Hawaii is now a Territory; and Sanford B. Dole is its Governor. Still, I was a little afraid that there might be something of prophecy in the last remark he made as we shook hands.
“There is no doubt about the future or the prosperity of the islands,” he said, in answer to my last question. “With good settled government capital will come in, as it has been doing, and everything will go ahead. But,” he added very gravely, “if we get the millionaire monopolist and the professional politician over here, they’ll ruin us.”
“Exactly!” I said. “Here you have the paradise, the Eden of the Pacific. Politics will supply the serpent.”
He shook his head and smiled, and I went away without telling him that I had travelled from Chicago with a gentleman who had been to Washington to see about the introduction of that self-same serpent.
When people who have not been there read about the tropics in books, especially in story-books, the impression they get is one of general gorgeousness pervading the heavens and the earth, and a human state of things not far removed from what some of us honestly hope to deserve some day when days have ceased to count.
Blue seas lie rippling gently under azure skies; islands of almost inconceivable beauty, palm-crowned and coral-fringed, gem the surface of the waveless waters. The heat of the sun is tempered by cool, scented breezes.
The day begins and ends with sunrises and sunsets which seem like the opening and shutting of the gates of Paradise.
The nights are languorous dreams of soft delights under skies spangled with myriads of stars such as northern eyes have never seen. On other nights earth and sea are bathed in silvery moonlight such as never fell on northern sea or shore.
Some authors get their moon and stars shining at the same time. These have probably done their travelling in an armchair. Diana of the Tropics is a good deal too autocratic for that.