Examples of these beautiful ornaments may be seen in several museums, where it is to be hoped that they will be kept from the destructive moths and beetles, inasmuch as they form the sole memorials of a time now passed away.
The birds which furnish these feathers are eagerly sought by the Sandwich Islanders, who have the same love of scarlet that distinguishes not only all Polynesians but all savages and children. The birds are usually caught by means of a tenacious substance much resembling our birdlime, and used in a similar manner by being smeared on twigs and poles, to which the birds are attracted by means of baits.
The natural taste in color is as good as that which displays itself in form, and although the brightest and most boldly contrasting colors are used by the Sandwich Islanders, they are used with such admirable judgment that they do not look gaudy, or even obtrusive.
The women, when young, are singularly beautiful, and retain their good looks longer than is usual among Polynesians. Like the other sex, however, they generally attain to great size in their latter years, those of the better sort being remarkable for their enormous corpulence. This development is probably owing, like that of the Kaffir chiefs, to the great quantity of porridge which they are continually eating. When young, however, they are exceedingly beautiful, their features having a peculiar charm of their own, and their forms being like those of the ancient Grecian statues. An American traveller, writing under the nom de plume of Haöle, i. e. foreigner, gives a most animated description of a native girl, in his interesting work on the Sandwich Islands, showing that the partial civilization to which the natives have been subjected has not destroyed their beauty of features nor symmetry of form.
“In truth to nature, it may be safely asserted that beauty is not confined merely to the saloon of the monarch, nor to the tapestried chambers of the patrician. It is more frequently found amid the lowlier walks of life, on the desert, or the distant isle of the ocean. In this instance I wish to be understood as speaking of physical beauty only. On leaving the shore-road to ascend the mountains for Halawa, I met just such a specimen as has often driven men mad, and whose possession has many a time paved the way to the subversion of empire on the part of monarchs.
“She was rather above the medium size of American women. Her finely chiselled chin, nose, and forehead were singularly Grecian. Her beautifully moulded neck and shoulders, looked as though they might have been borrowed from Juno. The development of her entire form was as perfect as nature could make it. She was arrayed in a single loose robe, beneath which a pretty little nude foot was just peeping out. Her hair and eyebrows were as glossy as a raven’s wing. Around her head was carelessly twined a wreath of the beautiful native ohelo flowers (Gaultheria penduliflorum). Her lips seemed fragrant with the odor of countless and untiring kisses. Her complexion was much fairer than the fairest of her countrywomen, and I was forced into the conclusion that she was the offshoot of some white father who had trampled on the seventh precept in the Decalogue, or taken to his embrace, by the marriage relation, some good-looking Hawaiian woman.
“But her eyes! I never shall forget those eyes! They retained something that spoke of an affection so deep, a spiritual existence so intense, a dreamy enchantment so inexpressibly beautiful, that they reminded one of the beautiful Greek girl Myrrha, in Byron’s tragedy of ‘Sardanapalus,’ whose love clung to the old monarch when the flame of the funeral pile formed their winding sheet.
“In no former period of my life had I ever raised my hat in the presence of beauty, but at this moment, and in such a presence, I took it off. I was entirely fascinated, charmed, spell-bound now. I stopped my horse; and there I sat, to take a fuller glance at the fair reality. And the girl stopped, and returned the glance, while a smile parted her lips, and partially revealed a set of teeth as white as snow, and of matchless perfection. I felt that smile to be an unsafe atmosphere for the nerves of a bachelor; so I bowed, replaced my hat, and passed on my way, feeling fully assured that nothing but the chisel of Praxiteles could have copied her exquisite charms. And as I gently moved past her, she exclaimed, in the vocabulary of her country ‘Love to you.’”
