Statewide County HI Archives News.....Letters of Isabella L. Bird Bishop. - Part 27: Letter # XVI - Part 2. 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 2
Transcribed.

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Letter # XVI - Part 2.

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

Part 2-

There were four houses huddled between the pali and the river, and six
or eight, with a church and schoolhouse on the other side; and between
these and the ocean a steep narrow beach, composed of large stones worn
as round and smooth as cannon bals, on which the surf roars the whole
year round. The pali which walls in the valley on the other side is
inaccessible. The school children and a great part of the population had
assembled in front of the house which I descrbed before. There was a
sort of dyke of rough lava stones roun it, difficult to climb, but the
natives, though they are very kind, did not, on this or any simular
occasion, offer me any help, which neglect, I suppose, arises from the
fact that the native women never need help, as they are strong,
fearless, and actve as the men, and rival them in swimming and other
athletic sports. An old man, clothed only with his dark skin, was
pounding baked kalo for poi, in front of the house; a woman with flowers
in her hair, but apparently not otherwise clothed, was wading up to her
waist in the river, pushing before her a light trumpet-shaped basket
used for catching shrimps, and the other women wore the usual bright
coloured chemises.

I wanted to make the most of the six hours of dayligt left, and
wemounted our horses and rode for some dstance up the river, which is
the highway of the valley, all the children swimming on our right and
left, each holding up a bundle of clothes with one hand, and two canoes
paddled behind us. The river is still and clear, wih a smooth bottom,
but comes halfway up a horse's body, and riders take their feet out of
the stirrups, bring them to a level with the saddle, lean slightly back,
and hold them against the horse's neck. Equestrians following this
fashion, canoes gliding, children and dogs swimming, were a most amusing
picture. Several of the children swim to and from school every day. I
was anxious to get rid of this voluntary escort, and we took a gallop
over the soft springy grass till we reached some very pretty grass
houses, under the shade of the most magnificent bread-fruit trees in
Hawaii, loaded with fruit. There were orange trees in blossom, and
coffee trees with masses of sweet white flowers lying among their flaky
branches like snow, and the unfailing cocoa-nut rising out of banana
groves, and clusters of gardenia smothering the red hibiscus.
Here Hananui adopted a showman's air; he made me feel as if I were one
of Barnum's placarded monsters.  had nothing to do but sit on my horse
and be stared at. I felt that my bleached face was unpleasing, that my
eyes and hair were faded, and that I had a great deal to answer for in
the way of colour and attire From the way in which he asked me
unintelligible questions, I gathered that the people were catechizing
him about me, and that he was romancing largely at my expense. They
brought me some bananas and cocoa-nut milk, which were most refreshing..

Beyond the houses the valley became a jungle of Indian shot ( Canna
indica ), eight or nine feet, guavas  and ohias, with an entangled
undergrowth of ferns rather difficult to penetrate, and soon Hananui,
whose soul was hankering after the delights of society, stopped, saying
" Lios
( horses ) no go." " we'll try," I replied, nd rode on first. He sat on
his horse laughing immoderately, and then followed me. I see that in
trevelling with natives it is essntial to have a definate plan of action
in one's own mind, and to verge on self-assertion in carrying it out. We
fought out way a little further, and then he went out of sight
altogether in the jungle, hi horse having floundered up to his girt in
soft ground, on which we dismounted and tethered the horses. He had
never been any further, and as I failed to make him understand that I
desired to visit the home of the fivecascades, I had to reverse our
positions and act as guide. We crept along the side of a torrent among
exquisite trees, moss, and ferns, till we came to a place where it
divided. There were three horses tethered there, some wearing appearel
lying on the rocks, and some human footprints along one of the streams,
which decided me in favour of the other. Hananui remonstrated by signs,
as doubtless. he espied an opportunity for much gossp in the other
direction, but on my appearing persistant, he again laughed and followed
me.

