Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 March 1893 — AN ISLAND NATION. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

AN ISLAND NATION.

A STUDY OF HAWAII AND HER PEOPLE. The Simplicity and Barbarous Innocence Of the Natives—A Beautiful land—The Scourge of leprosy—Value of Our Hawaiian Imports. Bigger than Wisconsin. Hawaii, land of smiling sunshine and rushing rain, place of paradise and" abode of torment! Ten little islands sleeping in the sea, where indolence and industry meet and mingle; where commerce thrives incredibly, and idleness exists in its laziest perfection! At once awialth resort and a breeding-place of hudMuity’s most frightful- scourge! •qgjyro Nature’s most refulgent luxuriance ffCeps to the very edge of pita

Where Nature’s most malignant anger ever boils and bubbles, and sometimes reaches out a sinuous arm of molten lava to cngnlf a town and murder thousands! Hawaii is truly a strange little nation—a strange little nation in strange little lands with a strange little peoplo. But with all the strangeness of them all

they are marvelously rich now and richer yet in future possibilities. Ever since this group of oases on Pacific’s watery desert was discovered by Captain Cook and claimed by Vancouver. the Sandwich Islands have been

inc’elnltely regarded as the home of cannibals. As a matter of fact, no instance of cannibalism has ever been proven against them. Threnatives doubtless gained their reputation for ferocity through the killing of Captain Cook. But Captain Cook appeared among them claiming and believed to be a god. For weeks he and his 6allors basked In the credulity of the natives, who voluntarily despoiled themsefves of whatever they valued most—from qUalnt, (Served trinkets to their wives—to make their peace with the white-skinned emissaries from heaven. At last they found that they hod been deceived —that Cook and his English sailors were not gods, but grasping, lying men, not half so near divinity as they themselves. Then Cook was murdered. And if, full of the knowledge of the first wi ong that had ever entered into theirchildish lives, taey helped his death along with torture, Is it to be wondered at? Now, at Kawaloa, in the blue shadows of one x>f Hawaii’s loveliest mountains, ku tfh the sound of the gentle muTmufi .pf ,t ve world’s bluest sea, and sdrnf ended by magnifi-

cent palms, a marble monument, at wgh all Hawaii does homage, stands

Gentle People.

If the natives were mallolous and man-eating, then they hjve changed marvelously since, for nowadays it seems impossible for them to believe a man is bad. With them you are their friend until you have thrice proved

yourself their enemy, and even then you need but ask forgiveness to receive their love again. And to be a Hawaiian’s friend is to be little less than his

master. His deeds of kindness stop only with his ability. The islands are as beautiful as the people are good-natured. Never ceasing verdure, which invadeß every nook affording fingerhold for a clinging tendril, until it is hard sometimes to guess Wbk h is habitation and which is thicket; towering mountains, often capped by inextinguishable volcanic fires instead of snow; winding valleys, through whose bosky depths crystal streams glitter in the summer and change to raging torrents in the rainy season—all these are there with other wonders—all beautiful. By the wayside grass cottages for the natives and pretty wooden structures for the foreigners offer openhearted hospitality to the tourist. Breezes always blow. They blow health to the foreign invalid; but, alas! they sometimes blow horror and death to the native. .Leprosy Is decreasing in Hawaii, it is said; but still the famous leper colony on Molokai, one of the mo6t beautiful islands of the group, does not lack tenants. Harrowing farewell scenes. Are not unusual at the isolated Honolulu wharf from which the leper boat sails. "Aloha!” murmurs the departing one, which means farewell. “Aloha! aloha!’' cry the dear ones left behind, and they rend the air and fill their mouths with ashes in the extremity of their grief, for it is “aloha” forever! The human freight on the little steamer is carried on its plunging, wave-rocked way to a doom more terrible than death—a living, breathing, conscious decay. In that leper settlement all that is not human thrives and blossoms and is fruitful. All that is human gathers some new loathsomeness, some novelty of horror

with each succeeding day. This blight and helplessness of the Hawalfans, when they believe death is hovering near, have imuch to do with

the steady decrease in their numbers, which in twenty-one years has amounted to 44 per cent. But there are other reasons for this decline. The del oate. Nature-loving Hawaiians seem not to

thrive under civilization. Foreign diseases of however sample a sort are almost always fatal alith them, and their women have' becon£| strangely sterile.

