Strolling to the bank, we sit in long grass with our feet over the seaweed-bearded coral, and lazily watch three native women—the first we have seen—in water to their ample waists, with holokus tucked high, wading slowly in the reef-shallows. One carries a small box with glass bottom, and now and again she bobs under with the box, and then comes up laughing and flinging back her dark hair that waves and ringlets in the sun. They are hunting crabs and other toothsome sea food, which they snare in small hooped nets with handles; and their mellow contralto voices strike the heavy air like full-throated bells, as they gossip and gurgle or break into barbaric measures of melody. Whether it be hymn or native song, the voices are musically barbaric. Upon discovery of us, a truly feminine flurry of bashfulness overcomes them, but they smile like children when we call “Aloha!” and repeat the sweet greeting softly. The mirage effect of the scene is furthered by a motionless reflection of the white yacht in the glassy water, as well as of the far shore and billowy reaches of snowy cloud. The very thought of work is shocking in such drowsy unreality of air and water and earth. Poor Jack groans over self-discipline and there is a lag in his light and merry foot when he finally makes for the little work table, brushes off a brown pod and leafy lace pattern from the algaroba, and dives into the completion of “To Build a Fire.”
May 25.
Observing those native women (wahines—wah-he-nays) harvest crabs gave me an idea. Stirring betimes, virtuously I gathered a novel breakfast for my good man. In other words, I set baited lines along the jetty, and was soon netting the diminutive shellfish that hurried to the raw meat. No hooks are used; the crab furnishes these, and, being a creature of one idea, forgets to let go his juicy prize when the string begins to pull, so that by the time he does relinquish hold, the net is ready for his squirming fall. Although small, these yellowish gray, red-spotted crabs are spicily worth the trouble of picking to pieces.
Here is a peculiar thing: the fish of Pearl Lochs seldom bite, and must be either netted or speared native fashion. To be sure, there are the ancient fishponds, where it would be easy to use a seine; but these ponds are closely protected by their owners, and no uncertain penalties are exacted for poaching. There are no privileges connected with the long pond that flanks our boundary to the north, so we must depend upon the unromantic peddler for our sea fruit.
No lingering could we allow ourselves at table this morning, for we were bound Honolulu-ward on the forenoon train, to bring back the horses. “Wish I had a million dollars, so I could really enjoy life here,” yawned Jack, arms above head and bare feet in the warm, wet grass (it had rained heavily overnight), as he moved toward his work, with a longing eye hammockward.
Always have I remembered, from my days at Mills College, where I met and loved my first Hawaiian girls, the enthusiasm of Mrs. Susan L. Mills over the cross-saddle horse craft of women in Honolulu, where she and her husband founded a school in early days. So I do not hesitate to ride my Australian saddle here.
And so, trousered, divided-skirted, booted and spurred, both of us coatless, as the day promised to be sultry, we walked to Tony’s little dummy-train, on which, with fellow passengers of every yellow and brown nationality except the Hawaiian, we traveled to the very Japanesque-Americanesque village of Pearl City, to join the through-train. During the half-hour ride, we enjoyed the shining landscape of cane and terraced rice, long rolling hills, and the alluring purple gorges and blue valleys of the mountains. The volcanic red of the turned fields is like ours in Sonoma County, with here and there splashes of more violent madder than any at home.
I had expected Oahu to be more tropical, palmy and jungly. But I woefully lacked information, and the disappointment is nobody’s fault but my own. Even the cocoanut palms of Hawaii are not indigenous, nor yet the bananas, breadfruit, taro, oranges, sugar cane, mangoes—indeed, this group does not lie in the path of seed-carrying birds, and it remained for early native geniuses navigating their great canoes by the stars, and white discoverers like Cook and Vancouver, to introduce a large proportion of the trees and plants that took like weeds to the fertile soil.
Of all imported trees, the algaroba Prosopis juliflora (Hawaiian, kiawe—ke-ah’-vay) has been the best “vegetable missionary” to the waiting territory, and flourishes better here than in its own countries, which seem to include the West Indies, the southern United States, and portions of South America. One writer fares farther, and claims that it is the Al-Korab, the husks of which the Prodigal Son fed to the swine he tended. The first seed of the algaroba is supposed to have been brought to Hawaii from Mexico by Father Bachelot, founder of the Catholic Mission, and was planted by him in Honolulu, on Fort Street, near Beretania, the inscription giving the date as 1837. But an old journal of Brother Melchoir places the date as early as 1828. This tree is still alive and responsible for above 60,000 acres of algaroba growth in Hawaii. Left to itself, the algaroba seems to prefer an arid and stony bed, judging from the manner in which it has reclaimed and forested the reefy coast about Honolulu, making beautiful what was formerly a bare waste. On this island as well as on Molokai, Maui, and Hawaii, it has changed large tracts of rocky desert into abundantly wooded lands. The algaroba shades the ground with a dense brush, and attains all heights up to fifty and sixty feet—as these in our garden, where the boles have been kept trimmed and show their massive twisted trunks and limbs in contrast to their light and feathery foliage. The wood is of splendid quality, the pods are a most useful stock feed, while bees love the sweet of the blossoms and distill excellent honey. One of the two kinds of gum exuded is used like gum arabic. Containing no tannin, it has been used, dissolved in water, in laundries in other countries than Hawaii, where for some reason it is not appreciated.
Speeding along, we noticed a number of the exotic monkey-pod trees. The tropical-American name is samang, though sometimes it is called the rain-tree, from its custom of blossoming at the beginning of the rainy season. Broad-spreading, flat-topped, with enormous trunk, like the algaroba it is a member of the acacia family, folding its feathery leaves at night. It is wonderfully ornamental for large spaces, but cannot be used to shade streets, as its quick growth plays ludicrous havoc with sidewalks and gutters. I have read that a common sight in the Islands is a noonday monkey-pod shade of a hundred and fifty feet diameter.