood here and there, well stocked with fruit; a beautiful little pine tree—rare, and imported from the far South Seas—occupied the center, with sprays of gracefully arching green spears springing outward like parasol tops, at marked and regular intervals, up its slender stem, and diminishing in diameter with mathematical strictness of graduation, till the sprouting plume at the top stood over a perfect pyramid. Vines clambered everywhere and hid from view and clothed with beauty everything that might otherwise have been suggestive of chains and captivity. There was nothing here to remind one of the prison save a brace of dovecotes, containing several pretty birds brought hither from “strange, strange lands beyond the sea.” These, sometimes, may pine for liberty and their old free life among the clouds or in the shade of the orange groves, or abroad on the breezy ocean—but if they do, it is likely they take it out in pining, as a general thing. centered Captain Tait, Scriptural Student. [¶] Against one wall of the prison house stands an airy little building which does duty as a hospital. A harmless old lunatic, named Captain Tait, has his quarters here. He has a wife and children in the town, but he prefers the prison hospital, and has demanded and enjoyed its hospitality (slip of the pen—no joke intended) for years. He visits his family at long intervals—being free to go and come as he pleases—but he always drifts back to the prison again after a few days. His is a religious mania, and he professes to read sixty chapters of the Bible every day, and write them down in a book. He was about down to chapter thirty-five when I was introduced to him, I should judge, as it was nearly two in the afternoon. [¶] I said, “What book are you reading, Captain?” [¶] “The precious of the precious—the book of books—the Sacred Scriptures, sir.” [¶] “Do you read a good deal in it!” [¶] “Sixty chapters every day (with a perceptible show of vanity, but a weary look in the eye withal)—sixty chapters every day, and write them all down in a plain, legible hand.” [¶] “It is a good deal. At that rate, you must ultimately get through, and run short of material.” [¶] “Ah, but the Lord looks out for his own. I am in His hands—He does with me as He wills. I often read some of the same chapters over again, for the Lord tells me what to read, and it is not for me to choose. Providence always shows me the place.” [¶] “No hanging fire?—I mean, can you always depend on—on this information coming to time every day, so to speak?” [¶] “Always—always, sir. I take the sacred volume in my hand, in this manner, every morning, in a devout and prayerful spirit, and immediately, and without any volition on my part, my fingers insert themselves between the leaves—so directed from above (with a sanctified glance aloft)—and I know that the Lord desires me to open at that place and begin. I never have to select the chapter myself—the Lord always does it for me.” [¶] I heard Brown mutter, “The old man appears to have a good thing, anyway—and his poi don’t cost him anything, either; Providence looks out for his regular sixty, the prison looks out for his hash, and his family looks out for itself. I’ve never seen any sounder maniac than him, and I’ve been around considerable.” centered General George Washington. [¶] We were next introduced to General George Washington, or, at least, to an aged, limping negro man, who called himself by that honored name. He was supposed to be seventy years old, and he looked it. He was as crazy as a loon, and sometimes, they say, he grows very violent. He was a Samson in a small way; his arms were corded with muscle, and his legs felt as hard as if they were made of wood. He was in a peaceable mood at present, and strongly manacled. They have a hard time with him occasionally, and some time or other he will get in a lively way and eat up the garrison of that prison, no doubt. The native soldiers who guard the place are afraid of him, and he knows it. [¶] His history is a sealed book—or at least all that part of it which transpired previously to the entry of his name as a pensioner upon the Hawaiian Government fifteen years ago. He was found carrying on at a high rate at one of the other islands, and it is supposed he was put ashore there from a vessel called the Olive Branch. He has evidently been an old sailor, and it is thought he was one of a party of negroes who fitted out a ship and sailed from a New England port some twenty years ago. He is fond of talking in his dreamy, incoherent way, about the Blue Ridge in Virginia, and seems familiar with Richmond and Lynchburg. I do not think he is the old original General W. centered Aloft. [¶] Up stairs in the prison are the handsome apartments used by the officers of the establishment; also a museum of quaint and curious weapons of offense and defense, of all nations and all ages of the world. [¶] The prison is to a great extent a self-supporting institution, through the labor of the convicts farmed out to load and unload ships and work on the high-ways, and I am not sure but that it supports itself and pays a surplus into the public treasury besides, but I have no note of this, and I seldom place implicit confidence in my memory in matters where figures and finance are concerned and have not been thought of for a fortnight. This Government Prison is in the hands of W. C. Parke, Marshal of the Kingdom, and he has small need to be ashamed of his management of it. Without wishing to betray too much knowledge of such matters, I should say that this is the model prison of the western half of the world, at any rate. indented from right Mark Twain. (SU) 
  earlier. (C)  ●  earlier.— (A) 
  Capt. (C)  ●  Captain (A) 
