Statewide County HI Archives News.....Letters of Isabella L. Bird Bishop. - Part 27: Letter # XVI - Part 1. November 10, 2008
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Darlene E. Kelley donkeyskid@msn.com November 16, 2008, 9:07 am

Keepers Of The Culture, A Study In Time Of The Hawaiian Islands November 10, 2008

Contributed for use in 
USGenWeb Archives
by Darlene E. Kelley
donkeyskid@msn.com.
November 10, 2008

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Historical Collections of Hawai'i
Keepers of the Culture
A Study in Time, of the Hawai'ian Islands
Isabella L Bird Bishop Letters
" Six Months Among the Palm Groves, Coral Reefs, and Volcanoes of the
Sandwich Islands."
Letter # XVI - Part 1
Transcribed.

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Letter # XVI - Part 1


" Six Months Among the Palm Groves, Coral Reefs and Volcanoes in the
Sandwich Islands."


Waimanu Valley
Hawaii.

I am sitting at the door of a grass lodge, at the end of things,for no
one can pass further by land than this huge lonely cleft.
About thirty natives are sitting about me, all staring, laughing, and
chattering, and I am the only white person in the region. We have all
had a meal, sitting round a large calabash of poi and a fowl, which was
killed in my honour, and roasted in one of their stone ovens. I had
forgotten my knife, and have had to help myself after the primitive
fashions of aborigines, not without some fear, for some of them I am
sure are in an advanced stage of leprosy. The brown tattooed limbs of
one man are stretched across the mat, and others are sitting
cross-legged, making lauhala leis. One man is making fishing-lines of
beautifully white and marvellously tenacious fibre, obtained from an
Hawaiian " flax " plant ( possibly Urtica argentea), very different from
the New Zealand Phornium tenax. Nearly all the people of the valley are
ourside, having come to see the wahine haole; only one white woman, and
she a resident of Hawaii, having been seen in Waimanu before. I am
really alone, miles of mountain and gulch lie between me and the nearest
whites. This is a wonderful place; a ravine about three miles lng and
tree-quarters of a mile wide, without an obvious means of ingress, being
walled in by precipices from 200 to 400 feet high. Five cascades dive
from the palis at its head, and unite to form a placid river about up to
a horse's body here, and deep enough for a horse to swim in a little
below. Dense forests of various shades of green fill up the greater part
of the valley, concealing the basins into which the cascades leap. and
the grey basalt of the palis is mostly hidden by greenery. At the open
end, two bald bluffs, one of them 2000 feet in height, confront the
Pacific, and its loud booming surf comes up to within one hundred yards
of the house where I am writing, but is banked off by a heaped-up
barrier of colossal shingle.

Hot and silent, a sunset world of an endless afternoon, it seems a
palpable and living dream. And a few of these people, I understand, have
dreamed away their lives here, never having been beyond their valley, at
least by land. But it is a dream of ceaseless speech and rippling
laughter. They are the merriest people I have yet seen, and doubtless
their isolated life is dear to them. 

I wish I could sketch this most picturesque scene. In the varandah,
which is formed of mats, two handsome youths, and five women in green,
red, and orange chemises, all with leis of fern round their hair, are
reclining on the ground. Outside of this there is a pavement of large
lava stones, and groups in all colours, wreahed and garlanded, including
some much disfigured old people, crouching in red and yellow blankets,
ar sitting and lying there. Some are fondling small dogs; and a number
of large ones, with a whole tribe of amicable cats, are picking bones.
Surf-boards, paddles, saddles, lassos, spurs, gear, and bundles of ti
leaves are lying about. Thirteen horses are tethered outside, some of
which brought the riders who escorted me triumphantly from the head of
the valley. The foreheads of the precipices opposite are redding in the
sunset, and between them and me, horses and children are constantly
swimming across the broad, still stream which divides the village into
two parts; and now and then a man in a malo, and children who have come
up the river swimming, with their clothes in one hand, increase the
assemblage.

