Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands written by Charles Nordhoff

C >> Charles Nordhoff >> Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands

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[Illustration: HILO.]

It will surprise you to find people living among the lava, making
potato-patches in it, planting coffee and some fruit-trees in it, fencing
in their small holdings, even, with lava blocks. Very little soil is
needed to give vegetation a chance in a rainy reason, and the decomposed
lava makes a rich earth. But except the cocoa-nut which grows on
the beach, and seems to draw its sustenance from the waves, and the
sweet-potato, which does very well among the lava, nothing seems really to
thrive.

It will add much to the pleasure of your journey to Kilauea if you carry
with you, to read upon the spot and along the road, Brigham's valuable
Memoir on the Hawaiian Volcanoes. With this in hand, you will comprehend
the nature, and know also the very recent date of some important changes,
caused by earthquakes and lava flows, on the Puna coast. Near and at
Kaimu, for instance, there has been an apparent subsidence of the land,
which is supposed in reality, however, I believe, to have been caused
rather by the breaking off of a vast lava ledge or overhang, on which,
covered as it was with earth and trees, a considerable population had long
lived. In front of the native house in which you will sleep, at Kaimu,
part of a large grove of cocoa-nut-trees was thus submerged, and you may
see the dead stumps still sticking up out of the surf.

Kaimu is twenty-five miles from the Volcano House. The native house
at which you will pass the night is clean, and you may there enjoy the
novelty of sleeping on Hawaiian mats, and under the native cover of tapa.
You must bring with you tea or coffee, sugar, and bread, and such other
food as is necessary to your comfort. Sweet-potatoes and bananas, and
chickens caught after you arrive, with abundant cocoa-nuts, are the
supplies of the place. The water is not good, and you will probably drink
only cocoa-nut milk, until, fifteen miles farther on, at Captain Eldart's,
you find a pleasant and comfortable resting-place for the second night,
with a famous natural warm bath, very slightly mineral. Thence a ride of
twenty-three miles brings you back to Hilo, all of it over lava, most of
it through a sterile country, but with one small burst of a real paradise
of tropical luxuriance, a mile of tall forest and jungle, which looks more
like Brazil than Hawaii.

One advantage of returning by way of the Puna coast, rather than by the
direct route from Kilauea, is that you have clear, bright weather all the
way. The configuration of the coast makes Puna sunny while Hilo is rainy.

If you desire a longer ride than that by the Puna coast, you can cross
the island, from the Volcano House, by way of Waiahino and Kapapala to
Kauwaloa on the western coast, whence a schooner will bear you back to
Honolulu. A brief study of the map of Hawaii in this volume will show the
different routes suggested in this chapter.

Moreover, when you are at Kilauea, you have done something toward
the ascent of Mauna Loa; and guides, provisions, and animals for that
enterprise can be obtained at the Volcano House, as well as such ample
details of the route that I will not here attempt any directions. It is
not an easy ride; and you must carry with you warm clothing. A gentleman
who slept at the summit in September, 1873, told me the ice made over two
inches thick during the night.

If Mauna Loa is active, a traveler on the Islands ought by all means to
see it; for Dr. Coan assures me that it is then one of the most terrific
and grand sights imaginable. I did not visit it, as it was not active
while I was on the Islands, though its fires were alive. The crater is a
pit about three miles in circumference, with precipitous banks about two
thousand feet deep. At the bottom is the burning lake, which has a curious
habit of throwing up a jet, more or less constant, of fiery lava, to the
height, this last summer, of four or five hundred feet from the surface of
the lake. It is a fine sight, but, of course, somewhat distant. I am
told that this jet has at times reached nearly to the summit level of the
crater; and it must then have been a glorious spectacle.

[Illustration: SURF BATHING.]

Near Hilo are some pretty water-falls and several sugar plantations, to
which you can profitably give a couple of days, and on another you should
visit Cocoa-nut Island, and--as interesting a spot as almost any on the
Islands--a little lagoon on the main-land near by, in which you may see
the coral growing, and pick it up in lovely specimens with the stones upon
which it has built in these shallow and protected waters. Moreover,
the surf-beaten rocks near by yield cowries and other shells in some
abundance; and I do not know anywhere of a pleasanter picnic day than that
you can spend there.

Finally, Hilo is one of the very few places on these islands where you
can see a truly royal sport--the surf-board. It requires a rough day and
a heavy surf, but with a good day it is one of the finest sights in the
world.

