Statewide County HI Archives News.....Letters of Isabella L. Bird Bishop. - Part 17. October 17, 2008 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/hi/hifiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Darlene E. Kelley http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00026.html#0006374 October 23, 2008, 12:43 am Keepers Of The Culture, A Study In Time Of The Hawaiian Islands October 17, 2008 Contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Darlene E. Kelley http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00026.html#0006374 http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00026.html#0006374 October 17, 2008 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Historical Collections of Hawai'i Keepers of the Culture A Study in Time, of the Hawai'ian Islands Letters of Isabella L. Bird Bishop " Six Months Among the Palms Groves, Coral Reefs, and Volcanos of the Sandwich Islands." Letter # X- Part 2 Transcribed. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Letter # X - Part 2 " Six Months Among The Palm Groves, Coral Reefs, and Volcanoes of The Sandwich Islands." It is wonderful that people should have thought of crossing these gulches on anything with four legs. Formally, that is, within the last thirty years, the prcipices could only be ascended by climbing with the upmost care, and descended by being lowered with ropes from crag to crag, and from tree to tree, when hanging on by the hands became impracticable to, even the most experiened mountineer In this last fashion Mr. Coan and Mr. Lyons were let down to preach the gospel to the people of the then populous valleys. But within recent years, narrow tracks, allowing one horse to pass another, have been cut along the sides of these precipices, without any windings to make them easier, and only deviating enough from the perpendicular to allow their descent by the sure-footed native-born animals. Most of them are worn by water and animals' feet, broken, rugged, jagged, with steps of rock sometimes three feet high, produced by breakage here and there. Up and down these animals slip, jump, and scramble, some of them standing still severely spurred, or driven by someone from behind. Then there are softer descents, slippery when damp, and perilus in heavy rains, down which they slide dexterously, gathering all their legs under them. On a few of these tracks a false step means death, but the vegetation whch clothes the pali below, blinds one to the risk. I don't think anything would induce me to go up a swinging zigzag -- up a terrible pali opposite to me as I write, the sides of which are quite undraped. All the gulches for the first twenty-four miles contan running water. The great Hakalau gulch we crossed early yesterday, has a river with a smooth bed as wide as the Thames at Eton. Some have only small quiet streams, which pass gently through ferny grottoes Others have fierce strong torrents dashing between abrupt walls of rock, among immense boulders into deep abysses, and cast themselves over precipice after predipice into the ocean. Probaby, many of these are the courses of fire torrents, whose jagged masses of a-a have since been worn smooth, and channelled into holes by the action of water. A few are crossed on narrow bridges, but the majority are forded, if that quiet conventional term can be applied to the violent flounderings by which the horses bring one through. he transparency deceives them, and however deep the water is, they always try to lift their forefeet out of it, which gives then a disagreeable rolling motion. [ Mr. Brigham in his valuable monograph on the Hawaiian volcanoes quoted here appears as much impressed with these gulches as I am -- he states; " The road from Hilo to Laupahoehoe, a distance of thirty miles, runs somewhat inland, and is one of the most remarkable in the world. Ravines 1,800 or 2,000 feet deep, and less than a mile wide, extend far up the slopes of Mauna Kea. Streams, liable to sudden and tremendous freshets, must be traversed on a path of indescribable steepness, winding zig-zag up and down the beautifully-wooded slopes or precipices, which are ornamented with cascades of every conceivable form. Few strangers, when they come to the worst precipices, dare ride down, but such is the nature of the rough steps, that a horse or mule will pass them with less difficulty than a man on foot who is unused to climbing. No less than sixty five streams must be crossed in a distance of thirty miles." ] We lunched in one glorious valley, and Kaluna made drinking cups which held fully a pint, out of the beautiful leaves of the Aruin esculentum. Towards afternoon turbid-looking clouds lowered over the sea, and by the time we reached the worst patli of all, the south side of Laupahoehoe, they busrt on us in torrents of rain accompanied by a strong wind. This terrible precipice takes one entirely by surprise. Kaluna, who rode first, disappeared so suddenly that I thought he had gone over. It is merely a dangerous broken ledge, and besides that looks as there were only foothold for