From this point it was one perfect, rapturous, intoxicating, supreme
vision of beauty, and I felt, as I now believe, that at last I had
reached a scene on which foreign eyes had never looked. The glories of
the tropical forest closed us in their depth, colour, and redundancy.
Here
the operations of nature are rapid and decisive. A rainfall of eleven
feet in a year and a hothouse temperture force every plant into
ceaseless activity, and make short work of decay. Leafage, blossom,
fruitage, are simultaneous and perennial. The river, about asbroad as
the Cam at Cambridge, leaped along, clear like amber, pausing to rest a
while in deep bright pools, where fish were sporting above the golden
sand, a laughing, sparkling, rushing, terrorless stream.
" without mysteries or agonies." broken by rocks, green with mosses and
fragile ferns, and in whose unchilled waters, not more than three feet
deep, wading was both safe and pleasant. It was not possible to creep
along its margin, the forest was so dense ad tangled, so we waded the
whole way, and whenever the water ran fiercely my unshod guide helped
me. One varied, glorious maze of vegetation came down to it, and every
green thing leant lovingly tewards it, or stooped to touch it, and over
its whole magic length was arched and interlaced the magnificent
large-leafed ohia, whose millions of spikes of rose-crimsom blossoms lit
up the whole arcade, and the light of the afternoon sun slanted and
trickled through them, dancing in the mirthful water, turning its
far-down sands to gold, and brighteing the many-shaded greens of
candlenut and breadfruit. It shone on majestic fern-trees, on the
fragile Polypodium tamariscinum, which clung trembling to the branches
of the ohia, on the beautiful lygodium, wich adorned the uncouth trunk
of the breadfruit; on shining banana leaves and glosy trailing yams; on
gigantic lianas, which, climbing to the tops of the largest trees,
descended invast festoons, passing from tree to tree, and interlacing
the forest with a living network; and on lycopodiums of every kind, from
those which wrapped the rocks in featery green to others hardly
distinguishable from ferns. But there were twilight depths too, where no
sunlight penetrated the leafy gloom, damp and cool: dreamy shades, in
which the music of the water was all too sweet, and the loveliness too
entrancing, creating that sadnes, hardly " akin to pain." which is
latent in all intese enjoyment. here and there a tree had fallen across
the river, from which grew upwards and trailed downwards,fairy-like,
semi-transparent mosses and ferns, all glttering with mositure and
sunshine, and now and then a scarlet tropic bird heightened the effect
by the flash of his plumage.    

After an hour of wading we emeged into a broad sunny daylight at the
home of the five cascades, which fall from a semicircular precipice into
three basins, It is not, however, possible to pass from one to the
other. This grat gulf is agrand sight, with its dark deep basin from
which it seeed so far to look up to the heavely blue, and the water
falling calmly and unhurriedly, admidst innumerable rainbows, from a
height of 3000 feet. The sides were draped with ferns  flourishing under
the spray, and a the base the rock was deeply caverned. I enjoyed a
delicious bath, relying on sun and wind to dry my clothes, and then
reluctantly waded down the river. At its confluence with another stream,
still arched by ohias, a an and two women appeared rising out of the
water, like a vision of the elder world in the days of Fauns, and
Naiads, and Hamadryads. the water was up to their waists, and leis of
ohia blossoms and fens, and masses of unbound hair fantastically
wreathed with mose fel over their faultless forms, and their rich brown
skin gleamed in the slant sunshine. They were catching shrimps with
trumpet-shaped baskets, perhaps rather a prosaic occupation. They joined
us, and we waded down together to the place where they had left their
horses. The women slipped into their holukus, andthe man insisted on my
riding his barebacked horse to the place were we had left our own, and
then we all galloped over the soft grass.

Waimanu had turned out to meet us, about thirty people on horseback, all
of which shook hands with me, and some of them threw over me garlands of
ohia, pandanus, and hibiscus. When our cavacade entered the river, a
number of children, dogs and three canoes awaited us, and thus escorted,
I reurned triumphantly to the house. The procession on the river of
paddling canoes, swimming children, and dogs, and more than thirty
riders, with their feet tucked up round the horses' necks, all escorting
a " pale face," was grotesque and enchanting, and I revelled in this
lapse into savagery, and enjoyed heartily the kindliness and goodwill of
this unsophisticayed peple.

When darkness spread over the valley, clear voices ascended in a wierd
recitative, the room filld up with people, pipes circulated freely, poi
was again produced, and calabashes of cocoa-nut milk. The meles were
long, and I crept within my curtain and lay down, but the drowsiness
which legitimately came over me after riding thirty miles and wading
two, was broken in upon by two monstrous cockroaches really as large as
mice, with fierce-looking antennae and prominent eyes, both of which
mounted guard on my pillow. On rising to drive them away, I found to my
dismay tat they were leaders of a host, which only made a temporary
retreat, rustling over the mat and dried grass with the crisp tread of
mice, and scaring away sleep for some hours. Worse than these were the
mosquitoes, also an imported nuisnace, which stabbed and stung without
any preliminary droning; and the heat was worse still, for thirteen
human beings were lying on the floor and the door shut. Had I known that
two of these were lepers, I should have felt far from comfortable. As it
was, I got up soon afte midnight, and cautiously stepping among the
sleeping forms, went out of doors. Everythinng faoured reflection, but I
think the topics to which my mind most frequently reverted were my own
absolute security -- a lone white woman among 
" savages," and the civilizing influence which Christianity has
exercised, so that even in this isolated valley, gouged out of a
mountainous coast, there was nothing disagreeable or improper to be
seen. The night was very still, but the sea was moaning; the river
rippled very gently s it brushed past the reeds; there was a hardly
perceptible vibration in the atmosphere, which suggested falling wate
and quivering leaves; and te air was full of a heavy, drowsy fragrance,
the breath of orange flowers, perhaps, and of the night-blowing Cereus,
which had opened its ivory urn to the moon. I should have liked to stay
out all night in the vague, delicious moonlight, but the dew was heavy,
and moreover I had not any boots on, so I reluctantly returned to the
grass house, which was stifling with heat and smells of cocoa-nut oil,
tobacco,and the rancid smoke from beef fat.