The surf-board is a tough plank about two feet wide and from six to twenty
feet long, usually made of the bread-fruit-tree. Armed with these, a party
of tall, muscular natives swim out to the first line of breakers, and,
watching their chance to duck under this, make their way finally, by the
help of the under-tow, into the smooth water far off: beyond all the surf.
Here they bob up and down on the swell like so many ducks, watching their
opportunity. What they seek is a very high swell, before which they place
themselves, lying or kneeling on the surf-board. The great wave dashes
onward, but as its bottom strikes the ground, the top, unretarded in its
speed and force, breaks into a huge comber, and directly before this the
surf-board swimmer is propelled with a speed which we timed and found to
exceed forty miles per hour. In fact, he goes like lightning, always just
ahead of the breaker, and apparently downhill, propelled by the vehement
impulse of the roaring wave behind him, yet seeming to have a speed and
motion of his own.

It is a very surprising sight to see three or four men thus dashed for
nearly a mile toward the shore at the speed of an express train, every
moment about to be overwhelmed by a roaring breaker, whose white crest
was reared high above and just behind them, but always escaping this
ingulfment, and propelled before it. They look, kneeling or lying on their
long surf-boards, more like some curious and swift-swimming fish--like
dolphins racing, as it seemed to me--than like men. Once in a while, by
some mischance the cause of which I could not understand, the swimmer
_was_ overwhelmed; the great comber overtook him; he was flung over and
over like a piece of wreck, but instantly dived, and re-appeared beyond
and outside of the wave, ready to take advantage of the next. A successful
shot launched them quite high and dry on the beach far beyond where we
stood to watch. Occasionally a man would stand erect upon his surf-board,
balancing himself in the boiling surf without apparent difficulty.

The surf-board play is one of the ancient sports of Hawaii. I am told that
few of the younger generation are capable of it, and that it is thought to
require great nerve and coolness even among these admirable swimmers, and
to be not without danger.

In your journeys to the different islands you need to take with you, as
part of your baggage, saddle and bridle, and all the furniture of a horse.
You can hire or buy a horse anywhere very cheaply; but saddles are often
unattainable, and always difficult to either borrow or hire. "You might as
well travel here without your boots as without your saddle," said a friend
to me; and I found it literally true, not only for strangers, but for
residents as well. Thus you may notice that the little steamer's hold,
as she leaves Honolulu, contains but few trunks; but is crowded with a
considerable collection of saddles and saddle-bags, the latter the most
convenient receptacles for your change of clothing.

Riding on Hawaii is often tiresome, even to one accustomed to the saddle,
by reason of the slow pace at which you are compelled to move. Wherever
you stop, for lunch or for the night, if there are native people near,
you will be greatly refreshed by the application of what they call
"lomi-lomi." Almost everywhere you will find some one skillful in this
peculiar and, to tired muscles, delightful and refreshing treatment.

To be lomi-lomied, you lie down upon a mat, loosening your clothing, or
undressing for the night if you prefer. The less clothing you have on the
more perfectly the operation can be performed. To you thereupon comes a
stout native, with soft, fleshy hands but a strong grip, and, beginning
with your head and working down slowly over the whole body, seizes
and squeezes with a quite peculiar art every tired muscle, working and
kneading with indefatigable patience, until in half an hour, whereas you
were sore and weary and worn-out, you find yourself fresh, all soreness
and weariness absolutely and entirely removed, and mind and body soothed
to a healthful and refreshing sleep.

The lomi-lomi is used not only by the natives, but among almost all
the foreign residents; and not merely to procure relief from weariness
consequent on overexertion, but to cure headache, to relieve the aching
of neuralgic or rheumatic pains, and, by the luxurious, as one of the
pleasures of life. I have known it to relieve violent headache in a very
short time. The old chiefs used to keep skillful lomi-lomi men and women
in their retinues; and the late king, who was for some years too stout to
take exercise, and was yet a gross feeder, had himself lomi-lomied after
every meal, as a means of helping his digestion.

It is a device for relieving pain or weariness which seems to have no
injurious reaction and no drawback but one--it is said to fatten the
subjects of it.

[Illustration: LAHAINA, ISLAND OF MAUI.]

CHAPTER III.

MAUI, AND THE SUGAR CULTURE.

