The Spell of the Hawaiian Islands and the Philippines

by Isabel Anderson

As we approached the dock, we forgot to watch the frolicking porpoises and the silver flying fish, at sight of the daring natives on their boards riding the surf that broke over the coral reef. The only familiar face we saw on the wharf as we landed was Mr. George Carter, a friend of my husband's, who has since been Governor of the Islands.

Oahu is a beautiful island, and the town of Honolulu at once casts its spell upon you, with the luxuriance of its tropical gardens. There is the spreading Poinciana regia, a tree gorgeous with flowers of flame colour, and the "pride of India," with delicate mauve blossoms; there are trees with streaming yellow clusters, called "golden showers," and superb date and cocoanut and royal palms, and various kinds of acacia. Bougainvilleas, passion-flowers, alamanders and bignonias drape verandas and cover walls. There are hedges of hibiscus and night-blooming cereus, and masses of flowering shrubs. Everywhere there is perfume, colour and profusion, the greatest wealth of vegetation, all kept in the most perfect freshness by constant little passing showers—"marvelous rain, that powders one without wetting him!" Honolulu is well named, the word meaning "abundance of peace," for we found the gardens of the town filled with cooing doves. It is said the place was called after a chief by that name in the time of Kakuhihewa, the only great king of Oahu who is mentioned before Kamehameha I.

ROYAL HAWAIIAN HOTEL.

At the time of this visit, in 1897, the total isolation of the Islands was impressive, absolutely cut off, as they were, except for steamers. Sometimes, moreover, Hawaii was three weeks without an arrival, so that the coming of a steamer was a real event. To cable home, one had to send the message by a ship to Japan and so on around the world.

After a night at the old Royal Hawaiian Hotel, big and rambling, in the center of a pretty garden, we started housekeeping for ourselves in a little bungalow on the hotel grounds, with a Chinaman for maid of all work. Here we lived as if in a dream, reveling in the beauty of land and sea, of trees and flowers, enjoying the hospitality for which the Islands are famous, and exploring as far as we could some of the enchanting spots of this heaven on earth.

We were pleased with our little house, with its wide veranda, or lanai, as it is called there, which we made comfortable and pretty with long wicker chairs and Chinese lanterns. Mangoes falling with a thump to the ground outside, and lizards and all sorts of harmless creatures crawling or flying about the house, helped to carry out the tropical effect.

In the four visits that we have made on different occasions we have found the climate perfect; the temperature averages about 73 degrees. The trade winds blowing from the northeast across the Pacific are refreshing as well as the tiny showers, which follow you up and down the streets. There is not a poisonous vine or a snake, or any other creature more harmful than the bee; but I must confess that the first night at the old hotel, the apparently black washstand turned white on my approach as the water bugs scuttled away. Nothing really troubled us but the mosquitoes, which, by the way, did not exist there in the early days, so must have been taken in on ships.

The Islands have been well called "the Paradise of the Pacific" and "the playground of the world." The five largest in the group, and the only important ones, are Hawaii, about the size of Connecticut, Maui, Oahu, Kauai and Molokai. The small ones are not worth mentioning, as they have only cattle and sheep and a few herdsmen upon them. They are formed of lava—the product of numberless volcanic eruptions—and the action of the sea and the rain, combined with the warm climate and the moisture brought by the trade winds, has resulted in the most varied and fascinating scenery. Mark Twain, who spent many months there, said of them, "They are the loveliest group of islands that ever anchored in an ocean," and indeed we were of his opinion.

At that time the Islands formed an independent republic, under Sanford B. Dole as President, the son of Rev. Daniel Dole, one of the early missionaries. He was educated at Punahou, meaning new spring, now called Oahu College, and at Williams College in the States. He came to Boston to study law, and was admitted to the bar. But Hawaii called him, as if with a forecast of the need she would have of his services in later days, and he went back to Oahu, where he took high rank among the lawyers in the land of his birth, and became judge of the Supreme Court. After the direct line of Kamehameha sovereigns became extinct, and the easy-going rule of their successors culminated in the high-handed attempt of Queen Liliuokalani to restore the ancient rites and also to turn the island into a Monte Carlo, Judge Dole was the one man who understood both parties and had the confidence of both, and he was the unanimous choice of the best element of the population for president.