 This is Section 58 of Newspaper Articles by Mark Twain. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Newspaper Articles by Mark Twain, Section 58, The Sacramento Daily Union, August 1866, Part 1. The Sacramento Daily Union, August 1st, 1866. Honolulu, July 1st, 1866. Funeral of the Princess At ten o'clock yesterday morning, the court, members of the legislature, and various diplomatic bodies, assembled at the Iolani Palace to be present at the funeral of the late Princess. The sermon was preached by the Reverend Mr. Parker, pastor of the Great Stone Church, of which the Princess was a member, I believe, and whose choir she used to lead in the days of her early womanhood. To the day of her death she was a staunch, unwavering friend and ally of the missionaries, and it is a matter of no surprise that Parker, always eloquent, spoke upon this occasion with a feeling and pathos which visibly moved the hearts of men accustomed to conceal their emotions. The Bishop of Honolulu, Ever-Zellis, had sought permission to officiate in Parker's stead, but after duly considering the fact that the Princess had always regarded the Bishop with an unfriendly eye and had persistently refused to have anything to do with his church, his request was denied. However he demanded and was granted the place of honor in the procession, although it belonged properly to the officiating clergyman. The Bishop also claimed that inasmuch as the royal mausoleum was consecrated ground, it would be sacrilegious to allow a Calvinistic minister to officiate there when the body was consigned to the tomb, and so he was allowed to conduct that portion of the obsequies himself. However he explained that it was not the custom of his church to read a burial service or offer up a prayer over such as had never belonged to that church, and therefore the departed princess was consigned to her last resting place with no warmer or kindlier a recommendation than a meager, non-committal benediction, a sort of chilly, funerial politeness, nothing more. But then we should not blame the Bishop in this matter, because he has both authority and example to sustain his position, as I find by reference to a review by W. D. Alexander of one of his pastoral addresses. I quote from Alexander. Even the right of silent internment was denied them, and when the afflicted father would himself perform the last sad offices at the grave of his child, the spade was wrenched from his hand by the sexton. In offering this defense of the Bishop of Honolulu I do so simply with an unselfish wish to do him justice and save him from hasty and injurious criticism, and not through a mean desire to curry favor with him. The grand funerial pageant. As the hour of eleven approached, large bodies of white and native residents, chiefly on horseback, moved toward the palace through the quiet streets to see the procession form. All business houses were closed, of course, and many a flag, half-mast high, swung lazily in the summer air. The procession began to move at eleven, amid the solemn tolling of bells and the dull booming of minute guns from the heights overlooking the city. A glance of the eye down the procession revealed a striking and picturesque spectacle. Large bodies of women, in melancholy black, and roofed over with a far-reaching double line of black umbrellas, troops of men and children in black, carriages with horses clad from head to foot in sable velvet, and in strong contrast with all this were the bright colors flashing here and there along the pageant. Swore these waves in crimson raiment, soldiers in blue and white, and other lively hues. Mounted lancers with red and white penance fluttering from their weapons. Nobles and great offices in splendid uniforms, and conspicuous admittance, gloomy surroundings, the catafalque, flanked on either side with gorgeously tinted cahiles. The slow and measured tread of the marching squadrons, the mournful music of the bands, the chanting of the virtues of the dead and the warrior deeds of her ancestors by a gray and venerable woman here and there, the wild wail that rang out at times from some bereaved one to whom the occasion brought back the spirit of the buried past. These completed the effect. The cahiles. The cahiles are symbols of mourning which are sacred to the aristocracy. They are immense plumes, mounted upon tall poles, and are made of feathers of all bright and beautiful colors. Some are rich purple, some crimson, others brown, blue, white and black, etc. These are all dyed, but the costly cahiles formed of the yellow feather of royalty, taboo to the common herd, were tinted by the hand of nature, and come from the tropic bird, which, as I have said, in a previous letter, has but two of them, one under each wing. One or two cahiles, also made of red feathers from a bird called by sailors the Marlin Spike Bird, had no artificial coloring about them. These feathers are very long and slender, hence the fowl's name, and each bird's tail is furnished with two and only two of them. The birds of the Sandwich Island seem uncommonly indigent in the matter of strictly ornamental feathers. A dozen or more of these gaudy cahiles were upheld by pallbearers of high blood, and fenced in the stately catafalque with a very colored wall as brilliant as a rainbow. Through the arches of the catafalque could be seen the coffin, draped with that badge and symbol of royalty, the famous yellow feather war cloak, whose construction occupied the toiling hands of its manufacturers during nine generations of Hawaiian kings. Style. We have here, in this little land of fifty thousand inhabitants, the complete machinery in its minutest detail of a vast and imposing empire done in miniature. We have all these sounding titles, all the grades and casts, all the pomp and circumstance, of a great monarchy. To the curious, the following published program of the procession will not be uninteresting. After reading the long list of dignitaries, etc., and remembering the sparseness of the population, one is almost inclined to wonder where the material for that portion of the procession devoted to Hawaiian population generally is going to be procured. Details. The Ahahui Ka-Humanu, a benevolent society instituted and presided over by the late princess for the nursing of the sick and the burial of the dead, was numerously represented. It is composed solely of native women. They were dressed in black and wore sashes of different colors. His Majesty the King, attended by a guard of nobles and princes, whose uniforms were splendid, with bright colors and loops and braids of gold, rode with his venerable father in the first carriage in the rear of the catafalque. The Bishop of Honolulu occupied the place of honor in that portion of the procession which preceded the catafalque. The servants of the King and the late Princess would have made quite a respectable procession by themselves. They numbered two hundred and fifty, perhaps. Four or five poodle dogs, which had been the property of the deceased, were carried in the arms of individuals among these servants of peculiar and distinguished trustworthiness. It is likely that all the Christianity the Hawaiians could absorb would never be sufficient to wean them from their almost idolatrous affection for dogs. And these dogs, as a general thing, are the smallest, meanest, and most spiritless, homely and contemptible of their species. As the procession passed along the broad and beautiful Anu Street, an innocent native would step out occasionally from the ranks, procure a slice of watermelon or a pineapple or a lighted pipe from some dusky spectator, and return to his place and enjoy the refreshing luxury as he kept step with the melancholy music. When we had thoroughly examined the pageant we retired to a back street and galloped ahead to the mausoleum, two miles from the center of the town, and sat down to wait. This mausoleum is a neat edifice, built of dressed blocks of coral, has a high, sharp, slated roof, and its form is that of a Greek cross. The remains of the later kings repose in it, but those of ancient times were hidden or burned, in compliance with the custom of the Dark Ages. Some say, to prevent evil-disposed persons from getting hold of them, and thus being unable to pray a descendant to death, others say, to prevent the natives from making fish-hooks out of them, it being held that there were superior fish-hook virtues in the bones of a high chief. There are other theories for accounting for this custom, but I have forgotten what they are. It is said that it was usual to send a friend to hide the bones, after they had been stripped of the flesh and neatly tied in a bundle, and then weigh-lay him and kill him as he came back, whereby it will be observed that to do a favor of this kind was attended with consequences which could not be otherwise than disagreeable to the party assuming the kindly office of undertaker to a dead dignitary. Of course, as you will easily divine, the man was killed to prevent the possibility of his divulging his precious secret. The mausoleum is large enough to accommodate many dead kings and princes. It stands in the middle of a large grass-clad lawn, which is enclosed by a stone wall. Arrival of the procession As the procession filed through the gate, the military deployed handsomely to the right and left and formed an avenue through which the long column of mourners passed to the tomb. The coffin was borne through the door of the mausoleum, followed by the king and his chiefs, the great officers of the kingdom, foreign consuls, ambassadors, and distinguished guests—Berlingame and General van Valkenburg. Several of the Cahiles were then fastened to a framework in front of the tomb, there to remain until they decay and fall to pieces, or for stalling this until another scion of royalty dies. At this point of the proceedings the multitude set up such a dismal, heartbroken wailing as I hope never to hear again. The soldiers fired three volleys of musketry, the wailing being previously silenced to permit of the guns being heard. His highness, Prince William, in a showy military uniform, who was formerly betrothed to the princess but was not allowed to marry her, stood guard and paced back and forth within the door. The privileged few who followed the coffin into the mausoleum remained some time, but—the king—soon came out and stood in the door and near one side of it. A stranger could have guessed his rank, although he was so simply and unpretentiously dressed, by the profound deference paid him by all persons in his vicinity, by seeing his high officers receive his quiet orders and suggestions with bowed and uncovered heads, and by observing how careful those persons who came out of the mausoleum were to avoid crowding him, although there was room enough in the doorway for a wagon to pass for that matter. How respectfully they edged out sideways, scraping their backs against the wall, and all was presenting a front view of their persons to his majesty, and never putting their hats on until they were well out of the royal presence. The king is thirty-four years of age, it is said, but looks all of fifty. He has an observant, inquiring eye, a heavy, massive face, a lighter complexion than is common with his race, tolerably short, stiff hair, a moderate mustache, and imperial, large stature, inclining somewhat to corpulence—I suppose he weighs fully one hundred and eighty, maybe a little over—has fleshy hands, but a small foot for his size, is about six feet high, is thoughtful, and slow of movement, has a large head firmly set upon broad shoulders, and is a better man and a better-looking one than he is represented to be in the villainous popular photographs of him, for none of them are good. That last remark is surplicage, however, for no photograph ever was good yet of anybody. Hunger and thirst and utter wretchedness overtake the outlaw who invented it. It transforms into desperados the meekest of men. To pick sinless innocence upon the pictured faces of ruffians gives the wise man the stupid lure of a fool and a fool an expression of more than earthly wisdom. If a man tries to look merely serious when he sits for his picture, the photograph makes him as solemn as an owl. If he smiles, the photograph smirks repulsively. If he tries to look pleasant, the photograph looks silly. If he makes the fatal mistake of attempting to seem pensive, the camera will