Between the welcoming formalities, wahines, from young maidenhood to wrinkled age, approached wreathed in smiles and flowers, and made brief vowelly speeches before their princess. Not so brief, however, were those of one or two aged dames, who intoned the mele of their royal mistress. Some knelt to her, invoking blessings; some kissed her hands; others danced little hulas, archly chanting words that brought merry laughter to the lips of the princess.
“They love all this so,” she said, holding my hand with her own beautiful one. “And I love it, too. It makes them so happy. I am never going away again to live. Other times I have come home, this has lasted far into the night; and perhaps two hundred Hawaiians brought their mats or coverings and slept right here on this lanai. They will do the same to-night—sleep under my roof, you see.” I caught the unstudied regalness of her slight inclination to an old courtier, as she answered a question I had put:
“Am I tired? I am not. I rested all the way from San Francisco to Honolulu, in preparation for this day and night!—Ah, I want my children to know you—Kalakaua!” she raised her voice a little toward a tall youth, “bring your sisters!”
They are representative Hawaiians in appearance, the brother and two girls. Kalakaua, about sixteen, had the seeming of other dusky princes I had met in the world of Polynesia, with a lofty sweetness of expression and manner, and erect ease of carriage that made one’s eyes follow him as he moved about. The sisters, Kapiolani and Liliuokalani, were equally attractive. Despite their Caucasian blood and training in fashionable schools, and their latest word in summer modes, there was preserved an elusive wildness in their unfathomable eyes. I had seen the same untamable thing in the old Queen’s look of a dozen years before—though they were not related. The very pose of their young heads, from which rebellious curls seemed continually springing out of bonds, bore out this wholly charming island effect.
It had been my privilege at different times to have with me on the Jack London Ranch certain girl friends from Hawaii. And now I was again to meet some of these in Hilo in their own house—the Shipmans. Here I made home for the winter. A right royal welcome was mine, as always. Tranquil Hilo was what I most needed, and the days and nights were not long enough in which to rest, write letters, and drive about the country.
“Come—you’ve been quiet long enough for one day!” a bright voice would call, and Margaret, or Caroline, in summer lawns, stood beaming from the lanai through the French window. “Come on down to the Yacht Club for tea and a swim.” Or, “We’re off for Keaau—come with us; and we’ll swim and have supper there!” Keaau, as before mentioned, being their seaside retreat, and headquarters for the lower reaches of their cattle lands. It is pronounced Kay-ah-ah’-oo—quickly Kay-ah-ow’.
Such tropic jungle on the winding way! But first, last, and always, the cane, a jungle in itself, high above the big car: and often one had to be wary of the slicing thrusts of living green blades where the stalks had bent down the wire barriers which protect the road. Once at shady Keaau, Mother Shipman, knowing what I like, has a nimble Hawaiian scaling one of her fine palms for nuts. A clever swash of the heavy knife, and the chalice of fragrant cool water is ready to quaff. One lolls in hammocks on the high lanai, until an irruption of young things carrying bathing suits stirs one’s delicious languor.
Swimming at Keaau is inside a surf-pounded lava-rock barrier. The high breakers spill over and through crevices into this sheltered play-ground. We descended steps in a stone wall, to frolic on the sand, across which a fresh stream, never by the same route, finds its way to the sea. One has to hunt for places to swim among lava hummocks, and at high tide it is lively work battling with miniature currents that wash in and out the crevices. For a thorough swim, we would afterward wind up in a large fresh pond on the higher ground.
It was from here we made that ride on Kamehameha’s arrow-straight highway to the cowboys’ camp, Papae. Our supper was steak roasted on coals by lantern light. The native boys at first would not credit that I wanted raw fish, which I repeat is estimable above oysters. But after a little parleying among themselves, they prepared for me a morsel fresh-caught off the iron-bound coast. The night was far from tropic. Resting after supper, it was from under blankets where we lay in the moonlight on a cool swirl of age-old pahoehoe, that we watched the Pacific spouting high in gleaming spires against the lava cliffs. It was so beautiful, following the racing cloud-ships across an illumined sky where hung the few enormous stars the full moon let shine. Under the blanket, in the crook of my arm, a blooded young fox terrier moaned with the joy of white caresses—a white man’s dog, tolerated kindly enough by the cowboys.