a goat, one is dizzied by the sight of the foaming ocean immediately below, and, when we actually reached the bottom, there was only a narrow strip of shingle between the stupendous cliff and the resounding surges, which came up as if bent on destruction. The path by which we descended looked a mere thread on the side of the precipice. I don't know what the word beetling means, but if it means anything bad, I will certainly apply it to that pali. A number of disastrous-lookng native houses are clustered under some very tall palms in the open part of the gulch, but it is a most wretched situation; the roar of the surf is deafening, the scanty supply of water is brackish, there are rumours that leprosy is rife, and the people are said to be the poorest on Hawaii. We were warned that we could not spend a night comfortably there, so wet, tired, and stiff, we rode on another six miles to the house of a native called Bola-Bola, where we had been instructed to remain. The rain was heavy and ceaseless, and the trail had become so slippery that our progress was much retarded. It was the most unpropitious-looking evening, and I began to feel the painful stiffness arising from prolonged fatigue in saturated clothes I indulged in various imaginations as we rode up the long ascent leading to Bola-Bola's, but this time they ceratainly were not of sofas and tea, and I never aspired to anything beyond drying my clothes by a good fire, for at Hilo some people had shrugged their shouldres, and others had laughed mysteriously at the idea of our sleeping there, and had said it was one of the worst of native houses. A single glance was enough. It was a dilapidated frame-house, altogether forlorn, standing unsheltered on a slope of the moutain, with one or two yet more forlorn grass piggeries, which I suppsed might be the cook house, and eating-house near it. A prolonged " har-r-r-rouche " from Kaluna brought out a man with a female horde behind him, all shuffling into clothes as we approached, and we stiffly dismounted from the wet saddles in which we had sat for ten hours, and stiffly hobbled up into the littered verandah, the water dripping from our clothes, and squeezing out of our boots at evrey step Inside there was one room about 18 X 14 feet, which looked as if the prople had just arrived and had thrown down their goods promiscuously. There were mats on the floor not over clean, and half the room was littered and piled with mats rolled up, boxes, bamboos, saddles, blankets, lassos, cocoanuts, kalo roots, bananas, quilts, pans, calabashes, bundles of hard poi in ti leaves, bones, cats, fowls, and clothes. A frightful old woman, looking like a relic of the old heathen days, with bristling grey hair cut short, her body tattooed all over, and no clothing but a ragged blanket huddled round her shoulders; a girl about twelve, with torrents of shining hair, and a piece of bright green calico thrown around her, and two very good-looking young women in rose-coloured chemises, one of them holding a baby, were squatting and lying on the mats, one over another, like a heap of savages. When the man found that we were going to stay all night he bestirred himself, dragged some of the things to one side an put down a shake-down of pulu ( the silky covering of the fronds of one species of tree-fern), with a sheet over it, and a gay quilt of orange and red cotton. There was a thin printed muslin curtain to divide off one half of the room, a usaual arrangement in native houses.. He then helped unsaddle the horses, and the confusion of the room was increased by a heap of our wet saddles, blankets and gear. All this time the women lay on the floor and stared ar us. Rheumatism seemed impending, for the air up there was chilly, and I said to Deborah that I must make some change in my dress, and she signed to Kaluna, who sprang at my soaked boots and pulled them off, and my stockings too, with a savage alacrity which left it doubtful for a moment whether he had not also pulled off my feet ! I had no means of making any further change except putting a wrapper over my wet clothes. Meanwhile the man killed and boiled a fowl, and boiled some sweet potato, and with these untempting viands, and a calabash of poi were put before us, we sat round them and eat; I with my knife, the others with their fingers There was some coffee in a dirty bowl. The females had arranged a row of pillows on their mat, and lay face downwrds, with their chins resting upon them, staring at us with their great brown eyes, and talking and laughing incessantly. They had low sensual faces, like some low order of animal. When our meal was over, the man threw them the relics, and they soon picked the bones clean. It surprised me that after such a badly served meal the man brought a bowl of water for our hands, and something intended for a towel. By this time it was dark, and a stone, deeply hollowed at the top, was produced, containing beef fat and a piece of rag for a wick, which burned with a strong flaring light. The women gathered themselves up and sat around a large calabash