All are intently watching me, but are as kind and good-natured as
possible; and my guide from Waipio is discoursing to them about me. He
knows a little abrupt, disjointed, almost unintelligible English, and
comes up every now and then with an interrogation in his manner, "
Father? Mother? married? watch? How Come?"
" You " appears beyond his efforts. 
" Kilauea ? Lunalilo ?" Then he goes back and orates rapidly,
gesticulating emphatically.  A very handsome, pleasant-looking man, with
a red sah round his waist, who, I understand from signs, is the
schoolmaster, emerged from the thrng, and sat down beside me; but his
English appears limited to these words, " How old ? When I told him by
counting on my fingers he laughed heartily, and said " Too old? " and he
told others, and they all laughed. I have photographs of Queen Victoria
and Mr. Coan in my writting-book, and when I exhibited them they crowded
round me clapping their hands, and screaming with delight when they
recognized Mr. Coan.
The King's handwriting was then handed round amidst reverent " ahs " and
" ohs," or what sounded like them.The letter was also passed around and
examined lengthwise, sidewise, and ipside down. They shrieked wth
satirical laughter when I pressed some fragile ferns in my blotting
book. The natives think it quite idiotic in us to attach any value to
withered leaves.
My inkstand with its double-spring lids  have been a great amusement.
Each one opened both, and shut them again, and a chrous of " maikai,
maikai" ( good ) ran around the circle. They seem so simple and good
that at last I have trusted them wth my watch, which excotes unbounded
admiration, probably because of its small size. It is now on its
travels; but I am not the least anxious about it. A man pointed to a hut
some distance away on the other side of the river, and appeared
interrogative, and on my replying affirmatively, he mounted a horse and
carried off the watch in the dirction indicated. Mr. Ellis came to this
valley in a canoe, and he mentions that when he preached, the natives,
who seemed to be very indifferent to the general truths of Chrisianity,
became very deeply interested when they heard of Ora loa ia Jesu (
endless life by Jesus ). While I was up the valley the poor people made
a wonderful bed of seven fine mats, one over the other, on one side of
the house, and screened it off with a flaring muslin curtain; but on the
other side there were ten pillows in a row, so that I wonder how many
are to occupy the den during the night. I am now writing inside the
house, with a hollowed stone, with some beef fat and a wick in it for
light, and two youths seem delegated to attend upon me. One holds my
ink, and if I look up, the other rushes for something that I am supposed
to want. They insist on thinking that I am cold because my clothes are
wet, and have thrown over me several folds of tapa, made from the inner
bark of the wauti or cloth plant. They brought me a kalo leaf containing
a number of living freshwater shrimps,and were surprised when I did not
eat them.


Waipio
March 5th.

It seems fully a week since I left Waimea yesterday morning, so many new
experiences have been crowded into the time. I will try to sketch my
expedition while my old friend Halemanu is preparing dinner. The morning
opened gloriously. The broad Waimea plains were flooded with red and
gold, and the snowy crest of Mauna Kea was cloudless. We breakfasted by
lamp light as the days are short in this latitude, and were away before
six. My ost kindly provided me with a very fine horse and some
provisions in a leather wallet; and wit another white man and a native
accompanied me as far as this valley, where they had some business. The
morning deepened into gorgeousness. A blue mist hung in heavy folds
round the violet bases of the mountains, which rose white and sharp into
the rose-flushed sky; the dew lay blue and sparkling on the short crisp
grass; the air was absolutely pure, and with a suspicion of frost in it.
It was all very fair, and the horses enjoyed the morning freshness, and
daced and champed their bits as though they dislikd being reined in.
We rode over level grass-covered ground, till we reached the Hamakua
bush, fringed with dead trees, and full of ohias and immense fern trees,
some of them with a double tier of fronds, far larger and finer than any
that I saw in New Zealand. There ar herds of wild goats, cattle, and
pigs on the island, and they roam throughout this region, tramping,
grubbing, and rending, grinding the bark of the old trees and eating the
young ones. This ravaging is threateing at no distant date to destroy
the beauty and alter the climate of the mountainous region of Hawaii.
The cattle are a hideous breed -- all bones, hide, and horns.

We were at the top of the Waipio pali at eight, and our barefooted
horses, used to the soft pastures of Waimea, refused to carry us down
its rocky steep, so we had to walk. I admired this lonely valley far
more than before. It was ful of infinite depths of blue - blue smoke in
lazy spirals curled upwards; it was eloquent in a morning silence that I
felt reluctant to break. Against its dewy greenness the beach shone like
coarse gold, and its slow silver river lingered lovingly, as though loth
to leave it, and be merged in the reckless loud-tongued Pacific. Across
the valley, the track I was to take climbed up in thready zigzags, and
disappeared round a bold headland. It was worth a second visit just to
get a glimpse of such a vision of peace.