Before sunrise this morning my horse was saddled, and a number of
natives had assembled. Hananui had disappeared, but the man who lent me
his horse-backed horse yesterday was ready to act as guide. My boots
could not then be found, so I adopted the native fashion of riding with
bare feet. We rode again up the river in that slow and solemn fashion in
which horses walk in water, and galloped over a stretch of grass,
crossed a bright stream several times, and then entered a dense jungle
of Indian shot, plantains, and sadlerias, with breadfruit, kukui, and
ohia rising out of it. There were thousands of plantains, a fruit
resenbling the banana, but that it requires cooking. The Indian shot,
the yellow-blossomed variety, was of a gigantic size. Its hard, black
seeds put into a bladder furnish the chic-chac, which in many places is
used as an accompaniment to the utterly abominable
and heathenish tom-tom. Here guavas as large as oranges and as yellow as
lemons ripened and fell unheeded.Sometimes deep down we heard a noice as
of hippopotami, but nothing could be seen but the tips of ears, as a
herd of happy, unbroken horses, scared by our approach, crashed away
through the jungle. Clear rapid streams, fern-fringed, sometimes offered
us a few yards of highway, but the jungle grew more dense, the forest
trees larger, the lianas more tangled, the streams more sunk and rocky,
and though the horses shut their eyes and boldly pushed through the
tangle, we were fairly foiled when within half a mile from the head of
the valley. I throughly appreciated the unsightly leather guards which
are here used to cover the stirrups and feet, as without them I could
not have ridden ten yards. We were so hemmed in that it was difficult to
dismount, but I bound some wild kalo leaves round my feet, and managed
to get over some broken rock to a knoll, from which I obtained a superb
view of the wonderful cleft. Palis 3000 feet in height walled in its
head with a complete inaccessibility. It lay in cool dewy shadow till
the sudden sun flushed its precipices with pink, and a broad bar of
light reveald the great chasm in which it terminates, while far off its
portals opened upon the red eastren sky. This little lonely world had
become so very dear to me, that I found it hard to leave it.

There was some stir near the sea, for a man was about to build a grass
ouse, and they were preparing a stone pavement for it. Thirty people sat
on the ground ina line from the beach, and passed the stones from hand
to hand, as men pass buckets at a fire. It seemed a very attractive
occupation, and I could hardly get Hanaui to leave it. The natives are
most gregarious and social in habits. They assemble together for
everything that has to be made or done, and their occupations and
amusements are shared by both sexes. In old days it is said that a King
of Hawaii assembled most of the adults of the then ppulas island, and
formed a human chain three miles long to pass stones for the building of
the great Heiau in Kona. It is said that this valley had 2000
inhabitants forty years ago, but they have dwindled to 117. The former
estimate is probably not an excessive one, for nearly the whole valley
is suitable for the culture of kalo, and a square mile of kalo will feed
15,000 natives for a year.

Two women were shimping in the river, the children were swimming to
school, blue smoke curled up into the still air, Kalo was baking among
the stones, and a group of women sat sewing amd makig leis on the
ground. The Waimanui day ahd begun; and it was odd to think that though
the long summer years, days dawned like this, and the people of the
valley grew grey and old in shrimping and sewing and kalo baking. All
Waimanu shook hands with me, the kindly " Aloha " filled the air, and
the women threw garlands over us both. I could hardly induce my host to
accept a dollar and a half for my entertainment. From the dizzy summit
of the pali, where te sun was hgh and hot, I looked my last on the dark,
cool valley, slumbering in an endless calm, the deepest, greenest,
quaintest cleft on all the island.

The sun was fierce ad bright, the ocean had a metallic glint, the hot
breath of the kona was scorching. My hands, swollen from mosquito bites,
could not be stuffed into my gloves, and inflamed under the sun, and my
wet boots baked and stiffened on my feet. Nananui plaited a crown of
leaves for my hot head, which I found a great relief. I was still minded
to linger, for one side of each glorious gulch was cool with shadow and
dripping with dew. The blue morning glories were yet unwilted, rivulets
dopped down into ferny grottoes and lingered there, rose ohia blossoms
lighted shady places, orange  flowers; gleamed like stars admidst the
dense leafage, and the crimped-leave coffee shrubs were white with their
mimis snow. It was my last tropical dream, and I was rudely roused by
finding myself on the unslightly verge of the great bluff on the north
side of this valley, which plunges to the sea with an uncompromising
perpendicular dip of 2000 feet, and carries on its dizzy brow a shelving
trail more than two feet wide !

I felt that I must go back and live and die in Waimanu rather than
descend that scathed steep, and being stupid with terror flung myself
from my horse, forgetting that it was much safer to trust his four feet
than to my two, and to an animal without " nerves," dizziness, or 
" the fore-knowledge of death," than my palsied, cowardly self. I had
intended to go into details of the horrible descent, but the " pilikia "
is over now, and Halemanu claps me on the shoulder with an approving
smile, ejaculating, " Maikai, maikai " ( good ). Besides, my returning
senses inform me that I have not tasted food since yesterday, and some
delicious river fishes are smoking on  the table ______.

I.L.B.

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Next - Letter # XVII.



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