For the first and foremost effect of the tropics is to individualize things. In colder climes people huddle together to conserve warmth; here they give one another plenty of space. Virtually one of the first things the new-comer does is to name and separate things from the mass. Every little thing has its personality. Plants grow in profusion, but each opens out to its utmost. One is much more inclined to ask what this flower is called in Honolulu than in America, for each stands out, and one stands out to each. Honolulu exudes moisture and fragrance, stirring the passions as does the scent of a clean woman. It limbers up one's reasoning faculties and arouses one's curiosity.
On the street every Chinese and every Japanese comes in for his share of attention. One begins to single out types as it has never occurred to one to do in New York. In Honolulu all intermingle, flower in a sort of unity, but in the very mass they retain their natural variations. The white people are ordinarily good, they have mastered the technique of life sufficiently and play tolerably well to an uncritical audience. While the Hawaiian policeman in charge of the traffic stands out in bold relief because the dignity and importance of his position have stiffened the easy tendencies of his race,—he is self-conscious. Monarch of Confusion, arrayed in uniform, tall and with the manner of one always looking from beneath heavy eyebrows, it is said that he causes as much trouble as he allays. But that is mere prejudice. Who would dare ignore his arm and hand as he directs the passing vehicle? He fascinates. He commands. His austere silence is awe-inspiring. When he permits a driver to pass, there is a touch of the contemptuous in that relinquishment. Nor dare the driver turn the corner till, in like manner, this human indicator points the direction for him. The finger follows now almost mockingly, until another car demands its attention, and it becomes threatening again.
One hears of the all-inclusive South Seas as though it were something totally without variation. The average tourist and scribe soon acquires the South-Sea style. But the more discriminating know full well that the expressions which describe one of the South Sea islands fall flat when applied to another. "Liquid sunshine" is a term peculiarly Hawaiian. It would never apply to Fiji, for instance, for there the words "atmospheric secretion" are more accurate. Hence, it is more than mere political chance that has made Hawaii so utterly different from the Philippines and the litter of South Seas.
Honolulu is essentially an American city. The hundreds of motor-cars that dash in and about the streets do so just as they would in "sunny California." The shops that attract the Americans are just like any in America,—clean, attractive, with their best foot forward. So meticulous, so spotless, so untouchable are they that the soul of the seeker nearly sickens for want of spice and flavor. To have to live on Honolulu's Main Street would be like drinking boiled water. One imagines that when the white men came thither, finding disease and uncleanliness rampant, they determined that if they were to have nothing else they would have things clean. All newcomers to Oriental and primitive countries cling to that phase of civilization with something akin to terror. Generally they get used to the dirt. They have not done so in Honolulu. It may be that mere distance has something to do with the different results, but certain it is that Manila, under American control just as is Honolulu, has none of these prim, not primitive, drawbacks. Twenty years of American rule have done little really to Americanize Manila, while they have utterly metamorphosed Honolulu.
The man-made machine has now outlived the vituperation of idealists. The man-made machine is running, and even the most romantic enjoys life the better for it. Clean hotels, swimming-pools within-doors, motor-cars that bring nature to man with the least loss of time and cost of fatigue,—these are things which only a fool would despise. But one longs for some show of the human touch, none the less, and cities that are built by machine processes are, despite all their virtues, not attractive. At least, they are not different enough from any other city in the modern world to justify a week's journey for the seeing. One hears that steamers and trains and airplanes are killing romance. That is so, but not because they in themselves conduce to satiety, but because they destroy indigenous creations and substitute importations and iron exactitude. Within the next few generations there will, indeed, be a South Seas, indistinguishable and without variety. Honolulu is an example. But Honolulu is not Hawaii! It is only a bit of decoration. So we shall leave this phase of Hawaii for consideration at a time when, having seen the things native to the Pacific, we reflect upon the meaning and purport of things alien.
In Hawaii, we are told,—and without exaggeration,—one can stand in the full sunshine and watch the rain across the street. So, too, can one enjoy some of the material blessings of modern life, yet be within touch of nature incomparably exquisite.
2
He was only a street-car conductor. Every day he journeyed from the heart of Honolulu, like a little blood corpuscle, through arteries of trade hardened by over-feeding, in a jerking, rocking old trolley car, to the very edge of Manoa Valley. His way lay along the fan-shaped plane behind the sea, and was lined with semi-palatial residences and Oahu College. Palms swayed in the breeze, and the night-blooming cereus slept in the glittering sunlight upon the stone walls. He was only a street-car conductor, furnished with his three spare meals a day and his bed, but he fed along the way on sweets that no street-car conductor in any other place in the world has by way of compensation. He was carved with wrinkles and his frail frame bent slightly forward, but his heart was young within him, and he acted like a plutocrat whose hobby was gardening and whose gardens were rich with the finest flowers on earth. The delight he took in the open country, barely the edge of which he reached so many times a day, was pathetic. When I asked him to let me off where I could wander on the open road, he beamed with pleasure and delight, and told me where I should have to go really to reach the wild. There may be other places in the world as beautiful and even more so, but no place ever had such a street-car conductor to recommend it. And no recommendation was ever more poetic and inspiring than this,—not even that of the Promotion Committee of Honolulu.
And, strange to say, I have never been guided more honestly and more truthfully than when that street-car conductor advised me to go to Manoa Valley. I lived an eternity of joy in the few hours I spent there. I knew that not many miles beyond I should again be blocked by the sea. I could not see it because of the hills which spend three hundred and sixty-five days of every year dressing themselves in their very best and posing before the mirror of the sky. Not more than one or two natives passed me, nor did any other living creature appear. I could only romance with myself, refusing to be fooled by the talk about fair maidens with leis round their necks. I was certain that back home there were maidens whose beauty could not be equaled here; whose soft, white skins and shapely forms were never excelled by tropical loveliness. But I was just as certain that there was nothing at home that compared to nature as it is lavished upon man here in Hawaii, and especially in Manoa Valley.
We all have our compensations, and I have even shown preference for a return to the joys of genuine human beauty which the maker of worlds gave to America, and to leave to the mid-Pacific verdure and altitudes whose combination stirs my mind with passionate adoration to this very day. Still, I shall ever be grateful to that wizened street-car conductor for having suggested that I visit his little valley, which he himself can enter only after paying a penalty of sixteen journeys between Heaven and Honolulu every day, carrying the money-makers backward and forward. Perhaps he does not regard it as a penalty. Perhaps he feels himself fully compensated if one or two of his human parcels asks him where may be found the Open Road.