  Society . . . If (A)  ●  indented from right Honolulu, March, 1866. centered Board and Lodging Secured. [¶] I did not expect to find as comfortable a hotel as the American, with its large, airy, well-furnished rooms, distinguished by perfect neatness and cleanliness, its cool, commodious verandas, its excellent table, its ample front yard, carpeted with grass and adorned with shrubbery, et cetera—and so I was agreeably disappointed. One of our lady passengers from San Francisco, who brings high recommendations, has purchased a half interest in the hotel, and she shows such a determination to earn success that I heartily wish she may achieve it—and the more so because she is an American, and if common remark can be depended upon the foreign element here will not allow an American to succeed if a good strong struggle can prevent it. [¶] Several of us have taken rooms in a cottage in the center of the town, and are well satisfied with our quarters. There is a grassy yard as large as Platt’s Hall on each of three sides of the premises; a number of great tamarind and algeraba trees tower above us, and their dense, wide-spreading foliage casts a shade that palls our verandas with a sort of solemn twilight, even at noonday. If I were not so fond of looking into the rich masses of green leaves that swathe the stately tamarind right before my door, I would idle less and write more, I think. The leaf of this tree is of the size and shape of that of our sickly, homely locust in the States; but the tamarind is as much more superb a tree than the locust as a beautiful white woman is more lovely than a Digger squaw who may chance to generally resemble her in shape and size. [¶] The algeraba (my spelling is guess-work) has a gnarled and twisted trunk, as thick as a barrel, far-reaching, crooked branches and a delicate, feathery foliage which would be much better suited to a garden shrub than to so large a tree. [¶] We have got some handsome mango trees about us also, with dark green leaves, as long as a goose quill and not more than twice as broad. The trunk of this tree is about six inches through, and is very straight and smooth. Five feet from the ground it divides into three branches of equal size, which bend out with a graceful curve and then assume an upright position. From these numerous smaller branches spout. The main branches are not always three in number, I believe; but our’s have this characteristic, at any rate. [¶] We pay from five to seven dollars a week for furnished rooms, and ten dollars for board. centered Further Particulars in this Connection. [¶] Mr. Laller, an American, and well spoken of, keeps a restaurant where meals can be had at all hours. So you see that folks of both regular and eccentric habits can be accommodated in Honolulu. [¶] Washing is done chiefly by the natives; price, a dollar a dozen. If you are not watchful, though, your shirt won’t stand more than one washing, because Kanaka artists work by a most destructive method. They use only cold water—sit down by a brook, soap the garment, lay it on one rock and “pound” it with another. This gives a shirt a handsome fringe around its borders, but it is ruinous on buttons. If your washerwoman knows you will not put up with this sort of ching, however, she will do her pounding with a bottle, or else rub your clothes clean with her hands. After the garments are washed the artist spreads them on the green grass, and the flaming sun and the winds soon bleach them as white as snow. They are then ironed on a cocoa-leaf mat spread on the ground, and the job is finished. I cannot discover that anything of the nature of starch is used. [¶] Board, lodging, clean clothes, furnished room, coal oil or whale oil lamp (dingy, greasy, villainous)—next you want water, fruit, tobacco and cigars, and possibly wines and liquors—and then you are “fixed,” and ready to live in Honolulu. centered Water. [¶] The water is pure, sweet, cool, clear as crystal, and comes from a spring in the mountains, and is distributed all over the town through leaden pipes. You can find a hydrant spirting away at the bases of three or four trees in a single yard, sometimes, so plenty and cheap is this excellent water. Only twenty-four dollars a year supplies a whole household with a limitless quantity of it. centered Fruit. [¶] You must have fruit. You feel the want of it here. At any rate, I do, though I cared nothing whatever for it in San Francisco. You pay about twenty-five cents (“two reals,” in the language of the country, borrowed from Mexico, where a good deal of their silver money comes from) a dozen for oranges; and so delicious are they that some people frequently eat a good many at luncheon. I seldom eat more than ten or fifteen at a sitting, however, because I despise to see anybody gormandize. Even fifteen is a little surprising to me, though, for two or three oranges in succession were about as much as I could ever relish at home. Bananas are worth about a bit a dozen—enough for that rather over-rated fruit. Strawberries are plenty, and as cheap as the bananas. Those which are carefully cultivated here have a far finer flavor than the California article. They are in season a good part of the year. I have a kind of a general idea that the tamarinds are rather sour this year. I had a curiosity to taste these things, and I knocked half a dozen off the tree and eat them the other day. They sharpened my teeth up like a razor, and put a “wire edge” on them that I think likely will wear off when the enamel does. My judgment now is that when it comes to sublimated sourness, persimmons will have to take a back seat and let the tamarinds come to the front. They are shaped and colored like a pea-nut, and about three times as large. The seeds inside of the thin pod are covered with that sour, gluey substance which I experimented on. They say tamarinds make excellent preserves (and by a wise provision of Providence, they are generally placed in sugar-growing countries), and also that a few of them placed in impure water at sea will render it palatable. Mangoes and guavas are