surely write him down an ass. The sun never looks through the photographic instrument that it does not print a lie. The piece of glass it prints it on is well-named a negative, a contradiction, a misrepresentation, a falsehood. I speak feelingly of this matter because, by turns, the instrument has represented me to be a lunatic, a solemn, a missionary, a burglar, and an abject idiot, and I am neither. The king was dressed entirely in black, dress-coat and silk hat, and looked rather democratic in the midst of the showy uniforms about him. On his breast he wore a large gold star which was half-hidden by the lapel of his coat. He remained at the door a half-hour, and occasionally gave an order to the men who were erecting the Cajiles before the tomb. He had the good taste to make one of them substitute black crepe for the ordinary hempum rope he was about to tie one of them to the framework with. Finally he entered his carriage and drove away, and the populace shortly began to drop in his wake. While he was in view there was but one man who attracted more attention than himself, and that was Minister Harris. This feeble personage had crepe enough around his hat to express the grief of an entire nation, and, as usual, he neglected no opportunity of making himself conspicuous and exciting the admiration of these simple canakas. Oh! noble ambition of this modern rishio! A contrast. How they did in ancient times. It is interesting to contrast the funeral ceremonies of the Princess Victoria with those of her great ancestor, Kamehameha the Conqueror, who died less than fifty years ago. In 1819, the year before the first missionaries came, on the eighth of May 1819, at the age of sixty-six, he died, as he had lived in the faith of his country. It was his misfortune not to have come in contact with men who could have rightly influenced his religious aspirations. Judged by his advantages and compared with the most eminent of his countrymen, he may be justly styled not only great, but good. To this day his memory warms the heart and elevates the national feelings of Hawaiians. They are proud of their old warrior king. They love his name. His deeds form their historical age, and an enthusiasm everywhere prevails, shared even by foreigners who knew his worth, that constitutes the firmest pillar of the throne of his son. In lieu of human victims, the custom of that age, a sacrifice of three hundred dogs attended his obsequies. No mean holocaust when their national value and the estimation in which they were held are considered. The bones of Kameamea, after being kept for a while, were so carefully concealed that all knowledge of their final resting place is now lost. There was a proverb current among the common people that the bones of a cruel king could not be hid. They made fish hooks and arrows of them, upon which, in using them, they vented their abhorrence of his memory in bitter execrations. The account of the circumstances of his death, as written by the native historians, is full of minute detail, but there is scarcely a line of it which does not mention or illustrate some bygone custom of the country. In this respect it is the most comprehensive document I have yet met with. I will quote it in Tyre. When Kameamea was dangerously sick and the priests were unable to cure him, they said, Be of good courage and build a house for the god, his own private god or idol, that thou mayst recover. The chiefs corroborated this advice of the priests and a place of worship was prepared for Kukai Limoku and consecrated in the evening. They proposed also to the king, with a view to prolong his life, that human victims should be sacrificed to his deity, upon which the greater part of the people absconded through fear of death and concealed themselves in hiding places till the taboo, in which destruction impended, was passed. It is doubtful whether Kameamea approved of the plan of the chiefs and priests to sacrifice men, as he was known to say, the men are sacred for the king, meaning that they were for the service of his successor. This information was derived from Liholiho, his son. After this, his sickness increased to such a degree that he had not strength to turn himself in his bed. When another season, consecrated for worship at the New Temple Heiau, arrived, he said to his son Liholiho, Go thou and make supplication to thy god. I am not able to go, and will offer my prayers at home. When his devotions to his feathered god Kukai Limoku were concluded, a certain religiously disposed individual who had a bird god suggested to the king that through its influence his sickness might be removed. The name of this god was Pu'a. Its body was made of a bird, now eaten by the Hawaiians, and called in their language Alai. Kameamea was willing that a trial should be made, and two houses were constructed to facilitate the experiment. But while dwelling in them he became so very weak as not to receive food. After lying there three days, his wives, children, and chiefs, perceiving that he was very low, returned him to his own house. In the evening he was carried to the eating-house, where he took a little food in his mouth, which he did not swallow, also a cup of water. The chiefs requested him to give them his counsel, but he made no reply, and was carried back to the dwelling-house. But when near midnight, ten o'clock perhaps, he was carried again to the place to eat, but as before he merely tasted of what was presented to him. Then Kaikyoewa addressed him thus, Here we all are, your younger brethren, your son Leo Leo and your foreigner, impart to us your dying charge that Leo Leo and Kaahumanu may hear. Then Kameamea inquired, What do you say? Kaikyoewa repeated, Your counsels for us. He then said, Move on in my good way, and He could proceed no further. The foreigner, Mr. Young, embraced and kissed him. Hoapili also embraced him, whispering something in his ear, after which he was taken back to the house. About twelve he was carried once more to the house for eating, into which his head entered, while his body was in the dwelling-house immediately adjoining. It should be remarked that this frequent carrying of a sick chief from one house to another resulted from the taboo system, then in force. There were, at that time, six houses connected with an establishment, one for worship, one for the men to eat in, an eating-house for the women, a house to sleep in, a house in which to manufacture kappa, a native cloth, and one where, at certain intervals, the women might dwell in seclusion. The sick was once more taken to his house when he expired. This was at two o'clock, a circumstance from which Lileo Hoku derived his name. As he breathed his last, Kalei Moku came to the eating-house to order those in it to go out. There were two aged persons thus directed to depart. One went, the other remained on account of love to the king, by whom he had formerly been kindly sustained. The children also were sent away. Then Kalei Moku came to the house, and the chiefs had a consultation. One of them spoke thus. This is my thought. We will eat him raw." One of the dead king's widows replied, Perhaps his body is not at our disposal, that is more properly with his successor. Our part in him, his breath, has departed. His remains will be disposed of by Lileo Lileo. After this conversation the body was taken into the consecrated house for the performance of the proper rites by the priest and the new king. The name of this ceremony is Ukel, and when the sacred hog was baked the priest offered it to the dead body and it became a god, the king at the same time repeating the customary prayers. Then the priest, addressing himself to the king and chiefs, said, I will now make known to you the rules to be observed respecting persons to be sacrificed on the burial of this body. If you obtain one man before the corpse is removed one will be sufficient, but after it leaves this house four will be required. If delayed until we carry the corpse to the grave there must be ten, but after it is deposited in the grave there must be fifteen. Tomorrow morning there will be a taboo, and if the sacrifice be delayed until that time forty men must die. Then the high priest, Hewa Hewa, inquired of the chiefs, Where shall be the residence of King Lileo Lileo? they replied, Where indeed you of all men ought to know, then the priest observed, There are two suitable places. One is Ka'u, the other is Kohala. The chiefs preferred the latter, as it was more thickly inhabited. The priest added, These are proper places for the king's residence, but he must not remain in Kona, for it is polluted. This was agreed to. It was now break of day. As he was being carried to the place of burial the people perceived that their king was dead and they wailed. When the corpse was removed from the house to the tomb, a distance of one chain, the procession was met by a certain man who was ardently attached to the deceased. He leapt upon the chiefs who were carrying the king's body. He desired to die with him on account of his love. The chiefs drove him away. He persisted in making numerous attempts, which were unavailing, also had it in his heart to die with him, but was prevented by Ho'okio. Morning following Kamehameha's death, Liholiho and his train departed for Kohala, according to the suggestions of the priest, to avoid the defilement occasioned by the dead. At this time, if a chief died, the land was polluted, and the heirs sought a residence in another part of the country until the corpse was dissected and the bones tied in a bundle, which, being done, the season of defilement terminated. If the deceased were not a chief, the house only was defiled, which became pure again on the burial of the body. Such were the laws on this subject. On the morning on which Liholiho sailed in his canoe for Kohala, the chiefs and people mourned after their manner on occasion of a chief's death, conducting themselves like madmen and like beasts. Their conduct was such as to forbid description. The priests also put into action the sorcery apparatus that the person who had prayed the king to death might die, for it was not believed that Kamehameha's departure was the effect either of sickness or old age. When the sorcerers set up by their fireplaces sticks with a strip of kapa flying at the top, the chief, Keiaumoku, Kahau-Humanu's brother, came in a state of intoxication and broke the flagstaff of the sorcerers, from which it was inferred that Kahau-Humanu and her friends had been instrumental in the king's death. On this account they were subjected to abuse. You have the contrast now, and a strange one it is. This great queen, Kahau-Humanu, who was subjected to abuse during the frightful orgies that followed the king's death in accordance with an ancient custom, afterwards became a devout Christian and a steadfast and powerful friend of the missionaries. Mark Twain. Post Script. The Ministers. Burlingame and Van Valkenburg, United States ministers to China and Japan, are ready to sail, but are delayed by the absence of two attachés who went to Hawaii to see the volcano and who were not aware how slow a country this is to get around in. The journey to Hilo, which would be made anywhere else almost in eighteen or twenty hours, requires a week in the little inter-island schooners. Colonel Kalakaua, the king's chamberlain, has invited the ministerial party to a great luau, native dinner at Waikiki. General Van Valkenburg has achieved a distinguished success as a curiosity finder, not hunter. Standing on the celebrated paris, a day or two ago, and amusing himself by idly punching into the compact lava wall through which the road is cut, he crumbled away a chunk of it, and observing something white sticking to it, he instituted an examination, and found a sound, white, unmarred, unblemished human jaw-tooth firmly embedded in the lava. Now the question is how did it get there, in the side, where a road had been cut in, of a mountain of lava, seven hundred feet above the valley, a mountain which has been there for ages, this being one of the oldest islands in the group. The whirling-game was present, and saw the general unearth his prize. I have critically examined it, but, as I half expected myself, the world knows as much about how to account for the wonder now as if I had let it alone. In old times the bones of chiefs were often thrown into the volcanoes to make sure that no enemy could get a chance to meddle with them, and Brown has given it as his deliberate opinion that that old snag used to belong to one of them fellows. Possibly, but the opinion comes from a source which entitles it to but little weight. However, that tooth is as able a curiosity as any I have yet seen in the Sandwich Islands. M.T. End of Section 58 This is Section 59 of Newspaper Articles by Mark Twain. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Newspaper Articles by Mark Twain, Section 59, The Sacramento Daily Union, August 1866, Part 2. The Sacramento Daily Union, August 18th, 1866. Honolulu, July 1866. At sea again. Bound for Hawaii to visit the great volcano and, behold, the other notable things which distinguish this island above the remainder of the group, we sailed from Honolulu on a certain Saturday afternoon in the good schooner Boomerang. The Boomerang was about as long as two streetcars, and about as wide as one. She was so small, though she was larger than the majority of the inter-island coasters, that when I stood on her deck I felt but little smaller than the colossus of roads must have felt when he had a man of war under him. I could reach the water when she lay over under a strong breeze. When the captain and Brown and myself and four other gentlemen and the wheelsmen were all assembled on the little after-portion of the deck, which is sacred to the cabin passengers, it was full. There was not room for any more quality folks. Another section of the deck, twice as large as ours, was full of natives of both sexes, with their customary dogs, mats, blankets, pipes, callibashes of poi, fleas, and other luxuries and baggage of minor importance. As soon as we set sail, the natives all laid down on the deck as thick as negroes in a slave-pen, and smoked, and conversed, and captured vermin and ate them, spit on each other, and were truly sociable. The little low-sealed cabin below was rather larger than a hearse, and as dark as a vault. It had two coffins on each side—I mean, two bunks—though Mr. Brown, with that spirit of irreverence, which is so sad a feature of his nature, preferred to call the bunk he was allotted, his shelf. A small table capable of accommodating three persons at dinner stood against the forward bulkhead, and over it hung the dingiest whale-oil lantern that ever peopled the obscurity of a dungeon with grim and ghostly shapes. The floor-room, unoccupied, was not extensive. One might swing a cat in it, perhaps, but then it would be fatal to the cat to do it. The hold forward of the bulkhead had but little freight in it, and from morning till night a villainous old rooster with a voice like Balham's ass—and the same disposition to use it—strutted up and down in that part of the vessel and crowed. He usually took dinner at six o'clock, and then, after an hour devoted to meditation, he mounted a barrel and crowed a good part of the night. He got horser and horser all the time, but he scorned to allow any personal consideration to interfere with his duty, and kept up his labours in defiance of threatened diphtheria. Sleeping was out of the question when he was on watch. He was a source of genuine aggravation and annoyance to me. It was worse than useless to shout at him or apply offensive epithets to him. He only took these things for applause, and strained himself to make more noise. Occasionally, during the day, I threw potatoes at him through an aperture in the bulkhead, but he simply dodged them and went on crowing. The first night, as I lay in my coffin, idly watching the dim lamp swinging to the rolling of the ship, and snuffing the nauseous odours of bilge water, I felt something gallop over me. Lazarus did not come out of his sepulcher with a more cheerful alacrity than I did out of mine. However, I turned in again when I found it was only a rat. Presently, something galloped over me once more. I knew it was not a rat this time, and I thought it might be a centipede, because the captain had killed one on deck in the afternoon. I turned out. The first glance at the pillow showed me a repulsive sentinel perched upon each end of it, cockroaches as large as peach leaves, fellows with long, quivering antennae, and fiery malignant eyes. They were grating their teeth like tobacco worms, and appeared to be dissatisfied about something. I had often heard that these reptiles were in the habit of eating of sleeping sailor's toenails down to the quick, and I would not get in the bunk any more. I laid down on the floor. But a rat came and bothered me, and shortly afterward a procession of cockroaches arrived and camped in my hair. In a few moments the rooster was crowing with uncommon spirit, and a party of fleas were throwing double-summersets about my person in the wildest disorder and taking a bite every time they struck. I was beginning to feel really annoyed. I got up and put my clothes on and went on deck. The above is not an attempt to be spicy. It is simply an attempt to give a truthful sketch of inter-island schooner life. There is no such thing as keeping a vessel in elegant condition, I think, when she carries molasses and canacas. Roll on, silver moon! It was compensation for all my sufferings to come unexpectedly upon so beautiful a scene as met my eye, to step suddenly out of the sepulchral gloom of the cabin and stand under the strong light of the moon, in the center, as it were, of a glittering sea of liquid silver, to see the broad sails straining in the gale, the ship keeled over on her side, and the angry foam hissing past her lee bulwarks and sparkling sheets of spray dashing high over her boughs and raining upon her decks, to brace myself and hang fast to the first object that presented itself with hat jammed down and coattails whipping in the breeze, and feel that exhilaration that thrills in one's hair and quivers down his backbone, when he knows that every inch of canvas is drawing, and the vessel cleaving through the billows at her utmost speed. There was no darkness, no dimness, no obscurity there. All was brightness. Every object was vividly defined. Every prostrate canaca, every coil of rope, every callibash of poi, every puppy, every seam in the flooring, every bolt-head, every object, however minute, showed sharp and distinct in its every outline, and the shadow of the broad mainsail lay black as a pall upon the deck, leaving Brown's white, upturned face glorified and his body in a total eclipse. I endeavour to entertain the sea-sick man. I turn to look down upon the sparkling animalculi of the South Seas, and watch the train of jewelled fire they made in the wake of the vessel. I— Oh, me! What is the matter, Brown? Oh, me! He said that before, Brown, such tautology! Tautology be hanged! This is no time to talk to a man about tautology when he is sick! Oh, so sick! Oh, my! And has vomited up his heart, and—oh, me! Oh, my! Hand me that soup-dish, and don't stand there hanging to that bulkhead looking like a fool! I handed him the absurd, tin-shaving pot called birth-pan, which they hang by a hook to the edge of a berth for the use of distressed landsmen with unsettled stomachs, but all the sufferer's efforts were fruitless. His tortured stomach refused to yield up its cargo. I do not often pity this bitter enemy to sentiment. He would not thank me for it anyhow. But now I did pity him, and I pitied him from the bottom of my heart. Any man with any feeling must have been touched to see him in such misery. I did not try to help him. Indeed, I did not even think of so unpromising a thing, but I sat down by him to talk to him, and so caused the tedious hours to pass—less weirdly, if possible. I talked to him for some time, but strangely enough, pathetic narratives did not move his emotions, eloquent declamation did not in spirit him, and the most humorous anecdotes failed to make him even smile. He seemed as distressed and restless at intervals, albeit the rule of his present case was to seem to look like an allegory of unconditional surrender—hopeless, helpless, and indifferent. He seemed as distressed and restless as if my conversation and my anecdotes were irksome to him. It was because of this that at last I dropped into poetry. I said I had been writing a poem, or rather been paraphrasing a passage in Shakespeare—a passage full of wisdom, which I thought I might remember easier if I reduced it to rhyme. Hoped it would be pleasant to him, said I had taken, but few liberties with the original had preserved its brevity and terceness, its language, as nearly as possible, and its ideas in their regular sequence, and proceeded to read it to him as follows. Polonius's advice to his son, paraphrased from Hamlet. Beware of the spoken word. Be wise. Bury thy thoughts in thy breast, nor let thoughts that are unnatural be ever in acts expressed. Be thou courteous and kindly toward all. Be familiar and vulgar with none. But the friends thou hast proved in thy need hold thou fast till life's mission is done. Shake not thy faith by confiding in every new begot friend. Beware thou of quarrels, but in them fight them out to the bitter end. Give thine ear unto all that would seek it, but to few thy voice impart. Receive and consider all censure, but thy judgment, seal in thy heart. Let thy habit be ever as costly as thy purse is able to span. Never gaudy, but rich, for the raiment full often proclaimeth the man. Neither borrow nor lend, oft alone both loseeth itself and a friend, and to borrow relaxeth the thrift whereby husbandry gaineth its end. But lo! above all set this law. Unto thyself be thou true. Then never toward any canst thou the deed of a false heart do. As I finished, Brown's stomach cast up its contents, and in a minute or two he felt entirely relieved and comfortable. He then said that the anecdotes and the eloquence were no good, but if he got seasick again he would like some more poetry. THE ZONES OF THE EARTH CONCENTRATED Monday morning we were close to the island of Hawaii. Two of its high mountains were in view, Mauna Loa and Hualalai. The latter is an imposing peak, but being only ten thousand feet high is seldom mentioned or heard of. Mauna Loa is fourteen thousand feet high. The rays of glittering snow and ice that clasped its summit like a claw looked refreshing when viewed from the blistering climate we were in. One could stand on that mountain, wrapped up in blankets and furs to keep warm, and while he nibbled a snowball or an icicle to quench his thirst he could look down the long sweep of its sides and see spots where plants are growing that grow only where the bitter cold of winter prevails. Lower down he could see sections devoted to productions that thrive in the temperate zone alone, and at the bottom of the mountain he could see the home of the tufted coca-palms and other species of vegetation that grow only in the sultry atmosphere of eternal summers. He could see all the climbs of the world at a single glance of the eye, and that glance would only pass over a distance of eight or ten miles as the bird flies. The refuge for the weary. We landed at Kailua, pronounced Kailua, a little collection of native grass houses reposing under tall coconut trees, the sleepiest, quietest, sundayest-looking place you can imagine. Ye weary ones that are sick of the labour and care, and the bewildering turmoil of the great world, and sigh for a land where ye may fold your tired hands and slumber your lives peacefully away, pack up your carpet-sacks and go to Kailua. A week there ought to cure the saddest of you all. An old ruin of lava-block walls, down by the sea, was pointed out as a fort, built by John Adams for Kamehameha I, and mounted with heavy guns, some of them thirty-two pounders, by the same sagacious Englishman. I was told that the fort was dismantled a few years ago and the gun sold in San Francisco for old iron, which was very improbable. I was told that an adjacent ruin was old Kamehameha's sleeping-house, another his eating-house, another his God's house, another his wife's eating-house, for by the ancient taboo system it was death for a man and woman to eat together. Every married man's premises comprised five or six houses. This was the law of the land. It was this custom, no doubt, which has left every pleasant valley in these lands marked with the ruins of numerous house enclosures, and given strangers the impression that the population must have been vast before those houses were deserted. But the argument loses much