Maui lies between Oahu and Hawaii, and is somewhat larger than the
first-named island. It contains the most considerable sugar-plantations,
and yields more of this product than any one of the other islands. It is
notable also for possessing the mountain of Haleakala, an extinct volcano
ten thousand feet high, which has the largest crater in the world--a
monstrous pit, thirty miles in circumference, and two thousand feet deep.

There is some reason to believe that Maui was originally two islands,
the northern and southern parts being joined together by an immense sandy
plain, so low that in misty weather it is hardly to be distinguished from
the ocean; and some years ago a ship actually ran aground upon it, sailing
for what the captain imagined to be an open passage.

Maui has also the famous Wailuku Valley, a picturesque gorge several miles
deep, and giving you a very fair example of the broken, verdure-clad, and
now lonely valleys of these islands; which are in reality steep, narrow
canons, worn out of the mountains by the erosion of water. The old
Hawaiians seem to have cared little how difficult a piece of country was;
they not only made their taro patches in the streams which roar at the
bottoms of such gorges, but they fought battles among the precipices which
you find at the upper ends of these valleys, where the defeated usually
met their deaths by plunging down into the stream far below.

After seeing a live or burning crater like Kilauea, Haleakala, I thought,
would be but a dull sight; but it is, on the contrary, extremely well
worth a visit. The islands have no sharp or angular volcanic peaks.
Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea, on Hawaii, though 14,000 feet high, are mere
bulbs--vast hills, not mountains; and the ascent to the summit of
Haleakala, though you surmount 10,000 feet, is neither dangerous nor
difficult. It is tedious, however, for it involves a ride of about twelve
miles, mostly over lava, uphill. It is best to ride up during the day, and
sleep at or near the summit, where there are one or two so-called caves in
the lava, broken lava-bubbles in fact, sufficiently roomy to accommodate
several persons. You must take with you a guide, provisions, and blankets,
for the nights are cold; and you find near the summit water, wood enough
for a small fire, and forage for your horses. Each person should have
water-proof clothing, for it is very likely to rain, at least on the
Makawao side.

[Illustration: CASCADE AND RIVER OF LAVA--FLOW OF 1869.]

The great crater is best seen at sunrise, and, if you are so fortunate
as to have a tolerably clear sky, you may see, lying far away below you,
almost all of the islands. Hawaii lies far enough away to reveal its
entire outline, with Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea rising near either end, and
the depression near which lies Kilauea in the middle. The cloud effects at
sunrise and sunset are marvelous, and alone repay the ascent.

But the crater itself, clear of fog and clouds in the early morning, and
lighted up by the rising sun, is a most surprising sight. It is ten miles
in diameter, and the bottom lies 2000 feet below where you stand. The vast
irregular floor contains more than a dozen subsidiary craters or great
cones, some of them 750 feet high, and nearly as large as Diamond Head. At
the Kaupo and Koolau gaps, indicated on the map, the lava is supposed to
have burst through and made its way down the mountain sides. The cones are
distinctly marked as you look down upon them; and it is remarkable that
from the summit the eye takes in the whole crater, and notes all its
contents, diminished of course by their great distance. Not a tree, shrub,
or even tuft of grass obstructs the view.

To describe such a scene is impossible. A study of the map, with the
figures showing elevations, will give you a better idea of it than a long
verbal description. It is an extraordinarily desolate scene. A few wild
goats scramble over the rocks, or rush down the nearly perpendicular
cliff; occasionally a solitary bird raises its harsh note; the wind howls
fiercely; and as you lie under the lee of a mass of lava, taking in the
scene and picking out the details as the rising sun brings them out one by
one, presently the mist begins to pour into the crater, and often by ten
o'clock fills it up completely.

The natives have no tradition of Haleakala in activity. There are signs
of several lava flows, and of one in particular, clearly much more recent
than the others. It must have presented a magnificent and terrible sight
when it was in full activity. I did not ride into the crater, but it is
possible to do so, and the natives have a trail, not much used, by which
they pass. If you descend, be careful not to leave or lose this trail, for
in many parts your horse will not be able to get back to it if you suffer
him to stray off even a few yards, the lava is so sharp and jagged. As you
descend the mountain on the Makawao side you will notice two finely shaped
craters on the side of the mountain, which also in their time spewed out
lava. Nearer the coast your eye, become familiar with the peculiar
shape of these cones or craters, will notice yet others; and, indeed, to
appreciate the peculiarities of Sandwich Island scenery, in which extinct
craters and cones of all sizes have so great a part, it is necessary to
have visited Kilauea and Haleakala. The latter name, by-the-way,
means "House of the Sun;" and as you watch the rising sun entering and
apparently taking possession of the vast gloomy depths, you will think the
name admirably chosen.