plenty. I do not like them. The limes are excellent, but not very plenty. Most of the apples brought to this market are imported from Oregon. Those I have eaten were as good as bad turnips, but not better. They claim to raise good apples and peaches on some of these islands. I have not seen any grapes, or pears or melons here. They may be out of season, but I keep thinking it is dead Summer time now. centered Cigars. [¶] The only cigars smoked here are those trifling, insipid, tasteless, flavorless things they call “Manilas”—ten for twenty-five cents; and it would take a thousand to be worth half the money. After you have smoked about thirty-five dollars worth of them in a forenoon you feel nothing but a desperate yearning to go out somewhere and take a smoke. They say high duties and a sparse population render it unprofitable to import good cigars, but I do not see why some enterprising citizen does not manufacture them from the native tobacco. A Kanaka gave me some Oahu tobacco yesterday, of fine texture, pretty good flavor, and so strong that one pipe full of it satisfied me for several hours. [This man Brown has just come in and says he has bought a couple of tons of Manilas to smoke to-night.] centered Wines and Liquors. [¶] Wines and liquors can be had in abundance, but not of the very best quality. The duty on brandy and whisky amounts to about three dollars a gallon, and on wines from thirty to sixty cents a bottle, according to market value. And just here I would caution Californians who design visiting these islands against bringing wines or liquors with their baggage, lest they provoke the confiscation of the latter. They will be told that to uncork the bottles and take a little of the contents out will compass the disabilities of the law, but they may find it dangerous to act upon such a suggestion, which is nothing but an unworthy evasion of the law, at best. It is incumbent upon the custom officers to open trunks and search for contraband articles, and although I think the spirit of the law means to permit foreigners to bring a little wine or liquor ashore for private use, I know the letter of it allows nothing of the kind. In addition to searching a passenger’s baggage, the Custom-house officer makes him swear that he has got nothing contraband with him. I will also mention, as a matter of information, that a small sum (two dollars for each person) is exacted for permission to land baggage, and this goes to the support of the hospitals. [¶] I have said that the wines and liquors sold here are not of the best quality. It could not well be otherwise, as I can show. There seem to be no hard, regular drinkers in this town, or at least very few; you perceive that the duties are high; saloon keepers pay a license of a thousand dollars a year; they must close up at ten o’clock at night and not open again before daylight the next morning; they are not allowed to open on Sunday at all. These laws are very strict, and are rigidly obeyed. centered Water Again. [¶] I must come back to water again, though I thought I had exhausted the subject. As no ice is kept here, and as the notion that snow is brought to Honolulu from the prodigious mountains on the island of Hawaii is a happy fiction of some imaginative writer, the water used for drinking is usually kept cool by putting it in “monkeys” and placing those animals in open windows, where the breezes of heaven may blow upon them. “Monkeys” are slender-necked, large-bodied, gourd-shaped earthenware vessels, manufactured in Germany, and are popularly supposed to keep water very cool and fresh, but I cannot indorse that supposition. If a wet blanket were wrapped around the monkey, I think the evaporation would cool the water within, but nobody seems to consider it worth while to go to that trouble, and I include myself among this number. [¶] Ice is worth a hundred dollars a ton in San Francisco, and five or six hundred here, and if the steamer continues to run, a profitable trade may possibly be driven in the article hereafter. It does not pay to bring it from Sitka in sailing vessels, though. It has been tried. It proved a mutinous and demoralizing cargo, too; for the sailors drank the melted freight and got so high-toned that they refused ever afterwards to go to sea unless the Captains would guarantee them ice-water on the voyage. Brown got the latter fact from Captain Phelps, and says he “coppered it in consideration of the source.” To “copper” a thing, he informs me, is to bet against it. centered Etiquette. [¶] If (SU) 
  stranger (A)  ●  stranger in Honolulu (SU) 
  the other day (A)  ●  yesterday (SU) 
  oil—” (C)  ●  oil”— (A)  oil——” (SU) 
  What (A)  ●  Why, what (SU) 
  Bed-chamber (A)  ●  Bed-  |  chamber (SU) 
  Royal—” (C)  ●  Royal”— (A)  Royal——” (SU) 
  Stuff! (A)  ●  Stuff! man. (SU) 
  i . . . mother. (C)  ●  “i . . . mother.” (A) 
  and—” (C)  ●  and”— (A)  and——” (SU) 
  “shoved.” (A)  ●  “shoved.” indented from right Mark Twain. (SU) 
Explanatory Notes CHAPTER 66
  Passing . . . art.] Mark Twain based this portion of the text on his letter in the Sacramento Union of 21 May 1866, revising it for inclusion in Roughing It (SLC 1866p).
 The native girls . . . encircle their dusky throats with . . . vermillion-tinted blossom of the ohia] This description of the riding style and costume of the native girls owes much to Jarves’s chapter covering Honolulu “street scenes” and “Saturday afternoon” activities in Scenes and Scenery. Furthermore, one of Clemens’s early Hawaiian notebook entries reads “Ohia wreaths—crimson—& feathers” ( N&J1 , 215), referring to the following passage in Jarves’s book: “Their hair is either done up after the latest fashions imitated from the foreign ladies, or is encircled with rich and expensive wreaths made from feathers. The less wealthy wear those made from the beautiful crimson blossoms of the ohia tree” (Jarves 1844a, 47, 53).
 

