Our War with Spain for Cuba's Freedom

by Trumbull White

When the United States gave a treaty to the Hawaiian kingdom putting Hawaiian raw sugar on the free tariff list, the profits of the sugar planters went up with a bound. For twenty-five years the dividends of several of the Yankee companies operating sugar plantations and mills on the islands ranged from 18 to 30 per cent a year. The Hawaiian Commercial Sugar Company paid 25 per cent dividends annually from 1870 to 1882. The world has never known productiveness so rich as that of the valleys of Maui and Hawaii for sugar cane. The seed had only to be planted and the rains fell and nature did the rest. One tract of 12,000 acres of land on Maui was given to a young American, who married a bewitching Kanaka girl, by her father, who was delighted to have a pale-faced son-in-law. It was worth about $200 at the time. The tract subsequently became a part of a great sugar plantation. It was bought by Claus Spreckels for $175,000 and is worth much more than that now. The Spreckles, Alexander, Bishop, Smith and Akers accumulated millions in one generation of sugar cultivation in the Hawaiian islands.

HUNDREDS OF VOLCANOES.

The volcanoes of Hawaii are a class by themselves. They are not only the tallest, but the biggest and strangest in the whole world. Considering that they reach from the bottom of the Pacific ocean (18,000 feet deep here) to over 15,000 feet above sea level, they really stand 33,000 feet high from their suboceanic base to their peaks. The active craters on the islands number 300, but the dead craters, the ancient chimneys of subterranean lava beds, are numbered by the thousands. The islands are of lavic formation. Evidences of extinct volcanoes are so common that one seldom notices them after a few weeks on the islands. Ancient lava is present everywhere. The natives know all its virtues, and, while some ancient deposits of lava are used as a fertilizer for soils, other lava beds are blasted for building material and for macadamizing roads. Titanic volcanic action is apparent on every side. Every headland is an extinct volcano. Every island has its special eruption, which, beginning at the unfathomable bottom of the sea, has slowly built up a foundation and then a superstructure of lava. On the island of Hawaii and on Molokai are huge cracks several thousands of feet deep and many yards wide which were formed by the bursting upward of lava beds ages and ages ago. The marks of the titanic force are plainly visible.

Mark Twain is authority for saying that the two great active volcanoes, Mauna Loa and Kilauea, on the island of Hawaii, are the most interesting in the world. Certainly they are the most unique. Mauna Loa is 14,000 feet above sea level. Every six or seven years there is an eruption from its sides and several times the flow of lava has threatened the ruin of the town of Hilo, thirty miles away. The crater on Mauna Loa is three miles in diameter and 600 feet deep. Over the crater hangs an illuminated vapor which may be seen at night over 200 miles distant. When Mauna Loa is in violent eruption a fountain of molten lava spouts every minute over 250 feet in the air, bursting into 10,000 brilliantly colored balls, like a monstrous Roman candle pyrotechnic.

Then there is Kilauea—a shorter and flatter volcanic mountain sixteen miles distant. It has the greatest crater known—one nine miles across and from 300 to 800 feet deep. And such a crater! In it is a literal lake of molten lava all the time. At times the lava is over 100 feet deep and at other times it is 200 feet, according to the pressure on it deep in the bowels of the earth. Signs of volcanic activity are present all the time throughout the depth of the molten mass in the form of steam, cracks, jets of sulphurous smoke and blowing cones. The crater itself is constantly rent and shaken by earthquakes. Nearly all tourists go to see the marvelous eruptions on Mauna Loa and Kilauea. Hotels have been built on the mountain sides for the accommodation of sightseers, and there are plenty of guides about the craters.

Oahu has many places of interest outside of Honolulu. One may visit the sugar plantations, rice farms, and may go to Pearl harbor or the Punchbowl. The latter is an extinct volcano rising a few hundred feet above the town. Another resort is the Pali, the highest point in the pass through the range of mountains that divides Oahu. It is the fashion, and a very good fashion it is, to see the Pali and praise its charms. It is the Yosemite of Hawaii. The view from this height sweeps the whole island from north to south. In the direction of the capital the land slopes to a level two miles from the sea and then spreads flatly to the shore. The hillsides are not, as a rule, in a state of cultivation, although the soil is fertile. The land is now cumbered with wild guava, which bears fruit as big as the lemon, and with the lantana, the seeds of which are scattered broadcast by an imported bird called the minah. On the lower ground small farmers, mostly orientals, make their homes, and there are several cane plantations.

Honolulu, the capital and chief city, has a population of about 25,000, and presents more of the appearance of a civilized place than any other town in Polynesia. Although consisting largely of one-story wooden houses, mingled with grass huts half smothered by foliage, its streets are laid out in the American style, and are straight, neat and tidy. Water-works supply the town from a neighboring valley, and electric lights, telephones, street car lines, and other modern improvements are not lacking.

The arrangement of the streets in Honolulu reminds many Americans of those in Boston or the older part of New York. All the streets are narrow, but well kept, and, with a few exceptions, they meander here and there at will. A dozen thoroughfares are crescent shaped and twist and turn when one least expects. All the streets are smooth and hard under a dressing of thousands of wagon loads of shells and lava pounded down and crushed by an immense steam roller brought from San Francisco.

THE INDEPENDENCE OF THE ISLANDS DECLARED.

In 1843 the independence of the Hawaiian Islands was formally guaranteed by the English and French governments, and for a number of years they were under a constitutional monarchy. On the death of King Kalakaua in 1891, his sister, the Princess Liliuokalani, succeeded to the throne, and soon proved herself to be an erratic and self-willed ruler. She remained constantly at variance with her legislature and advisers, and in January, 1893, attempted to promulgate a new constitution, depriving foreigners of the right of franchise, and abrogating the existing House of Nobles, at the same time giving herself power of appointing a new House. This was resisted by the foreign element of the community, who at once appointed a committee of safety, consisting of thirteen members, who called a mass meeting of their class, at which about 1,500 persons were present. The meeting unanimously adopted resolutions condemning the action of the Queen, and authorizing a committee to take into further consideration whatever was necessary to protect the public safety.