A closely boarded fence surrounded this city of dreadful night. Hundreds of men crowded the passageway. Within were rows and rows of shacks and cottages. Men stood gazing in at open doors and windows. Outside one shack a negro soldier remained fixed with his foot upon the door-step, but ventured no farther. Within, on a bed in full view, sat a Portuguese female, smoking, an Hawaiian woman companion lounging beside her. Both ignored the male at the door. But he remained, silent. Hope fading from his mind, and some interest elsewhere creeping in, he moved away. The Hawaiian woman smiled contemptuously.

Then for three-quarters of an hour we made strange calls. Our card was a club which the assistant to the detective—a massive Hawaiian—rapped on every porch step, announcing the expected visitor. He was not unwelcome. From every door emerged a woman, covered with a light kimono, and neatly shod. At cottage after cottage, door after door, they appeared, showed their "health" certificates, and retreated. Japanese, Hawaiian, white, brown, and yellow. Some extremely pretty and not altogether unrefined in manner; some ugly and coarse. The inspection was done hastily. Where appearance of the inmate was delayed, a stamp of the foot brought the tardy one scurrying out. Some greeted the detective familiarly; others showed their certificates and retreated. One Japanese woman called after us when we had passed her door without stopping.

Wherever there was any transgression against the proprieties, the inspector commanded the guilty to desist, and went on. One woman complained that a negro had just attacked her with a knife. She whistled and called, she said, "But I might have been killed for all the assistance I got." The inspector spoke kindly to her, assured her he would order the guard to come round. But nothing was done.

Two or three doors farther on a fat and playful woman entertained a number of men who stood outside her porch. The inspector told her to keep still. "Just such remarks as that cause trouble. You get inside and stay there." She shrugged her shoulders, made faces at him, and danced playfully within-doors.

We came upon two groups of negroes, gambling. The inspector slapped one of them upon the shoulder in a kindly way and told them to get out of sight. "You know it's not allowed here." They moved away.

It was a network of streets. Not an underworld but a hinterland, a dark swamp-land, full of scum and squirming creatures. A dreadful city, full of "joy" and abandon. A city in which women are the monarchs, the business factors, the independent, fearless beings, needing no protection. Protection from what could they need? Surely not from poverty, for wealth seemed to favor these. From loss of reputation? They had no reputations to lose. Protection they needed, but rather from themselves than from outside dangers.

For this was a restricted district which harbored no restrictions. This was the crater of human passion, of animal passion. The well-ordered universe without; within, the toils of voluptuousness. In this pit the lava of lust kept stirring, the weight of unbalanced emotion overturned within itself. The crater was thought to be deep and secure against overflow. But if it did boil over, was it far from the city?

In the city the sound of pianos playing, people reading, swimming-pools full, streets crowded with racing automobiles, soda fountains crowded, theaters agog, gathering of folks in homes and cafés,—a great world with allotted places to keep men and women and children happy; that is, away from themselves. A heavy curtain of order protects one section. The most disgusting polyandry shrieks from out the other. Yet no savage community needed such an outlet for its emotions.

From various sources I learn that that little crater has overflowed. The Chamber of Commerce, backed by the missionaries and others, secured legislation against the "regulation" of the district in 1917. From another source I got it that it was not the forces for good that banished it, but that two contending and competing forces for evil had mutually eliminated themselves. But still another source gives it out that certain "slum" sections where housing facilities are inadequate are now the center of evil, and that Filipino panderers are the most guilty. And a year after Iwilei was "done away with"—in April, 1918—the Chief of Detectives asked for "thirty days" in which to show what he could do to clean up the place so as to make it fit for the soldiers to come to Honolulu.

Little wonder that, with such examples of "self-respect" and shamefulness, lovers of the Hawaiians are throwing themselves into the work of saving the few remaining natives from demoralization. Before Cook's time these people did not know what prostitution was. Now they have lost hope and confidence in themselves. The less pessimistic say that another hundred years will see the last of the Hawaiians, as we have seen the last of the Tasmanians. Others fear it will come sooner. The Hawaiian Protective Association is stimulating racial pride in them so that they may take courage anew, and, with what sturdy men and women there still are, rejuvenate the race. But the odds are against them, for besides disease and demoralization we have introduced Japanese, Chinese, and all sorts of other coolies who have completely undermined the Hawaiian status in the islands, and are rapidly outnumbering them in the birth-rate and survival rate. What factors are at work for possible regeneration will be discussed in a later chapter.