I had made Honolulu my first port because of the uncertainty of post-war sailings from San Francisco for Hilo. I was tired, body and soul, from a year spent in writing my Book of Jack London. The gaieties of Honolulu were not for me. Hilo, and the arms of my Mother Shipman, and a quiet winter upon the Big Island, should precede my stay on Oahu. So I planned to continue the next day on the Maui to Hilo. But Mother Shipman happened to be in town, and I delayed for a week. For old sake’s sake, after a night in the Alexander Young, I put up at the Seaside Hotel, in one of its white cottages beneath the lofty coco palms. My rooms were soon full of flowers; and there were no paper leis among these. Conspicuous upon the lanai was a basket of sweet peas and maidenhair from Yoshimatsu Nakata, nine years our domestic familiar, on land and sea; now prosperous dentist, a man of family.
I lunched purposely by myself in the well-remembered lanai circle at the Seaside, looking out across the rainbow reef where the mad, white-maned sea-horses tore beachward as of yore. Memories of twelve years marched across my vision—a lovely pageantry in which the white sails of the doughty small Snark appeared most often and vividly. Many brown peoples were in the procession. Then the salt savor of the warm spray upon my lips invited me to breast at least the wahine surf, the little inshore breakers. But when I had passed the shallows, to where the Bearded Ones reared, green and menacing, I did not find myself as courageous as once with my Strong Traveler at hand.
Thursday was my birthday, and on Thanksgiving for the first time in many years. There was a lovable rush of my Hawaiian family to gather native kaokao for me. Mary Low had been the first to hear my voice over the wire. Her sister, Hannah Hind, and Aunt Carrie Robinson, saw to it that I lacked not for the peculiar delicacies than which in long wanderings, I had found nothing more to my taste. Aunt Carrie’s home on the Peninsula, near my one-time acre of Paradise, was the scene of a feast the like of which is seldom known in these degenerate days. Senator “Robbie” Hind and I vied in attention to the greatest number of viands. I won. Nor can I be ashamed of the fact. Which leads me to believe that the most complicated luau in these friendly isles is a “balanced ration” for my otherwise sensitive organism! Midway of the repast, I noticed across the flower-mounded table that one sylph-like maiden gazed out of window with the far-away look of repletion. “Weakening?” I queried scornfully. “Oh, no; I should say not!” amiably she disclaimed. “Only resting!”
But here I am, again writing about Hawaiian food. In conclusion, I must repeat that he or she who fails to approach with open mind and appetite a Sandwich Islands (no pun intended) banquet, misses the ultimate of normal gustatory blessings. For the casual sojourner there are special tourists’ luaus, tickets for which can be purchased at the news-stands of the large hotels. These native feasts include a hula dance.
Very softly I went down the red road, to pass through the little wicket into our old Elysian acre, for the first time since 1907, when our white ketch had swung at anchor in the jade tide off the jetty. Oh, the pity of it! A storm of a ferocity seldom before known in this part of the ocean, had snapped short the giant algarobas; while a new owner had elevated by a whole story the once low bungalow. The world, for a few moments, seemed as out of joint as the proportions of tree and house. I grieved that I had come. Miss Frances Johnson, across the way, was very full of years; and I thought, as I responded to her emotion, that it might be our last meeting. She has since died.
In these days there is much talk, by way of book and periodical, about the South Seas; South Seas meaning, for the most part, Tahiti, Samoa, Tonga, and other Polynesian isles, with little reference to the still raw and adventurous Melanesian region farther west, familiar to us of the Snark. But many who long to step upon the coralline sands of the east South Pacific, and cannot go that far, forget our own sub-tropics, whose spell works so wonderfully within five or six days’ sail from California. For one who would see Oahu in short order, the great Kamehameha Highway is well under way. “Hammer on federal aid for roads,” is the slogan of those interested in publicity for the Territory. Hawaii, they saw, has contributed vast sums to the federal government since annexation, but has never been included in federal appropriations for roads. Yet millions are being spent by the government in Alaska for this purpose. President Harding is hopefully regarded in this particular. A glance at the week-end automobile sections of Honolulu’s leading papers leaves no doubt of the charms of motoring about the group.
I was overjoyed to note that work was projected upon the red leagues to Waimanalo on windward Oahu. There, besides other indestructible glories of God, is that great beach, once before mentioned, the finest in all Hawaii.
One day, returning from Waimanalo, we angled aside to the old Irwin place, Maunawili, in an enchanting pocket on a mountainside. Here, long years ago, Queen Liliuokalani composed her sweet and simple song, now so widely known and associated with Hawaii, “Aloha Oe.” James Boyd, hapa-haole, and a close friend of the royal family, had then been the owner. With one who knew of the old days, I wandered about the original house, now occupied by a caretaker, where the alii had journeyed merrily over the Pali from Honolulu to rest and play; when there was no thought of time; when the heady air trembled with fragrance, and melody from happy, care-free throats. It was a quaint experience, stepping up or down from one built-on room to another; peering into musty wardrobes; contemplating the vast hikiés that had lulled long rows of Hawaiian noblemen to child-like slumber; musing above the remnants of furniture brought by clippers around Cape Horn. All the time in my ears the rich lore of a generation now silent in death.
Another day I was again at Refuge of Birds, Ahuimanu, hard against the Mirrored Mountains. Old as it had seemed before, now it looked far more than thirteen years older. Then it had been an inhabited and tended decline. Now the mossy roofs lay unrepaired beneath sun and star, cloud and rain, silent, deserted. But the few hours in which we awakened the echoes in that long dining-room and remembered chambers, and in garden and swimming pool, brought out the hospitable spirit of other days. Beside my own California mountain-side, there is one place above all others that I should love to have and cherish. It is Ahuimanu, Refuge of Birds.