of its force when you come to consider that the houses absolutely necessary for half-a-dozen married men were sufficient in themselves to form one of the deserted villages so frequently pointed out to the Californian—to the natives all whites. I was told also that Kailua was old Kamehameha's favorite place of residence, and that it was always a favorite place of resort with his successors. Very well, if Kailua suits these kings, all right. Every man to his taste. But as Brown observed in this connection, he'll excuse me. Stood at Kailua's house. I was told also that Kailua was old Kamehameha's favorite place of residence, and that it was always a favorite place of resort with his successors. Very well, if Kailua suits these kings, all right. Every man to his taste. But as Brown observed in this connection, he'll excuse me. Stood chicken. Miraculous bread. I was told a good many other things concerning Kailua, not one of which interested me in the least. I was weary and worn with the plunging of the boomerang in the always stormy passages between the islands. I was tired of hanging on by teeth and toenails, and, above all, I was tired of stewed chicken. All I wanted was an hour's rest on a foundation that would let me stand up straight without running any risk, but no information. I wanted something to eat that was not stewed chicken. I didn't care what, but no information. I took no notes and had no inclination to take any. Now, the foregoing is nothing but the feverish irritability of a short, rough sea voyage coming to the surface, a voyage so short that it affords no time for you to tone down and grow quiet and reconciled and get your stomach in order, and the bad taste out of your mouth, and the unhealthy coating off your tongue. I snarled at the old rooster and the cockroaches and the national stewed chicken all the time, not because these troubles could be removed, but only because it was a sanitary necessity to snarl at something or perish. One's salt-water spleen must be growled out of the system. There is no other relief. I pineed. I longed. I yearned to growl at the captain himself, but there was no opening. The man had had such passengers before, I suppose, and knew how to handle them, and so he was polite and painstaking and accommodating, and most exasperatingly patient and even tempered. So I said to myself, I will take it out of your old schooner anyhow. I will blackguard the boomerang in the public prints to pay for your shameless good nature when your passengers are peevish and actually need somebody to growl at for very relief. But now that I am restored by the land breeze I wonder at my ingratitude, for no man ever treated me better than Captain Kangaroo did on board his ship. As for the stewed chicken—that last and meanest substitute for something to eat—that soothing rubbish for toothless infants—that diet for cholera patients in the rice-water stage—it was, of course, about the best food we could have at sea, and so I only abused it because I didn't want to. I hated it, as I do sardines or tomatoes, and because it was stewed chicken, and because it was such a relief to abuse somebody or something. But Kangaroo—I never abused Captain Kangaroo. I hope I have a better heart than to abuse a man who, with the kindest and most generous and unselfish motive in the world, went into the galley and with his own hands baked for me the worst piece of bread I ever ate in my life. His motive was good, his desire to help me was sincere, but his execution was damnable. You see, I was not sick, but nothing would taste good to me. The Kanaka Cook's bread was particularly unpalatable. He was a new hand, the regular Cook being sick and helpless below. And Captain Kangaroo, in the genuine goodness of his heart, felt for me in my distress and went down and made that most infernal bread. I ate one of those rolls—I would have eaten it if it had killed me—and said to myself, It is on my stomach, to his well. If it were on my conscience, life would be a burden to me. I carried one up to Brown, and he ate a piece, but declined to experiment further. I insisted, but he said no. He didn't want any more ballast. When the good deeds of men are judged in the great day, that is to bring bliss or eternal woe unto us all, the charity that was in Captain Kangaroo's heart will be remembered and rewarded, albeit his bread will have been forgotten for ages. The famous Orange and Coffee Region. It was only about fifteen miles from Kailua to Kealakakua Bay, either by sea or land, but by the former route there was a point to be weathered where the ship would be the sport of contrary winds for hours, and she would probably occupy the entire day in making the trip. Whereas we could do it on horseback in a little while and have the cheering benefit of a respite from the discomforts we had been experiencing on the vessel. We hired horses from the Kanakas and miserable affairs they were, too. They had lived on meditation all their lives, no doubt, for Kailua is fruitful in nothing else. I will mention in this place that horses are plenty everywhere in the Sandwich Islands. No Kanakas without one or more, but when you travel from one island to another, it is necessary to take your own saddle and bridle, for these articles are scarce. It is singular baggage for a sea voyage, but it will not do to go without it. The ride through the district of Kona to Kealakakua Bay took us through the famous Coffee and Orange Section. I think the Kona Coffee has a richer flavor than any other, be it grown where it may, and call it by what name you please. At one time it was cultivated quite extensively and promised to become one of the great staples of Hawaiian commerce, but the heaviest crop ever raised was almost entirely destroyed by a blight, and this, together with heavy American custom duties, had the effect of suddenly checking enterprise in this direction. For several years the coffee growers fought the blight with all manner of cures and preventatives, but with small success, and at length some of the less persevering, abandoned coffee growing altogether and turned their attention to more encouraging pursuits. The coffee interest has not yet recovered its former importance, but is improving slowly. The exportation of this article last year was over 268,000 pounds, and it is expected that the present year's yield will be much greater. In contrast, the progress of the coffee interest with that of sugar and the demoralizing effects of the blight upon the former will be more readily seen. In exportations 1852, coffee pounds 117,000, sugar pounds 730,000, 1865, coffee pounds 263,000, sugar pounds 15,318,097. Thus the sugar yield of last year was more than twenty times what it was in 1852, while the coffee yield has scarcely more than doubled. The coffee plantations we encountered in our short journey looked well, and we were told that the crop was unusually promising. There are no finer oranges in the world than those produced in the District of Kona. When new and fresh, they are delicious. The principal market for them is California, but of course they lose much of their excellence by so long a voyage. About 500,000 oranges were exported last year against 15,000 in 1852. The orange culture is safe and sure, and is being more and more extensively engaged in every year. We passed one orchard that contained 10,000 orange trees. There are many species of beautiful trees in Kona, noble forests of them, and we had numberless opportunities of contrasting the orange with them. The verdict rested with the orange. Among the varied and handsome foliage of the kou, koa, kukui, breadfruit, mango, guava, peach, citron, ohaya, and other fine trees, its dark, rich green cone was sure to arrest the eye and compel constant exclamations of admiration. So dark a green is its foliage that had a distance of a quarter of a mile, the orange tree looks almost black. Woodland scenery. The ride from Kailua to Kealakakua Bay is worth taking. It passes along on high ground, say 1,000 feet above sea level, and usually about a mile distant from the ocean, which is always in sight, save that occasionally you find yourself buried in the forest in the midst of a rank, tropical vegetation, and a dense growth of trees, whose great boughs overarch the road, and shut out sun and sea and everything, and leave you in a dim, shady tunnel, haunted with invisible singing birds, and fragrant with the odor of flowers. It was pleasant to ride occasionally in the warm sun, and feast the eye upon the ever-changing panorama of the forest, beyond and below us, with its many tints, its softened lights and shadows, its billowy undulations sweeping gently down from the mountain to the sea. It was pleasant also, at intervals, to leave the sultry sun and pass into the cool green depths of this forest, and indulge in sentimental reflections under the inspiration of its brooding twilight and its whispering foliage. The jaunt through Kona will always be, to me, a happy memory. Mark Twain. Newspaper Articles by Mark Twain, Section 60, The Sacramento Daily Union, August 1866, Part 3 The Sacramento Daily Union, August 24th, 1866. Still in Kona, concerning matters and things. At one farmhouse we got some large peaches of excellent flavor while on our horseback ride through Kona. This fruit, as a general thing, does not do well in the Sandwich Islands. It takes a sort of almond shape, and is small and bitter. It needs frost, they say, and perhaps it does. If this be so, it will have a good opportunity to go on needing it, as it will not be likely to get it. The trees, from which the fine fruit I have spoken of came, had been planted and replanted over and over again, and, to this treatment, the proprietor of the orchard attributed to his success. We passed several sugar plantations, new ones, and not very extensive. The crops were, in most cases, third ratoons. Note, the first crop is called plant cane. Subsequent crops, which spring from the original roots, without replanting, are called ratoons. Almost everywhere on the island of Hawaii, sugar cane matures in twelve months, both ratoons and plant, and although it ought to be taken off as soon as it tassels, no doubt, it is not absolutely necessary to do it until about four months afterward. In Kona, the average yield of an acre of ground is two tons of sugar, they say. This is only a moderate yield for these islands, but would be extraordinary for Louisiana, and most other sugar-growing countries. The plantations in Kona, being on pretty high ground, up among the light and frequent rains, no irrigation whatever is required. In central Kona, there is but little idle cane land now, but there is a good deal in north and south Kona. There are thousands of acres of cane land unoccupied on the island of Hawaii, and the prices asked for it range from one dollar to one hundred and fifty an acre. It is owned by common natives, and is lying out of doors. They make no use of it whatever, and yet here lately they seem disinclined to either lease or sell it. I was frequently told this. In this connection it may not be out of place to insert an extract from a book of Hawaiian travels recently published by a visiting minister of the gospel. Well, now I wouldn't, if I was you. Brown, I wish you wouldn't look over my shoulder when I am writing, and I wish you would indulge yourself in some little respite from my affairs, and interest yourself in your own business sometimes. Well, I don't care. I am disgusted with these mush and milk preacher travels, and I wouldn't make an extract from one of them. Father Damon has got stacks of books shoe-marked up by them pious bushwhackers from America, and they're the flattest reading. They are sicker than the smart things children say in the newspapers. Every preacher that gets lazy comes to the Sandwich Islands to recruit his health, and then he goes back home and writes a book. And he puts in a lot of history, and some legends, and some manners and customs, and dead loads of praise of the missionaries for civilizing and Christianizing the natives, and says in considerable chapters how grateful the savage ought to be. And when there is a chapter to be filled out, and they haven't got anything to fill it out with, they shovel in a lot of scripture, now don't they? You just look at Reverend Cheever's book and Anderson's, and when they come to the volcano, or any sort of heavy scenery, and it is too much