of poi, conveying the sour paste to their mouths with an imimitable twist of their fingers, laying their heads back and closing their eyes with a look of animal satisfaction. When they had eaten they lay down as before, with their chins on their pillows, and again the row of great brown eyes confronted me. Deborah, Kaluna, and the women talked incessantly in loud shrill voices till Kaluna uttered the word auwe with a long groaning intonation, apperently signifying weariness, divested himself of his clothes and laid down on a mat alongside our shake-down, upon which we let down the curtain and wrapped ourslves up as warmly as possible. I was uneasy about Deborah who had a cough for sometime, and consequently took the outside place under the window which was broken, and presently a large cat jumped through the hole and down upon me, followed by another and another, till five wild cats had effected an entrance, making me a steping stone to ulterior proceedings. Had there been a sixth I think I could not have borne the infliction quietly. Strips of jerked beef were hanging from the rafters,and by the light which was still burning I watched the cats climb up stealthily, seize on some of these, descend, and disappear through the window, making me a stepping stone as before, but with all their craft, they let some of the strips fall, which awoke Deborah, and next I saw Kaluna's magnificant eyes peering at us under the curtain. Then the natives got up, and smoked and eat more poi at intervals, and talked, and Kaluna and Deborah quarreled, jokingly, about the time of night she told me, and the moon through the rain-clouds occasionally gave us delusive hopes of dawn, and I kept moving my place to get out of the drip from the roof, and so the night passed. I was amused all the time, though I should have perferred sleep to such nocturnal diversions. It was so new, and so odd, to be the only white person among eleven natives in a lonely house, and yet to be as secure from danger and annoyance as in our own home. At last a pale dawn did appear, but the rain was still coming down heavily, and the poor animals dismally with their heads down and their tails turned towards the wind. yesterday evening I took a change of clothes out of the damp saddlebegs , and put them into what I thought was a dry place, but they were soaked, wetter even than those in which I had been sleeping, and my boots and Deborah's were so stiff, that we gladly availed ourselves of Kaluna's most willing services. The mode of washing was peculiar; he held a calabash with about a half a pint of water in it, while we bathed our faces and hands, and all the natives looked on and tittered. This was apparently his idea of politeness, for no persuasion would induce him to put the bowl down on the mat, and Deborah evidently thought it was proper respect. We had a reputation of the same viands as the night before for breakfast, and, as before, the women lay with their chins on their pillows and stared at us. The rain ceased as soon as we started, and though it has not been a bright day, it has been very pleasant. There are no large gulches on today's journey. The track is mostly through long grass, over undulating uplands, with park like clumps of trees, and thickets of guava and exotic sumach. Different ferns, flowers, and vegetation, with less luxuriance and little water, denoted a drier climate and a different soil. There are native churches at distances of six or seven miles all the way fom Hilo, but they seem too large and too many for the scanty population. We moved on in single file at a jog-trot wherever the road admitted of it, meeting mounted natives now and then, which led to a delay for the excange of nuhou; and twice we had to turn into the thicket to avoid what here seems to be considered a danger. There are many large herds of semi-wild bullocks on the mountains, branded cattle, as distinguished from the wild or unbranded, and when they want for food, a number of experienced vaccheros on strong shod horses go up, and drive forty or fifty of them down.. We met such a drove bound for Hilo, with one or two men in front and others at the sides and behind, uttering loud shouts. The bullocks are nearly mad with being hunted and driven, and at times rush like a living tornado, tearing up the earth with their horns. As soon as the galloping riders are seen and the crooked horned beasts, you retire behind a screen. There must be some tradition of some one having been knocked down and hurt, for reckless as the natives are said to be, they are careful about this, and we were warned several times by travellers whom we met, that there were " bullocks ahead." The law provides that the vaccheros shall station one of their number at the head of a gulch to give notice when the cattle are to pass through. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Letter # X continued in part 3. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/hi/statewide/newspapers/letterso74nnw.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/hifiles/ File size: 15.2 Kb