The Royal Hawaiian Band, conducted by the venerable Henri Berger, now in his seventy-first year, after forty years’ conducting, was in full attendance in the Queen’s Gardens at Washington Place, which, in this city of notable gardens, is cited as the finest. Berger, owing to age and failing health, was later retired upon a pension, and has since died.
The dignified white mansion is as beautiful in its own way as the gardens, and tastefully tropical, surrounded as it is by broad lanais, with large pillars, supporting the roof in Southern colonial style. As one Kamaaina has it: “The whole has an air of retirement expressive of the attitude of the Queen herself.”
On the columned veranda, robed in black holoku, tender old hands folded in her silken lap, Her Majesty sat in a large armchair, at her back certain faithful ladies—Mrs. Dominis, wife of Aimoku Dominis, the Queen’s ward, with her cherubic little son; Mrs. Irene Kahalelaukoa Ii Holloway; and Mrs. Iaukea, all of them solicitous of their Queen’s every word and gesture. Their veneration is a touching link to the close and vivid past.
Liliuokalani’s fine face, as we saw it that day, was calm and lovable, as if a soothing hand had but lately passed over it.[[11]] She raised quiet, searching eyes, and upon Colonel Iaukea’s introduction, smiled and extended her hand, which it is the custom to kiss, and which we saluted right gladly. A few low-voiced questions and answers concerning work Jack had done on Hawaii; the listening to a number or two from the Band; and we were free to wander among the treasures of the house, than which are no better specimens of royal insignia outside the Museum. At length, Hawaii’s National Anthem, rising from under the palms, brought us all to the lanai again, where the men stood uncovered.
Queen Liliuokalani’s own book, “Hawaii’s Story, by Hawaii’s Queen,” published in 1906, by John Murray, London, should be read not only for her viewpoint, but also because it is piquantly entertaining in its lighter humors, and her naive descriptions of travel and characters in the United States and England are delicious.
Returning from a luncheon given by that vital institution, the Honolulu Ad Club, Jack burst into the house:
“Guess whom I met today! Two men, both of whom you have known, one here and one in Samoa—and now risen to different positions and titles. I give you three chances. Bet you ‘even money’ you couldn’t guess in a thousand years.”
That was “easy money” for him, and I threw up my hands. Our fearless old friend, Lucius E. Pinkham, once president of the Board of Health, was now become Governor of the Territory of Hawaii, appointed in 1913 by President Wilson, for a term of four years; and the other we had known in Tahiti and Pago-Pago, C. B. T. Moore, erstwhile Governor at the latter American port, and Captain of the Annapolis, now Rear Admiral, stationed at Pearl Harbor. Later we exchanged visits with Admiral and Mrs. Moore, and colorful were our reminiscences of days and nights under the Southern Cross.
It would require a book in itself to tell of the revolutionary alterations in Pearl Lochs, now possessed of all the circumstance of a thoroughgoing naval station. On September 28, 1917, the Pearl Harbor Radio Station was formally opened. In 1919, the drydock was completed, at a cost exceeding $5,000,000.00. The opening was attended by the Secretary of the Navy.
As for the old Elysian acre, we were informed it had changed hands and the bungalow had been replaced by a more ambitious one. It would be difficult to express why we never went back. Perhaps it had been a perfect thing in itself, that experience, finished and laid aside in heart’s lavender.