bother to describe it, they shovel in another lot of scripture, and wind up with lo what God hath wrought. Confound their lazy melts! Sick! Now, I wouldn't make extracts out of no such bosh! Mr. Brown, I brought you with me on this voyage merely because a newspaper correspondent should travel in some degree of state, and so command the respective strangers. I did not expect you to assist me in my literary labors with your crude ideas. You may desist from further straining your intellect for the present, Mr. Brown, and proceed to the nearest depot and replenish the correspondent fountain of inspiration. Fountain dry now, of course. Confound me if I ever chance an opinion, but I've got to trot down to the soda factory and fill up that cursed jug again. Seems to me that you need more inspiration. Good afternoon, Mr. Brown. The extract I was speaking of reads as follows. We were in North Kona. The arable uplands in both the Konas are owned chiefly by foreigners. Indeed, the best of the lands on all the islands appear to be fast going into foreign hands, and one of the allegations made to me by a foreign resident against the missionaries was that their influence was against such a transfer. The Reverend Mr. Blank told me, however, that to prevent the lands immediately about him, once owned by the admirable Capiolani, from going to strangers he knew not who, he had felt obliged to invest his own private funds in them. We naturally swell with admiration when we contemplate a sacrifice like this, but while I read the generous last words of that extract, it fills me with inexpressible satisfaction to know that Reverend Mr. Blank had his reward. He paid fifteen hundred dollars for one of those pieces of land. He did not have to keep it long. Without sticking a spade into it, he sold it to a foreigner for ten thousand dollars in gold. Yet there be those among us who fear to trust the precious promise, cast thy bread upon the waters, and it shall return unto thee after many days. I have since been told that the original fifteen hundred dollars belonged to a ward of the missionary, and that inasmuch as the latter was investing it with the main view of doing his charge the best service in his power, and doubtless would not have felt at liberty to so invest it merely to protect the poor natives, his glorification in the book was not particularly gratifying to him. The other missionaries smile at the idea of their tribe investing their own private funds in this free and easy, this gay and affluent way, buying fifteen hundred dollars worth of land at a dash, salary four hundred dollars a year, and merely to do a trifling favor to some savage neighbor. Nature's printed record in the lava. At four o'clock in the afternoon we were winding down a mountain of dreary and desolate lava to the sea, and closing our pleasant land journey. This lava is the accumulation of ages. One torrent of fire after another has rolled down here in old times, and built up the island structure higher and higher. Underneath it is honeycombed with caves. It would be of no use to dig wells in such a place. They would not hold water. You would not find any for them to hold for that matter. Consequently the planters depend upon cisterns. The last lava flow occurred here so long ago that there are none now living who witnessed it. In one place it enclosed and burned down a grove of coconut trees, and the holes in the lava where the trunk stood are still visible. Their sides retain the impression of the bark. The trees fell upon the burning river, and, becoming partly submerged, left in it the perfect counterfeit of every knot and branch and leaf, and even nut, for curiosity seekers of a long distant day, to gaze upon and wonder at. There were doubtless plenty of Kanaka sentinels on guard hereabouts at that time, but they did not leave castes of their figures in the lava as the Roman sentinels at Herculaneum and Pompeii did. It is a pity it is so, because such things are so interesting, but so it is. They probably went away. They went away early, perhaps. It is very bad. However, they had their merits. The Romans exhibited the higher pluck, but the Kanakas showed the sounder judgment. As usual Brown loaded his unhappy horse with fifteen or twenty pounds of specimens to be cursed and worried over for a time, and then discarded for new toys of a similar nature. He is like most people who visit these islands. They are always collecting specimens with a wild enthusiasm, but they never get home with any of them. CAPTAIN COOK'S DEATH PLACE Shortly we came in sight of that spot whose history is so familiar to every schoolboy in the wide world, Kealakakua Bay. The place where Captain Cook, the great circumnavigator, was killed by the natives nearly a hundred years ago. The setting sun was flaming upon it, a summer shower was falling, and it was spanned by two magnificent rainbows. Two gentlemen who were in advance of us rode through one of these, and for a moment their garments shone with a more than regal splendor. Why did not Captain Cook have taste enough to call his great discovery the rainbow islands? These charming spectacles are present to you at every turn. They are as common in all the islands as fogs and wind in San Francisco. They are visible every day, and frequently at night also, not the silvery bow we see once in an age in the States by moonlight, but barred with all bright and beautiful colors, like the children of the sun and rain. I saw one of them a few nights ago. What the sailors call rain dogs—little patches of rainbow—are often seen drifting about the heavens in these latitudes, like stained cathedral windows. Kealakakua Bay is a little curve like the last kink of a snail shell winding deep into the land, seemingly not more than a mile wide from shore to shore. It is bounded on one side, where the murder was done, by a little flat plain, on which stands a coconut grove and some ruined houses. A steep wall of lava, a thousand feet high at the upper end and three or four hundred at the lower, comes down from the mountain and bounds the inner extremity of it. From this wall the place takes its name, Kealakakua, which in the native tongue signifies the pathway of the gods. They say, and still believe, in spite of their liberal education in Christianity, that the great god Lono, who used to live upon the hillside, always travelled that causeway when urgent business connected with heavenly affairs called him down to the seashore in a hurry. As the red sun looked across the placid ocean through the tall, clean stems of the coconut trees, like a blooming, whiskey bloat through the bars of a city prison, I went and stood in the edge of the water on the flat rock pressed by Captain Cook's feet when the blow was dealt that took away his life, and tried to picture in my mind the doomed man struggling in the midst of the multitude of exasperated savages, the men in the ship, crowding to the vessel's side and gazing in anxious dismay toward the shore, the—but I discovered that I could not do it. It was growing dark, the rain began to fall, we could see that the distant boomerang was helplessly becalmed at sea, and so I adjourned to the cheerless little box of a warehouse and sat down to smoke and think, and wished the ship would make the land, for we had not eaten much for the ten hours, and were viciously hungry. The Story of Captain Cook Plain, unvarnished history takes the romance out of Captain Cook's assassination, and renders a deliberate verdict of justifiable homicide. Wherever he went among the islands, he was cordially received and welcomed by the inhabitants, and his ships lavishly supplied with all manner of food. He returned these kindances with insult and ill treatment. When he landed at Kealakakua Bay, a multitude of natives, variously estimated at from ten to fifteen thousand, flocked about him and conducted him to the principal temple with more than royal honors, with honors suited to their chiefest god for such they took him to be. They called him Lono, a deity who had resided at that place in a former age, but who had gone away and had ever since been anxiously expected back by the people. When Cook approached the awe-stricken people, they prostrated themselves and hid their faces. His coming was announced in a loud voice by heralds, and those who had not time to get out of the way after prostrating themselves were trampled underfoot by the following throngs. Arrived at the temple, he was taken into the most sacred part, and placed before the principal idol, immediately under an altar of wood on which a putrid hog was deposited. This was held toward him, while the priest repeated a long and rapidly enunciated address, after which he was led to the top of a partially decayed scaffolding. Ten men, bearing a large hog and bundles of red cloth, then entered the temple and prostrated themselves before him. The cloth was taken from them by the priest, who encircled Cook with it in numerous folds, and afterward offered the hog to him in sacrifice. Two priests, alternately and in unison, chanted praises in honor of Lono, after which they led him to the chief idol, which, following their example, he kissed. He was anointed by the high priest, that is to say, his arms, hands, and face were slimed over with the chewed meat of a coconut. After this nasty compliment, he was regaled with awa, manufactured in the mouths of attendants, and spit out into a drinking-fessel. As the last most delicate attention, he was fed with swine-meat which had been masticated for him by a filthy old man. These distinguished civilities were never offered by the islanders to mere human beings. Cook was mistaken for their absent God. He accepted the situation and helped the natives to deceive themselves. His conduct might have been wrong, in a moral point of view, but his policy was good in conniving at the deception and proved itself so. The belief that he was a God saved him a good while from being killed protected him thoroughly and completely until, in an unlucky moment, it was discovered that he was only a man. His death followed instantly. Jarvis, from whose history principally I am condensing this narrative, thinks his destruction was a direct consequence of his dishonest personation of the God. But, unhappily for the argument, the historian proves, over and over again, that the false lono was spared time and again when simple Captain Cook or the Royal Navy would have been destroyed with small ceremony. The idolatrous worship of Captain Cook, as above described, was repeated at every heathen temple he visited. Wherever he went the terrified common people, not being accustomed to seeing gods marching around of their own free will and accord, and without human assistance, fled at his approach or fell down and worshipped him. A priest attended him and regulated the religious ceremonies which constantly took place in his honor. Offerings, chants, and addresses met him at every point. For a brief period he moved among them an earthly God, observed, feared, and worshipped. During all this time the whole island was heavily taxed to supply the wants of the ships or contribute to the gratification of their officers and crews, and as was customary in such cases, no return expected. The natives rendered much assistance in fitting the ships and preparing them for their voyages. At one time the king of the island laid a taboo upon his people, confining them to their houses for several days. This interrupted the daily supply of vegetables to the ships. Several natives tried to violate the taboo under threats made by Cook's sailors, but were prevented by a chief who, for thus enforcing the laws of his country, had a musket fired over his head from one of the ships. This is related in Cook's voyages. The taboo was soon removed and the Englishmen were favored with the boundless hospitality of the natives as before, except that the Kanaka women were interdicted from visiting the ships. Formerly, with extravagant hospitality, the people had sent their wives and daughters on board themselves. The officers and sailors went freely about the island and were everywhere laden with presence. The king visited Cook in royal state and gave him a large number of exceeding costly and valuable presents, in return for which the resurrected Lono presented his majesty a white linen shirt and a dagger, an instance of illiberality in every way discreditable to a god. On the