If you carry a gun you are likely to have a shot at wild turkeys on your
way up or down. It is remarkable that many of our domestic animals easily
become wild on the islands. There are wild goats, wild cats, wild chickens
and turkeys; the cattle run wild; and on Hawaii one man at least has been
killed and torn to pieces by wild dogs, which run in packs in some parts
of the island.

Sugar plantations are found on all four of the larger islands; and on
all of them there are successful examples of this enterprise; but Maui
contains, I believe, the greatest number, and is thought to be the best
fitted for the business. It is on this island, therefore, that the curious
traveler can see this industry under its most favorable aspects. There
is no doubt that for the production of sugar these islands offer some
extraordinary advantages.

[Illustration: MAP OF THE HALEAKALA CRATER.]

I have seen a field of thirty acres which two years ago produced nearly
six tons of sugar to the acre. Four tons per acre is not a surprising
crop; and, from all I can hear, I judge that two and a half tons per acre
may be considered a fair yield. The soil, too, with proper treatment,
appears to be inexhaustible. The common custom is to take off two crops,
and then let the field lie fallow for two years; but where they irrigate
even this is not always done. There is no danger of frost, as in
Louisiana, and cane is planted in some part of the islands in almost
every month of the year. In Lahaina it matures in from fourteen to sixteen
months; in some districts it requires eighteen months; and at greater
altitudes even two years.

But under all the varying circumstances, whether it is irrigated or not,
whether it grows on bottoms or on hill slopes, in dry or in damp regions,
everywhere the cane seems to thrive, and undoubtedly it is the one product
of the islands which succeeds. A worm, which pierces the cane near the
ground and eats out the pith, has of late, I am told, done some damage,
and in some parts the rat has proved troublesome. But these evils do not
anywhere endanger or ruin the crop, as the blight has ruined the coffee
culture and discouraged other agricultural ventures. The sugar product
of the islands has constantly increased. In 1860 they exported 1,444,271
pounds of sugar; in 1864, 10,414,441 pounds; in 1868, 18,312,926 pounds;
and in 1871, 21,760,773 pounds of sugar.

What is remarkable is that, with this rapid increase in the production
of sugar, you hear that the business is unprosperous; and if to this you
reply that planters, like farmers, are hard to satisfy, they show you that
the greater number of the plantations have at some time been sold by the
sheriff, some of them more than once, and that, in fact, only six or seven
are to-day in the hands of their founders.

I do not doubt that there has been bad management on many plantations,
and that this accounts in part for these failures, by which many hundred
thousand dollars have been lost. For the advantages of the sugar planter
on these islands are very decided. He has not only, as I showed you above,
a favorable climate and an extraordinarily fertile soil, but he has
a laboring population, perhaps the best, the most easily managed, the
kindliest, and--so far as habits affect the steadiness and usefulness
of the laborer--the least vicious in the world. He does not have to pay
exorbitant wages; he is not embarrassed to feed or house them, for food
is so abundant and cheap that economy in its distribution is of no moment;
and the Hawaiian is very cheaply housed.

But bad management by no means accounts for all the non-success. There are
some natural disadvantages serious enough to be taken into the account.
In the first place, you must understand that the rain-fall varies
extraordinarily. The trade-wind brings rain; the islands are bits of
mountain ranges; the side of the mountain which lies toward the rain-wind
gets rain; the lee side gets scarcely any. At Hilo it rains almost
constantly; at Lahaina they get hardly a shower a year. At Captain
Makee's, one of the most successful plantations on Maui, water is stored
in cisterns; at Mr. Spencer's, not a dozen miles distant, also one of the
successful plantations, which lies on the other side of Mount Haleakala,
they never have to irrigate. Near Hilo the long rains make cultivation
costly and difficult; but the water is so abundant that they run their
fire-wood from the mountains and their cane from the fields into the
sugar-houses in flumes, at a very great saving of labor. Near Lahaina
every acre must be irrigated, and this work proceeds day and night in
order that no water may run to waste.