At the present rate the lapse of not many years will bring a time when few full-blooded natives are alive. How the Queen Laid Idolatry Low - Yet while they live they are a brave and muscular race. There are few weak-minded' ones among them, although Intermarriage of families was until recently common. In everything except facing unseen death they are courageous. The queen, who was recently deposed, once gave as magnificent an exhibition of will power and heroism as any woman ever did. Her subjects bad been forbidden to worship Pele, the god of the volcanoes, many years ago, and had almost forgotten him when an eruption occurred which threatened to overcome Hilo, on the east coast of the Island of Hawaii. Hilo is smaller thau Honolulu, the capital, - but much, more beautiful, Its trade is trifling, but as a health and pleasure resort it is popular with both natives and foreigners. It Is the Paris of the Sandwteh Islands. Honolulu is their Chicago. The great river of lava was slowly but surely descending on the city. The then reigning Princess, thinking that Pele was powerful after all and was sending the lava in anger, prayed to him three days and nights. Then, at the very back door of the city, the lava stopped and now forms a glittering gray wall behind the town. This revived the faith of the islanders in Pele. When Liliuokaiani came into power she decided to unseat it and announced the faot throughout her kingdom. The Queen went to the volcano of Kilauao, in whose molten crater Pele was believed to abide. It had been considered sinful and provocative of certain death to eat ohelo berries without first offering some to Pele, but as the Queen went she picked and ate ohelo berries, meanwhile singing a song of defiance to Pele. It was dramatic, and may seem silly here, but it was the only way in which she could, as she did, remove the last vestige of idolatry from the Hawaiian Islands. She ventured into the very heart of the crater, stopping only when the lava on which she walked burned her shoes. But Pele harmed her not and she derided him. Since then all Hawaii has laughed in his face, and eaten ohelo berries when and where it pleased. The native Hawaiians, with their rich brown skins, their big liquid eyes, and their supple, energetic limbs, are far from being an unhandsome race. The men are of good height and muscular; tho women charming in their youth, beautiful in their early prime, and no

worse than other tropical women in their maturity. Prom a Materialistic Point of View. Such are the Hawaiian people and the Sandwich Islands. Surely they form a fascinating study for the romancer. In the commerce of the Hawaiian group the materialist finds a no less absorbing subject for research and speculation.

The islands lie between the ISth and 20th degrees, north latitude, and longitude 154-165 west. Twenty-one hundred miles of uninterrupted ocean roll between them and San Francisco. The largest of the Islands is Hawaii, with Maul, Oahu, haui, Molokai, Larial, Nihau, Kahoolawe, Lebua ar.d Molokini, ranging in sizo in the order named. The total area of the islands is 61,000 miles. Thus the new State—if the Islands be admitted—wilt" be 2,000 square miles larger than Idaho, 2,500 square miles bigger than Michigan, 5,000 square miles larger than Wisconsin, and only 8,000 square miles smaller than Missouri or Washington. Nor does the only richness of Hawaii lie in size. Her population of 89,9;,0 is larger than that of Washington and almost as large as that of South Dakota, which has 15,000 square miles greater area. Hawaii has been referred to as a land of languor-loving, lazy bodies. But these lazy bodies have built up a trade that is not to be despised, in 1890 Hawaii’s total business dealings with this country alone amounted to more than $17,000,000, the balance of which was largely in Hawaiian favor, for while these brown-skinned islanders were buying $4,711,417 of Amerioan goods. America was buying $12,313,908 of Hawaiian products. Trade between the United States and Hawaii has reached proportions that few people realize. We bought three-fourths as much in 1890 from that little group of islands in the South Pacific as we did from the whole Chintse Empire, notwithstanding fifeorackers and tea. Multiply our imports from Hawaii by three and you will have a total almost as great as our imports were from Canada in the same year. Among the commodities which helped to make up these surprising totals were sugar, coffee, pulu (a silky vegetable fiber) and hides.. It will be observed that this little water-locked nation is not to be lightly sneezed at as a commercial entity.

Wholly American In Sympathy. When Queen Liliuokalani was deposed, it was not surprising that her subjects should apply for a bit of the. protecting warmth found under the wings of the American eagle. For many years the islands have been entirely American in sympathies. The whole population, except the 5,009 or 6,000 Englishmen, Germans and Frenchmen, is more American in spirit than it is Hawaiian. For years it has been not unusual for residents, whether they had ever visited this land of the free or not, to reTer to it as “home," and, should one contemplate coming to see us, he would very likely speak of the projected voyage as “going home. ” The agricultural products of the islands are, besides .sugar, to which more than seventy large estates are devoted, rice, of which 2.455 tone were exported in 1883; some coffee, pineapples,oranges, ngoes,custard, apples, guavas, maize, ahdJwheat. Besides these, great quantittes of Jialo are raised, and to the fact that it Njeede practically no cultivation, and that Vpatch.torty feet square will produce enough fopa *to support a native for a year, is chiefly - attributed the indolence of the islanders. Bhe6p aid cattle are raised to some extent. 1! 'There are only a few sheep owners in the islands, but their flocks are large, in 1878,\the latest figures obtainable, 523,000 pounds of wool were exported. The commerce between the islands and the United State# practically began in 1876 j when a trade treaty was signed.

HAWAIIAN HOTEL, HONOLULU.

THE PEAK OF PALI, NEAR HONOLULU.

SCENE ON HAWAII AN RAILROAD.

GROUNDS OF A PRIVATE RESIDENCE, HONOLULU.

HAWAIIANS EATING.

SANDWICH ISLAND CANOEISTS.

A VOLCANO QUIDS.