second of February, at the desire of his commander, Captain King proposed to the priests to purchase for fuel the railing which surrounded the top of the temple of Lono. In this Cook manifested as little respect for the religion in the mythology of which he figured so conspicuously as scruples in violating the divine precepts of his own. Indeed, throughout his voyages, a spirit regardless of the rites and feelings of others, when his own were interested, is manifested, especially in his last cruise, which is a blot upon his memory. Cook desecrated the holy places of the temple by storing supplies for his ships in them, and by using the level grounds within the enclosures as a general workshop for repairing his sails, etc. Ground which was so sacred that no common native dared to set his foot upon it. Ledyard, a Yankee sailor who was with Cook, and whose journal is considered the most just and reliable account of this eventful period of the voyage, says two iron hatchets were offered for the temple railing, and when the sacrilegious proposition was refused by the priests with horror and indignation, it was torn down by order of Captain Cook and taken to the boats by the sailors, and the images which surmounted it removed and destroyed in the presence of the priests and chiefs. The abused and insulted natives finally grew desperate under the indignities that were constantly being heaped upon them by men whose wants they had unselfishly relieved at the expense of their own impoverishment, and angered by some fresh baseness they stoned a party of sailors and drove them to their boats. From this time onward Cook and the natives were alternately friendly and hostile until Sunday the 14th, whose setting sun saw the circumnavigator a corpse. Ledyard's account and that of the natives vary in no important particulars. A Kanaka in revenge for a blow he had received at the hands of a sailor, the natives say he was flogged, stole a boat from one of the ships and broke it up to get the nails out of it. Cook determined to seize the king and remove him to his ship and keep him a prisoner until the boat was restored. By deception and smoothly worded persuasion he got the aged monarch to the shore, but when they were about to enter the boat a multitude of natives flocked to the place and one raised a cry that their king was going to be taken away and killed. Great excitement ensued and Cook's situation became perilous in the extreme. He had only a handful of marines and sailors with him and the crowd of natives grew constantly larger and more clamorous every moment. Cook opened the hostilities himself. Hearing a native make threats he had him pointed out and fired on him with a blank cartridge. The man finding himself unhurt repeated his threats and Cook fired again and wounded him mortally. A speedy retreat of the English party to the boats was now absolutely necessary and as soon as it was begun Cook was hit with a stone and discovering who threw it he shot the man dead. The officer in the boats observing the retreat ordered the boats to fire. This occasioned Cook's guard to face about and fire also and then the attack became general. Cook and Lieutenant Phillips were together a few paces in the rear of the guard and perceiving a general fire without orders quitted the king and ran to the shore to stop it. But not being able to make themselves heard and being close pressed upon by the chiefs they joined the guard who fired as they retreated. Cook having at length reached the margin of the water between the fire and the boats waved with his hat for them to cease firing and come in and while he was doing this a chief stabbed him from behind with an iron dagger procured in traffic with the sailors just under the shoulder blade and it passed quite through his body. Cook fell with his face in the water and immediately expired. The native account says that after Cook had shot two men he struck a stalwart chief with the flat of his sword, for some reason or other. The chief seized and pinioned Cook's arms in his powerful grip and bent him backward over his knee, not meaning to hurt him, for it was not deemed possible to hurt the god Luno, but to keep him from doing further mischief. And this treatment, giving him pain, he betrayed his mortal nature with a groan. It was his death warrant. The fraud which had served him so well was discovered at last. The native shouted, He groans! He is not a god! And instantly they fell upon him and killed him. His flesh was stripped from the bones and burned, except nine pounds of it which were sent on board the ships. The heart was hung up in a native hut where it was found and eaten by three children who mistook it for the heart of a dog. One of these children grew to be a very old man and died here in Honolulu a few years ago. A portion of Cook's bones were recovered and consigned to the deep by the officers of the ships. Small blame should attach to the natives for the killing of Cook. They treated him well. In return he abused them. He and his men inflicted bodily injury upon many of them at different times, and killed at least three of them before they offered any proportionate retaliation. Mark Twain. End of Section 60. This is Section 61 of Newspaper Articles by Mark Twain. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Newspaper Articles by Mark Twain, Section 61, The Sacramento Daily Union, August 1866, Part 4. The Sacramento Daily Union, August 30th, 1866, Keala-Kakua Bay, Sandwich Islands, 1866. Great Britain's Queer Monument to Captain Cook. When I digressed from my personal narrative to write about Cook's death I left myself, solitary, hungry and dreary, smoking in the little warehouse at Keala-Kakua Bay. Brown was out somewhere gathering up a fresh lot of specimens, having already discarded those he dug out of the old lava flow during the afternoon. I soon went to look for him. He had returned to the great slab of lava upon which Cook stood when he was murdered, and was absorbed in maturing a plan for blasting it out and removing it to his home as a specimen. Deeply pained at the bare thought of such a sacrilege, I reprimanded him severely and at once removed him from the scene of temptation. We took a walk then, the rain having moderated considerably. We clambered over the surrounding lava field, through masses of weeds, and stood for a moment upon the doorstep of an ancient ruin—the house once occupied by the aged king of Hawaii. And I reminded Brown that that very stone step was the one across which Captain Cook drew the reluctant old king when he turned his footsteps for the last time toward his ship. I checked a movement on Mr. Brown's part. No, I said, let it remain. Seek specimens of a less hallowed nature than this historical stone. We also strolled along the beach toward the precipice of Kealakakua, and gazed curiously at the semicircular holes high up in its face—graves they are—of ancient kings and chiefs—and wondered how the natives ever managed to climb from the sea up the sheer wall and make those holes and deposit their packages of patrician bones in them. Tramping about in the rear of the warehouse we suddenly came upon another object of interest. It was a coconut stump, four or five feet high, and about a foot in diameter at the butt. It had lava boulders piled around its base to hold it up and keep it in its place, and it was entirely sheathed over, from top to bottom, with rough, discolored sheets of copper, such as ship's bottoms are coppered with. Each sheet had a rude inscription scratched upon it, with a nail apparently, and in every case the execution was wretched. It was almost dark by this time, and the inscriptions would have been difficult to read even at noonday, but with patience and industry I finally got them all in my notebook. They read as follows. Near this spot Captain James Cook, the distinguished circumnavigator, who discovered these islands AD 1778, his majesty's ship Imogene, October 17, 1837. Parties from H. M. Ship Vixen visited this spot January 25, 1858. This sheet and capping put on by Sparrowhawk, September 16, 1839, in order to preserve this monument to the memory of Cook. Captain Montreser and officers of H. M. S. Calypso visited this spot the 18th of October, 1858. This tree, having fallen, was replaced on this spot by H. M. S. V. Cormorant, G. T. Gordon Esquire Captain, who visited this bay May 1846. This bay was visited July 4, 1843 by H. M. S. Carrifert, the right honourable Lord George Paulet Captain, to whom, as the representative of her Britannic Majesty Queen Victoria, these islands were ceded February 25, 1843. After Cook's murder, his second-in-command on board the ship opened fire upon the swarms of natives on the beach, and one of his cannonballs cut this coconut tree short off and left this monumental stump standing. It looked sad and lonely enough out there in the rainy twilight, but there is no other monument to Captain Cook. True, up on the mountainside, we had passed by a large enclosure like an ample hogpen built of lava blocks, which marks the spot where Cook's flesh was stripped from his bones and burned. But this is not properly a monument, since it was erected by the natives themselves, and less to do honour to the circumnavigator than for the sake of convenience in roasting him. A thing like a guide-board was elevated above this pen on a tall pole, and formerly there was an inscription upon it describing the memorable occurrence that had there taken place. But the sun and the wind have long ago so defaced it as to render it illegible. Music soothes the sad and lonely. The sky grew overcast and the night settled down gloomily. Brown and I went and sat on a little wooden pier, saying nothing, for we were tired and hungry and did not feel like talking. There was no wind. The drizzling, melancholy rain was still falling, and not a sound disturbed the brooding silence save the distant roar of the surf and the gentle washing of the wavelets against the rocks at our feet. We were very lonely. No sign of the vessel. She was still becalmed at sea, no doubt. After an hour of sentimental meditation I bethought me of working upon the feelings of my comrade. The surroundings were in every way favourable to the experiment. I concluded to sing, partly because music so readily touches the tender emotions of the heart, and partly because the singing of pathetic ballads and such things is an art in which I have been said to excel. In a voice tremulous with feeling I began. It pleasures and palaces though we may roam. Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home. Home, home, sweet, sweet. My poor friend rose up slowly and came and stood before me and said, Now look ahead, Mark. It ain't no time and it ain't no place for you to be going on in that way. I'm hungry and I'm tired and wet, and I ain't going to be put upon and aggravated when I'm so miserable. If you was to start in on any more yowling like that I'd shove you overboard I would, by chimney. Poor vulgar creature, I said to myself, he knows no better. I have not the heart to blame him, how sad a lot is his, and how much he is to be pitied, in that his soul is dead, to the heavenly charm of music. I cannot sing for this man. I cannot sing for him, while he has that dangerous calm in his voice at any rate. Hunger driveeth to desperate enterprises. We spent another hour in silence and in profound depression of spirits. It was so gloomy and so still and so lonesome, with nothing human anywhere near save those bundles of dry, kingly bones hidden in the face of the cliff. Finally Brown said it was hard to have to sit still and starve with plenty of delicious food and drink just beyond our reach. Rich young coconuts. I said, what an idiot you are not to have thought of it before. Get up and stir yourself. In five minutes we shall have a feast and be jolly and contented again. The thought was cheering in the last degree and in a few moments we were in the grove of cocoa-palms and their ragged plumes were dimly visible through the wet haze, high above our heads. I embraced one of the smooth, slender trunks with the thought of climbing it, but it looked very far to the top, and of course there are no knots or branches to assist the climber, and so I sighed and walked sorrowfully away. Thunder! What was that? It was only Brown. He had discharged a prodigious lava block at the top of a tree and it fell back to the earth with a crash that tore