Then there is the matter of shipping sugar. There are no good ports except
Honolulu. Kaului on Maui, Hanalei and Nawiliwili on Kauai, and one or two
plantations on Oahu, have tolerable landings. But almost everywhere the
sugar is sent over vile roads to a more or less difficult landing, whence
it is taken in launches to the schooners which carry it to Honolulu, where
it is stored, coopered, and finally reshipped to its market. Many landings
are made through the surf, and I remember one which, last spring,
was unapproachable by vessel or boat for nearly four weeks.

Each sugar planter has, therefore, problems of his own to solve. He can
not pattern on his neighbors. He can not base his estimate on theirs. He
can not be certain even, until he has tried, which of the ten or a dozen
varieties of cane will do best on his soil. He must look out for wood,
which is by no means abundant, and is often costly to bring down from the
mountain; he must look out for his landing; must see that taro grows near
at hand; must secure pasture for his draught cattle: in short, he must
consider carefully and independently many different questions before he
can be even reasonably sure of success. And if, with all this uncertainty,
he embarks with insufficient capital, and must pay one per cent. a month
interest, and turn his crop over to an agent in Honolulu, who is his
creditor, and who charges him five per cent. for handling it, it will not
be wonderful to any business man if he fails to grow rich, or if even he
by-and-by becomes bankrupt. Many have failed. Of thirty-four plantations,
the number worked in all the islands at this time, only six or seven are
in the hands of their founders. Some, which cost one hundred thousand
dollars, were sold by the sheriff for fifteen or eighteen thousand; some,
which cost a quarter of a million, were sold for less than a hundred
thousand.

If you speak with the planters, they will tell you that their great
difficulty is to get a favorable market; that the duty on their sugar
imported into San Francisco eats up their profits; and that the only
cure--the cure-all, I should say, for all the ills they suffer--is a
treaty with the United States, which shall admit their product duty free.
Of course any one can see that if the sugar duty were remitted to them,
the planters would make more money, or would lose less. An ingenuous
planter summed up for me one day the whole of that side of the case, by
saying, "If we had plenty of labor and a free market for our sugar, we
should be thoroughly satisfied."

But I am persuaded that, as there are planters now who are prosperous and
contented, and who make handsome returns even with the sugar duty against
them, so, if that were removed, there would be planters who would continue
their regular and slow march toward bankruptcy; and for whom the remitted
duty would be but a temporary respite, while it would deprive them of a
cheap and easy way to account for their failure. Wherever on the islands
I found a planter living on his own plantation, managing it himself, and
_out of debt_, I found him making money, even with low prices for his
sugar, and even if the plantation itself was not favorably placed; not
only this, but I found plantations yielding steady and sufficient profits,
under judicious management, which in previous hands became bankrupt. But
on the other hand, where I found a plantation heavily encumbered with
debt and managed by a superintendent, the owner living elsewhere, I heard
usually, though not always, complaints of hard times. If a sugar planter
has his land and machinery heavily mortgaged at ten or twelve per cent
interest; if he must, moreover, borrow money on his crop in the field to
enable him to turn that into sugar; if then he sends the product to an
agent in Honolulu, who charges him five per cent. for shipping it to San
Francisco; and if in San Francisco another agent charges him five per
cent. more, _on the gross returns including freight and duty_, for selling
it; if besides all this the planter buys his supplies on credit, and is
charged one per cent. a month on these, compounded every three months
until it is paid, and pays almost as much freight on his sugar from the
plantation to Honolulu as from there to its final market--it is highly
probable that he will, in the course of time, fail.

There are not many legitimate enterprises in the world which would bear
such charges and leave a profit to the manager. But it is on this system
that the planting of sugar has been, to a large extent, carried on for
years in the Islands. Under it a good deal of money has been made, but not
by the planters. Nor is this essentially unjust. In the majority of cases,
planters began rashly with small means, and had to borrow largely to
complete their enterprises and get to work. The capitalist of course took
a part of the profits as interest. But the capitalist was in many
cases also the agent and store-keeper in Honolulu; and he shaved off
percentages--all in the way of business--until the planter was really
no more than the foreman of his agent and creditor. When, under such
circumstances, a planter complained that he did not make the fortune he
anticipated, and reasoned that therefore sugar planting in the Islands is
unprofitable, he seemed to me to speak beside the question--for his agent
and creditor, his employer in fact, made no complaint: _he_ always made
money; and as he had invested the money to carry on the enterprise, this
was but the natural result.

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