[begin page 450]
Passing
Ⓐ 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.
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,
the
Ⓐ saddle, makes a gay and
graceful
Ⓐ spectacle. The riding habit I
[begin page 451] speak of is simply a long, broad scarf, like a tavern
table-cloth
Ⓐ brilliantly colored, wrapped around the loins once, then apparently
passed
Ⓐ between the limbs and each end thrown
backwards
Ⓐ 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 girl
Ⓐ throws her chest
forward,
Ⓐ sits up like a Major General and goes sweeping by like the
wind.
Ⓐ
The girls put on all the finery they canⒶ 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-madeⒶ necklaces of the brilliant vermillion-tinted blossom of the ohia
Ⓔ; and they fill the markets and the adjacent streets with their bright presences,
and smell like a rag factory on fireⒶ with their offensiveⒶ cocoanut oil.
Occasionally you see a heathen from the sunny isles away down in the South Seas, with
his face
and neck tattooedⒶ till he looks like the customary mendicant from WashoeⒶ 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 centreⒶ—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.
MovingⒶ 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 plantⒶ. The
taro
Ⓐ root looks like a thick, or, if you please, a corpulent sweet potato, in shape, but
is of a light purple color when
boiled.
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 unseductive
Ⓐ mixture it is, almost tasteless before it ferments and too sour for a luxury afterward.
But
nothing
Ⓐ is more nutritious. When solely used, however, it produces acrid humors
Ⓔ, a fact
which sufficiently accounts for the
humorous
Ⓐ 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
delicacy
Ⓐ 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.
Ⓐ
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 importedⒶ 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 decrepitudeⒺ. Although the man before whose establishment we stopped has to
pay a Government license of eight hundred dollars a year for theⒶ exclusive right to sell awa root, it is said that he makes a small fortune every twelve-month; while
saloon-keepersⒶ, 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!
Ⓐ Let us change the subject.
InⒶ 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.Ⓐ
At night they feasted and the girls danced the lascivious
hula-hula
Ⓐ—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 throughⒶ 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
Ⓐ 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 dollarsⒺ for the same. There are
few girls now-a-days able to dance this ancient national dance in the highest perfection
of the art.Ⓐ
Ⓔ
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 peopleⒺ 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.Ⓐ 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.Ⓐ Cook’s estimate,) to fifty-five thousand
Ⓔ in
something over eighty years!
Society is a queer medley in this notable missionary,
whaling and governmental centre. IfⒶ you get into conversation with a strangerⒶ, 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 dayⒶ, 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—”Ⓐ
“Oil? WhatⒶ 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-chamberⒶ? Commissioner of the Royal—”Ⓐ
“Stuff!Ⓐ 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.”
“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—”Ⓐ
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.”Ⓔ
Ⓐ
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)
Ⓐ
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)
Ⓐ
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).