up the dead silence of the palace like an avalanche. As soon as I understood the nature of the case I recognized the excellence of the idea. I said as much to Brown and told him to fire another volley. I cannot throw lava blocks with any precision, never having been used to them, and therefore I apportioned our labor with that fact in view and signified to Brown that he would only have to knock the coconuts down. I would pick them up myself. Brown let drive with another boulder. It went singing through the air and just grazed a cluster of nuts hanging fifty feet above the ground. Well done! said I. Try it again. He did so. The result was precisely the same. Well done again! said I. Move your hindsight a shade to the left and let her have it once more. Brown sent another boulder hurling through the dingy air. Too much elevation. It just passed over the coconut tuft. Steady lad, said I, you scatter too much. Now, one, two, fire! And the next missile clove through the tuft and a couple of long slender leaves came floating down to the earth. Good, I said! Depress your peace a line! Brown paused and panted like an exhausted dog. Then he wiped some perspiration from his face, a quart of it, he said, and discarded his coat, vest, and cravat. The next shot fell short. He said, I'm letting down. Them large boulders are monstrous responsible rocks to send up there, but they're rough on the arms. He then sent a dozen smaller stones in quick succession after the fruit, and some of them struck in the right place, but the result was nothing. I said he might stop and rest awhile. Oh, never mind, he said. I don't care to take any advantage. I don't want to rest until you do. But it's singular to me how you always happen to divide up the work about the same way. I'm to knock them down, and you're to pick them up. I'm of the opinion that you're going to wear yourself down to just nothing but skin and bones on this trip, if you ain't more careful. Oh, don't mind about me resting. I can't be tired. I ain't have only about eleven ton of rocks up into that liberty pole. Mr. Brown, I'm surprised at you. This is mutiny. Oh, well, I don't care what it is—mutiny, sass, or what you please. I'm so hungry that I don't care for nothing. I was on my lips to correct his loathsome grammar, but I considered the dire extremity he was in, and withheld the deserved reproof. After some time spent in mutely longing for the coveted fruit, I suggested to Brown that if he would climb the tree, I would hold his hat. His hunger was so great that he finally concluded to try it. His exercise had made him ravenous, but the experiment was not a success. With infinite labor and a great deal of awkwardly constructed swearing, he managed to get up some thirty feet, but then he came to an uncommonly smooth place and began to slide back slowly but surely. He clasped the tree with his arms and legs and tried to save himself, but he got too much sternway and the thing was impossible. He dragged for a few feet and then shot down like an arrow. It is taboo, he said sadly. Let's go back to the Pia. The transom to my trousers is all fetched away, and the legs of them are riddled to rags and ribbons. I wish I was drunk or dead or something—anything so as to be out of this misery. I glanced over my shoulders as we walked along and observed that some of the clouds had parted and left a dim, lighted doorway through to the skies beyond. In this place, as in an ebony frame, our majestic palm stood up and reared its graceful crest aloft. The slender stem was a clean black line the feathers of the plume. Some erect, some projecting horizontally, some drooping a little, and others hanging languidly down toward the earth, were all sharply cut against the smooth gray background. A beautiful, beautiful tree is the coco palm, I said reverently. I don't see it, said Brown resentfully. People that haven't clumbed one are always driveling about how pretty it is, and when they make pictures of these hot countries they always shove one of the ragged things into the foreground. I don't see what there is about it. That's handsome. It looks like a feather duster struck by lightning. Perceiving that Brown's mutilated pantaloons were disturbing his gentle spirit, I said no more. Providentially saved from starvation. Toward midnight a native boy came down from the uplands to see if the boomerang had got in yet, and we chartered him for subsistence service. For the sum of twelve and a half cents in coin he agreed to furnish coconuts enough for a dozen men at five minutes' notice. He disappeared in the murky atmosphere, and in a few seconds we saw a little black object like a rat running up our tall tree and pretty distinctly defined against the light place in the sky. It was our Kanaka, and he performed his contract without tearing his clothes, but then he had none on, except those he was born in. He brought five large nuts and tore the tough green husks off with his strong teeth, and thus prepared the fruit for use. We perceived then that it was about as well that we failed in our endeavors as we never could have gnawed the husks off. I would have kept Brown trying, though, as long as he had any teeth. We punched the eye-holes out and drank the sweet and at the same time pungent milk of two of the nuts, and our hunger and thirst were satisfied. The boy broke them open, and we ate some of the mushy white paste inside for pastime, but we had no real need of it. After a while a fine breeze sprang up, and the schooner soon worked into the bay and cast anchor. The boat came ashore for us, and in a little while the clouds and the rain were gone. The moon was beaming tranquilly down on land and sea, and we too were stretched upon the deck, sleeping the refreshing sleep and dreaming the happy dreams that are only vouchsafed to the weary and the innocent. Mark Twain End of Section 61 This is Section 62 of Newspaper Articles by Mark Twain. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Newspaper Articles by Mark Twain, Section 62, The Sacramento Daily Union, September 1866. Part 1 The Sacramento Daily Union, September 6, 1866. Kealakakua Bay, July 1866 A Funny Scrap of History In my last I spoke of the old coconut stump all covered with copper plates bearing inscriptions commemorating the visits of various British naval commanders to Captain Cook's death-place at Kealakua Bay. The most magniliquant of these is that left by the right honourable Lord George Paulette, to whom, as the representative of her Britannic Majesty Queen Victoria, the Sandwich Islands were seated, February 25, 1843. Lord George, if he is alive yet, would like to tear off that plate and destroy it, no doubt. He was fearfully snubbed by his government shortly afterward for his acts as her Majesty's representative upon the occasion to which he refers with such manifest satisfaction. A pestilent fellow by the name of Charlton had been Great Britain's consul at Honolulu for many years. He seems to have employed his time in sweating, fuming, and growling about everything and everybody, in acquiring property by devious and inscrutable ways, in blackguarding the Hawaiian government and the missionaries, in scheming for the transfer of the islands to the British crown, in getting the king drunk and laboring diligently to keep him so, in working to secure a foothold for the Catholic religion when its priests had been repeatedly forbidden by the king to settle in the country, in promptly raising thunder every time an opportunity offered, and in making himself prominently disagreeable and a shining nuisance at all times. You will thus perceive that Charlton had a good deal of business on his hands. There was a heap of trouble on the old man's mind. He was sued in the courts upon one occasion for a debt of longstanding amounting to three thousand pounds, and judgment rendered against him. This made him lively. He swore like the army in Flanders, but it was of no avail. The case was afterwards carefully examined twice, once by a commission of distinguished English gentlemen, and once by the law officers of the British crown, and the Hawaiian court's decision sustained in both instances. His property was attached, and one skinner, a relative who had ten thousand dollars in the bank, got ready to purchase it when it should be sold on execution. So far so good. Several other English residents had been worsted in lawsuits. They and Charlton became loud in their denunciation of what they termed a want of justice in the Hawaiian courts. The suits were all afterwards examined by the law officers of the British crown, and the Hawaiian court sustained, as in Charlton's case. Charlton got disgusted, wrote a sassy letter to the king, and left suddenly for England, conferring his consulate, for the time being, upon a kindred spirit named Simpson, a bitter traducer of the Hawaiian government, an officer whom the government at once refused to recognize. Charlton left with Simpson a demand upon the government for possession of a large and exceedingly valuable tract of land in Honolulu, alleged to have been transferred to him by a deed duly signed by a native gentleman who had never owned the property, and whose character for probity was such that no one would believe he ever would have been guilty of such a proceeding. Charity compels us to presume that the versatile Charlton forged the deed. The boundaries, if specified, were vaguely defined. It contained no mention of a consideration for value received. It had been held in abeyance and unmentioned for twenty years, and its signer and witnesses were long since dead. It was a shaky instrument altogether. On his way to England Charlton met my lord George in a queen's ship, and laid his grievances before him, and then went on. My lord sailed straight to Honolulu, and began to make trouble. Under threats of bombarding the town, he compelled the king to make the questionable deed good to the person having charge of Charlton's property interests. Demanded the reception of the new consul, demanded that all those suits, a great number, which had been decided adversely to Englishmen, including many which had even been settled by amicable arbitration between the parties, should be tried over again, and by juries composed entirely of Englishmen, although the written law provided that but half the panel should be English, and therefore, of course, the demand could not be complied with without a tyrannical assumption of power by the king. He stopped the seizure and sale of Charlton's property. He brought in a little bill, gotten up by the newly created and promptly emasculated consul, Simpson, for one hundred and seventeen thousand dollars, and some odd change—enough to bust the whionic's jicker, two or three times over, to use a popular missionary term—for all manner of imaginary damages sustained by British subjects at diverse and sundry times, and among the items was one demanding three thousand dollars to indemnify Skinner for having kept his ten thousand dollars lying idle for four months, expecting to invest it in Charlton's property, and then not getting a chance to do it on account of Lord George having stopped the sale. An exceedingly nice party was Lord George. Take him all round. For days and nights together the unhappy Kamehameha III was in bitterest distress. He could not pay the bill, and the law gave him no power to comply with the other demands. He and his ministers of state pleaded for mercy, for time to remodel the laws to suit the emergency. Lord George refused steadfastly to exceed to either request, and finally, in tribulation and sorrow, the king told him to take the islands and do with them as he would. He knew of no other way. His government was too weak to maintain its right against Great Britain. And so Lord George took them and set up his government, and hauled down the royal Hawaiian ensign, and hoisted the English colours over the archipelago, and the sad king notified his people of the event in a proclamation which is touching in its simple eloquence. Where are you, chiefs, people and commons from my ancestors, and people from foreign lands? Hear ye! I make known to you that I am in perplexity by reason of difficulties into which I have been brought without cause. Therefore I have given away the life of our land. Hear ye! But my rule over you, my people, and your privileges will continue, for I have hope that the life of the land will be restored when