Halemanu, with hospitable alacrity, soon made breakfast ready, after
which Mr. Severson having arranged for my further journey, left me here,
and for the first time I found myself alone among natives ignorant of
English. For the Waimanu trip  it is essential to have a horse bred in
the Waimanu Valley and used to its dizzy palis, and such a horse was
procured, and a handsome native, called Hananui,as guide. We were away
by ten, and galloped across the valley till we came to the nearly
perpendicular pali on the other side. The sight of this air-hung trail
from
Halemanu's house has turned back several travellers who were bent on the
trip, but I had been told that it was quite safe on a Waimanu horse; and
keeping under my fears as best as I could, I let Hananui precede me, and
began the ascent, which is visible from here for an hour. The pali is as
nearly perpendicular s can be. Not a bush or fern,hardly atuft of any
green thing, clothes its bare scathed sides. It terminates precipitously
on the sea at a height of 2000 feet. Up this shelving wall, something
like a sheep track, from thirty to forty-six inches broad, goes in great
swinging zigzags, sometimes as broken seps of rock breast high, at
others as a smooth ledge with hardly foothold, in three places canied
away by heavy rains ---altogether the most frightful track that
imagination can conceive. It was most unpleasant to see the guide's
horse straining and scrambling, looking every now and then as if about
to fall over backwards. My horse went up wisely an nobly, but slipping,
jumping, scarmbling, and sending stones over the ledge, now and then
hanging for a second by his fore feet. The higher we went the narrower
and worse it grew. The girth was loose, so as not to impede the horse's
respiration, the broad cinch which usually passes under the body having
been fastened round his chest, and yet it was once or twice necessary to
run the risk of losing my balance by taking my left foot out of the
stirrup to press it against the horse's neck to prevent it from being
crushed, while my right hung over the precipice.  He came to a place
where the path had been carried away, leaving a declivity of loose sand
and gravel. You ca hardly realize how dificult it was to dismount, where
there is no margin outside the horse. I omehow slide uner him, being
careful not to turen the saddle, and getting hold of his hind leg,
screwed myself round carefully behind him. It was alarming to see these
sure-footed creatures struggle and slide in the deep gravel as though
they must go over, and not less so to find myself sliding, though I was
grasping my horse's tail.

Between the summit and Waimanu, a distance of ten miles, there are nine
gulches, two of them about 900 feet deep, all very beautiful, owing to
the broken ground, the luxuriant vegetation, and the bright streams, but
the kona, or south wind, was blowing, bringing up the hot breath of the
equatorial belt, and the sun was perfectly unclouded, so that the heat
of the gorges was intense. They succed each other occasionally with very
great rapidity. between two of the deepest and steepest tere is a ridge
not more than fift yards wide.

Soon after noon we simultaneously stopped our horses. The Waimanu Valley
lay 2500 feet ( it is said ) below us, and the trail struck off into
space. It was a scene of loneliness to which Waipo seems the world. In a
second the eye took in the twenty grass lodges of its inhabitants, the
five cascades which dive into the dense forests of its upper end, its
river like a silver ribbon, and its meadows of living green. In ten
seconds a bird could have spanned the ravine and feasted on its
loveliness, but we could only tip over the dizzy ridge that overhangs
the valley, and laboriously descend into its heat and silence. The track
is as steep and broken as that which goes up from hence, but not nearly
so narrow, and without its elements of terror, for kukuis, lauhalas,
ohias, and ti trees, with a lavish growth of ferns and trailers, grow
luxuriantly in every damp rift of rock, and screen from the view the
precipices of the pali. The valley lokes as if it could only be reached
in a long day's travel, so very far it is below, but for the steepness
of the tack makes it accssible in an hour from the summit. As we
descended, houses and a church which had looked like toys at first,
dilated on our sight, the silver ribbon became a stream, the specks on
the meadows turned into horses, the white wavy line on the Pacific beach
turned into a curling wave, and lower still, I saw people, who had seen
us coming down, hastily shuffling into clothes.

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Next Letter # XVI - Part 2.



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