Poi is the chief article of food . . . it produces acrid humors] Mark Twain derived his information about poi from Jarves’s History:

Poi, the principal article of diet, was prepared from the kalo [taro] plant. The roots, after being baked under ground, were mashed on a large platter, by a heavy stone pestle, or an instrument made of lava, resembling a stirrup, and were mixed with water, until a thick paste was formed. This is sometimes eaten in a sweet state, but generally put aside until it ferments, in which condition it is preferred. It is a highly nutricious substance, though, when solely used, has a tendency to produce acrid humors. (Jarves 1847, 42)

 The natives manufacture an intoxicating drink from it which . . . causes premature decrepitude] According to Jarves, the effects of awa “were very pernicious, covering the body with a white scurf, or scaliness, like the scurvy, inflaming the eyes, and causing premature decrepitude. It was also taken as a medicine” (Jarves 1847, 49). The narcotic drink was made from the root of the kava (piper methysticum), a shrub native to the Pacific islands, and had a bitter, unpleasant taste. Clemens again referred to it in an article entitled “The Sandwich Islands,” written for the New York Tribune in 1873 (SLC 1873c; Pukui and Elbert, 30; Ellis, 386).
 The demoralizing hula-hula was forbidden to be performed, save . . . only by permission . . . and the payment of ten dollars] The restrictions on the performance of the hula were part of the Civil Code [begin page 714] of 1859 and resulted from legislative pressure brought by Prince Lot Kamehameha (later Kamehameha V). Clemens also referred to the ten-dollar fee in a Hawaiian notebook: “Have to take out a license ($10,) to have the Hulahula dance performed, & then if the girls dress for it in the usual manner, that is with no clothing worth mentioning, it must be conducted in strict privacy” ( N&J1 , 221).
 It is the most universally educated race of people] In one of his Hawaiian notebooks Clemens made the following entry, based on a passage in Bates’s Sandwich Island Notes: “* No place where public education so widely diffused | * Children of ten—all read & write” ( N&J1 , 210; Bates, 63).
 

contact with civilization . . . has reduced the native population . . . to fifty-five thousand] In a Hawaiian notebook Clemens noted: “Certainly were 400,000 here in Cook’s time—& even in 1820” ( N&J1 , 129). Captain Cook had estimated the population to be 400,000 in 1778, but Captain George Vancouver

some fifteen years after, puts it at a much lower figure, and intimates that Cook was misled by the multitudes that flocked to the shores whenever his ships appeared. But the fact nevertheless remains, that the natives have, since their first intercourse with foreigners, decreased at a fearful rate. (Bennett, 3)

Another estimate, probably more accurate, put the population at 142,000 in 1823; the official 1866 census figure was 58,765 (Bennett, 59).

 If . . . “shoved.”] Mark Twain based this portion of the text on his letter in the Sacramento Union of 20 April 1866, revising it for inclusion in Roughing It. Before reusing the material in Roughing It he had already reprinted it as a sketch entitled “Honored As a Curiosity in Honolulu” in The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County (SLC 1866m, 1867a). Clemens also made the following related notebook entry in March–April 1866: “If you don’t know a man in Hon—call him Capt & ask him how many barrels he took last season—chances are he’s a whaler” ( N&J1 , 225).