“... to inhabit the earth is to love that which is; to catch the savor of things.”
This brown canvas domicile, comprising three rooms separated by thin portieres, with an accessory bath-house and servant room, also of tenting, is the last of a scattered row of detached accommodations belonging to the Seaside Hotel, some of them weathered old cottages of the palmy days when Hawaiian royalty spent most of its time on the beach. A short distance mauka (mountainward) or away from makai (toward the sea), on a lawn pillared with sky-brushing coconut palms, still stands a true old grass house of romantic association. It was created for the seaside retreat of King Lot, Kamehameha V, during his reign in the decade commencing 1863, and each Wednesday was devoted to the fashioning of it, from Lama wood inside and pandanus (screw-pine) leaves outside. It was named Lama House, for the wood was sacred to the construction of temples and idols in the older days. The King left no issue, and upon his death the estate went to the Princess Ruta (Ruth) Keelikolani, and at her demise to Mrs. Bernice Pauahi Bishop, the last known descendant of Kamehameha the Great.
To the south we are separated from the big Moana Hotel with its tiers of green roofs, by a sand-banked stream fed from the mountains, with, beyond, a lavender field of lilies. Kalakaua Avenue is so far away across the hotel gardens that the only sound from that quarter is an occasional rumble of electric trams over a bridge that spans the stream, fitting into our bright solitude like distant thunder from the black range that is visible through a grove of palms and algaroba.
Not twenty feet in front, where grass grows to the water’s edge at highest tide, the sands, sparkling under blazing sunrays, are frilled by the lazy edges of the surf; and the flawed tourmaline of the reef-waters, pale green, or dull pink from underlying coral patches, stretches to the low white line of breakers on the barrier reef some half-mile seaward, while farthest beyond lies the peacock-blue ribbon of the deep-sea horizon.
In the cool of morning, we skipped across the prickly grasses for a dip, accompanied by a frisking collie neighbor. The water was even more wonderful than at the Lochs, invigorating enough at this early hour, full of life and movement. Jack gave me lessons in diving through the mild breakers, and it was hard to tear ourselves away, even for the tempting breakfast tray that a white-suited Filipino was bearing to the tent-house.
Besides our cottage row, the Seaside Hotel includes one large frame house of many rooms, half over the water, reached by a winding driveway from the main avenue through a grove of lofty coconut palms, under which stray large cottages belonging to the hotel. In a rambling one-storied building are the kitchen, the bar, an oriental private dining room, and a reception hall, also furnished in Chinese carved woods and splendid fittings, that belong to the estate. This hall opens into a circular lanai with frescoed ceiling—a round dining and ballroom open half its disk. Beyond the curving steps, on the lawn toward the sea, grow two huge gnarled hau trees, each in the center of a round platform where drinks are served. The hau is a native of the Islands, and is related to the hibiscus. The limbs snarl into an impenetrable shape, and are hung with light yellow bells formed of five to ten lobes, which turn to mauve and then to ruddy brown when they fall.
Mr. and Mrs. Fred Church (he is manager, and an old Klondike acquaintance of Jack) gave us a dinner before the “Transport Night Dance.” While the first word is appropriate for the bewitchment of dancing in a Hawaiian night to the music of Hawaii, it is here used to designate the entertainment on arrival of a United States Army transport, when the officers and their ladies come ashore midway in the long passage to or from the Coast and the Philippines.
The immense half-open circle of the lanai was cleared of dining equipment, and the shining floor dusted with shavings of wax. Many-hued Chinese lanterns were the only lighting here and out among the trees, where dancers rested in the pauses of the music.
And the music. It was made entirely by an Hawaiian orchestra of guitars and ukuleles, with a piano for accent, and all I had heard and dreamed of the glamour of “steamer night in Honolulu” came to pass. It seemed hardly more real than the dream, gliding over the glassy floor to lilt of hulas played and sung by these brown musicians whose mellow, slurring voices sang to the ukuleles and guitars because they could not refrain from singing.
Between two dances I found Jack talking with Princess David Kawananakoa and her husband, who is brother to Prince Cupid, and whom he resembles. Both Princes are nephews of King Kalakaua’s queen, Kapiolani. Princess David, Abigail, was a Campbell, and is only about an eighth Hawaiian. She is a beauty; no more splendid in carriage than her sister-in-law, but much more European in coloring and feature. Doubtless she could be quite as regal upon occasion; but this evening she was charmingly vivacious, and I caught myself looking with affection born of the instant into her beautiful eyes that smiled irresistibly with her beautiful mouth—“a smile of pearls.”