my conduct is justified. Kamehameha III. And then, I suppose, my Lord George Paulet, temporary king of the Sandwich Islands, went complacently skirmishing around his dominions in his ship, and feeding fat on glory, for we find him four months later visiting Kealakakua Bay, and nailing his rusty sheet of copper to the memorial stump set up to glorify the great cook, and imagining no doubt that his visit had conferred immortality upon a name which had only possessed celebrity before. But my Lord's happiness was not to last long. His superior officer, Rear Admiral Thomas, arrived at Honolulu a week or two afterward, and as soon as he understood the case he immediately showed the new government the door, and restored Kamehameha to all his ancient powers and privileges. It was the 31st of July, 1843. There was immense rejoicing on Oahu that day. The Hawaiian flag was flung to the breeze. The king, and as many of his people as could get into the great stone church, went there to pray, and the balance got drunk. The 31st of July is Independence Day in the Sandwich Islands, and consequently in these times there are two grand holidays in the islands in the month of July. The Americans celebrate the fourth with great pomp and circumstance, and the natives outdo them if they can on the 31st. And the speeches disgorged upon both occasions are regularly inflicted in cold blood upon the people by the newspapers that have a dreary fashion of coming out just a level week after one has forgotten any given circumstance they talk about. A Lucrative Office But has emoluments also. He makes it very nice, of course. He gets five dollars for boarding every foreign ship that stops there, and two dollars more for filling out certain blanks attesting such visit. As many as three foreign ships stop there in a single year sometimes. Yet notwithstanding this wild rush of business, the late collector of the port committed suicide several months ago. The foreign ships which visit this place are whalers in quest of water and potatoes. The present collector lives back somewhere, as a dan up the mountain several thousand feet, but he comes down fast enough when a ship heaves in sight. Washoo Men I found two Washoo Men at the house, but I was not surprised. I believe if a man were to go to perdition itself he would find Washoo Men there, though not so thick, maybe, as in the other place. The Holy Place Two hundred yards from the house was the ruins of the pagan temple of Lono, so desecrated by Captain Cook when he was pretending to be that deity. Its low, rude walls look about as they did when he saw them, no doubt, in a coconut grove near at hand is a tree with a hole through its trunk, said to have been made by a cannon-ball fired from one of the ships at a crowd of natives immediately after Cook's murder. It is a very good hole. The Hero of the Sunday School Books The high chief Cook of this temple, the priest who presided over it and roasted the human sacrifices, was uncle to Obukia, and at one time that youth was an apprentice priest under him. Obukia was a young native of fine mind who, together with three other native boys, was taken to New England by the captain of a whale ship during the reign of Kamehameha I, and were the means of attracting the attention of the religious world to their country and putting it into their heads to send missionaries there. And this Obukia was the very same sensitive savage who sat down on the church steps and wept because his people did not have the Bible. That incident has been very elaborately painted in many a charming Sunday School Book. I, and told so plaintively and so tenderly that I have cried over it in Sunday School myself on general principles, although at a time when I did not know much and could not understand why the people of the Sandwich Islands need care as sent about it as long as they did not know there was a Bible at all. This was the same Obukia, this was the very same old Obukia, so I reflected, and gazed upon the ruined temple with a new and absorbing interest. Here that gentle spirit worshipped, here he sought the better life after his rude fashion. On this stone perchance he sat down with his sacred lasso to wait for a chance to rope in some neighbor for the holy sacrifice. On this altar, possibly, he broiled his venerable grandfather and presented the rare offering before the high priest who may have said, well done, good and faithful servant! It filled me with emotion. Kanui the Unfortunate Obukia was converted and educated, and was to have returned to his native land where the first missionaries had he lived. The other native youths made the voyage, and two of them did good service, but the third, William Kanui, fell from grace afterward for a time, and when the gold excitement broke out in California he journeyed thither and went to mining, although he was fifty years old. He succeeded pretty well, but the failure of Page Bacon and Company relieved him of six thousand dollars, and then, to all intents and purposes, he was a bankrupt community. Thus after all his toils, all his privations, all his faithful endeavors to gather together a competence, the blighting hand of poverty was laid upon him in his old age, and he had to go back to preaching again. One cannot but feel sad to contemplate such afflictions as these cast upon a creature so innocent and deserving. And finally he died. Died in Honolulu in 1864. The Reverend Mr. Damon's paper, referring, in the obituary notice, to Page Bacon's unpaid certificates of deposit in the unhappy man's possession, observes that he departed this life leaving the most substantial and gratifying evidence that he was prepared to die. And so he was, poor fellow, so he was. He was cleaned out, as you may say, and was prepared to go. He was all ready and prepared. Page Bacon had attended to that for him. All he had to do was to shed his mortal coil. Then he was all right. Poor, poor old fellow. One's heart bleeds for him. For some time after his bereavement in the matter of finances he helped Reverend M. Rowell to carry on the Bethel Church in San Francisco and gave excellent satisfaction for a man who was so out of practice. Sleep in peace, poor tired soul. You are out of luck many a time in your long checkered life, but you are safe now, where care and sorrow and trouble can never assail you any more. Temple to the Rain God. Quite a broad tract of land near that port of entry, extending from the sea to the mountaintop, was sacred to the God Lono in olden times, so sacred that if a common native set his sacrilegious foot upon it it was time for him to make his will, because his time was come. He might go around it by water, but he could not cross it. It was well sprinkled with pagan temples and stocked with awkward homely idols carved out of logs of wood. There was a temple devoted to prayers for rain, and with rare sagacity it was placed at a point so well up on the mountainside that if you prayed there twenty-four times a day for rain you would be likely to get it every time. You would seldom get to your amen before you would have to hoist your umbrella. The house built by the dead men. And there was a large temple near at hand which was built in a single night, in the midst of storm and thunder and rain, by the ghastly hands of dead men. Tradition says that by the weird glare of the lightning a noiseless multitude of phantoms were seen at their strange labour far up the mountainside at dead of night, flitting hither and thither and bearing great lava blocks clasped in their nerveless fingers, appearing and disappearing as the fitful lightning fell upon their pallid forms and faded away again. Even to this day it is said the natives hold this dread structure in awe and reverence and will not pass by it in the night. Venus at the Bath. At noon I observed a bevy of nude native young ladies bathing in the sea and went down to look at them. But with a prudery which seems to be characteristic of that sex everywhere they all plunged in with a lying scream, and when they rose to the surface they only just poked their heads out and showed no disposition to proceed any further in that direction. I was naturally irritated by such conduct and therefore I piled their clothes up on a boulder in the edge of the sea and sat down on them and kept the wenches in the water until they were pretty well used up. I had them in the door, as the missionaries say. I was comfortable and I just let them beg. I thought I could freeze them out maybe but it was impractical. I finally gave it up and went away hoping that the rebuke I had given them would not be lost upon them. I went and undressed and went in myself and then they went out. I never saw such singular perversity. Shortly a party of children of both sexes came floundering around me and then I quit and left the Pacific Ocean in their possession. The shameless brown. I got uneasy about brown finally and as there were no canoes at hand I got a horse, we're on to ride three or four miles around to the other side of the bay and hunt him up. As I neared the end of the trip and was riding down the pathway of the gods toward the sea and the sweltering sun, I saw brown toiling up the hill in the distance with a heavy burden on his shoulder and knew that canoes were scarce with him too. I dismounted and sat down in the shade of a crag and after a while, after numerous pauses to rest by the way, brown arrived at last, fagged out and puffing like a steamboat and gently eased his ponderous burden to the ground. The coconut stump all sheathed with copper memorials to the illustrious Captain Cook. I said, what are you going to do with that? Going to do with it? Let me blow a little, let me blow, it's monstrous heavy, that log is. I am most tired out. Going to do with it? Why, I'm going to take her home for a specimen. You egregious ass! March straight back again and put it where you got it. Why, brown, I am surprised at you and hurt. I am grieved to think that a man who has lived so long in the atmosphere of refinement which surrounds me can be guilty of such vandalism as this. Reflect, brown, and say if it be right, if it be manly, if it be generous, to lay desecrating hands upon this touching tribute of a great nation to her gallant dead. Why, brown, the circumnavigator Cook labored all his life in the service of his country, with a fervid soul and a fearless spirit, he braved the dangers of the unknown seas and planted the banner of England far and wide over their beautiful island world. His works have shed a glory upon his native land which still lives in her history today. He laid down his faithful life in her service at last, and, unforgettable of her son, she yet reveres his name and praises his deeds, and in token of her love and in reward for the things he did for her, she had reared this monument to his memory, this symbol of a nation's gratitude, which you would defile with unsanctified hands. Restore it! Go! All right, if you say so, but I don't see no use of such a spread as you're making. Don't see nothing so very high-toned about this old rotten chunk. It's about the ornious thing for a monument I've ever struck yet. If it suits Cook, though, all right, I wish him joy. If I was planted under it, I'd heist it, if it was the last act of my life. Monument! It ain't fit for a dog. I can buy dead loads of just such for six bits. She puts this over Cook, but she put one over that foreigner. What was his name? Prince Albert? That cost a million dollars, and what did he do? Why, he never done anything, never done anything but lead a gallous, comfortable life at home and out of danger, and raise a large family for government to board at three hundred thousand pounds a year apiece. But with this fellow, you know, it was different. However, if you say the old stump's got to go down again, down she goes. As I said before, if it's your wishes, I've got nothing to say. And only this. I fetched her a mile or a mile and a half, and she weighs a hundred and fifty, I should judge, and if it would suit Cook just as well to have her planted up here instead of down there, it would be considerable of a favour to me. I made him shoulder the monument and carried back, nevertheless. His criticisms on the monument and its patron struck me, though, in spite of myself. The creature has got no sense, but his vaporing sounds strangely plausible sometimes. In due time, we arrived at the port of entry once more.