Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands

ere my companions. There we saw a sight characteristic of these islands. Three women decently clothed in a garment which covered them from head to foot, and a man with only a

do not imagine that he was embarrassed at his lack of clothing, and after the first shock of surprise I am quite sure we were more inclined to admire his straight muscular figure and his shining dark skin than to complain of his nakedness. Presently, however, he slipped away into the bush, and re-appeared in a ha

replied; "he can read and write as well as you. I know him very well; he is a prosperous man, and is to be the next justi

on examining the labor contracts on several sugar-plantations, that

31 were natives and half-castes, and 5366 were foreigners. In six years the native population had decrea

ful of healthy and bright children. It is said that the Chinese insist upon taking better care of their children than the native women, uninstructed, usually give them, and that therefore the Chinese half-caste families are more thrifty than those of the pure blood Hawaiians. Moreover, th

much scattered the government places a physician-a man of skill and character-to whom it gives a small salary for attending upon the common people, and he is, I believe, expected t

are under Government supervision. The census gives the number of children between six and fifteen years of age at 6931; and there are 324 teachers, or one teacher for every twenty-seven children in the whole group. Attendance at school is, I suspect, more general here than in any other country in t

re very liberal. They take a pride in such organizations. Dr. Coan's

e confined upon a part of Molokai. The convicts and the boys in the reform school contribute to their own support by their labor. T

pon charity, and thus a fatal blow is struck at their character and respectability. Here, partly of course because the means of living are very abundant and easily got, but also, I think, because the government has been wisely managed, the people have not been taught to look toward publ

positions in the Government; Dr. J. Mott Smith, lately the Minister of Finance; Chief-justice Allen, and Mr. Armstrong, long at the head of the Educational Department, the father of General Armstrong, President of the Hampton University in Virginia, deserve, perhaps, the chief credit for this work. They were the organizers who supplemented the labors of the missionaries; and, fortunately

as plantation laborers, and of these probably a third are Chinese; 2115 returned themselves as mechanics, which is a very large proportion o

say, to decrease. There are, of course, several reasons for their very rapid decrease, and all of them come from contact with the whites. These brought among them diseases whic

ntilated. Take the man accustomed thus to live, and put shoes on his feet, a hat on his head, a shirt on his back, and trowsers about his legs, and lodge him in a house with close-shutting doors and windows, and you expose his constitution to a very serious strain, especially in a country where there is a good deal of rain. Being, after all, but half civilized, he will probably sleep in a wet shirt, or cumber his feet with wet shoes; he will most likely neglect to open his windows at night, and poison himself and his family with bad air, to the influence of which, besides, his unaccustomed l

here has been an actual increase, rather than a decrease in the native and half caste population. In 1832 the Islands had a population of 130,315 souls; in 1836 there were but 108,579; in 1840, only 84,1

ve not been attracted to fill up their places. And this in spite of the facts that the climate is mild and healthful, the price of living cheap, the Government liberal, the taxes low, and life and property as secure as in any part of the world. One would think that a country which offers all these advantages must be a paradise for poor men; and I do

even fifty acres. From these narrow bottoms, where they exist, you look into deep gorges or valleys, out of which issue the streams which force their way through the lower fields into the sea. These valleys are never extensive, and are always very much broken and contracted. They are useless for comm

e valleys, and you will see a surprising sight: along the whole narrow bottom, and climbing often in terraces the steep hill-sides, you will se

vered with grass, strong enough to resist the force of the torrent. Each little patch or flat is so laid that a part of the stream shall flow over it without carrying away the soil; indeed, it is expected to leave so

tches; indeed, you may see horses here standing belly deep in fresh water, and feeding on the grasses which grow on the bottom; and again you find horses raised in the drier parts of the islands that do not know what water is, never having drunk any thing wetter than the dew on the grass. Among the taro patches the

f acres in area, and from them the Hawaiian draws one of his favorite dishes. Then there may be cocoa-nuts; there are sure to be bananas and guavas. Beef co

ake the Hawaiian prosperous; and I have not seen one which had not its neatly kept school-house and church, and half a dozen framed houses scattered

world to live in it, and a thousand such gorges would not add materially to the prosperity of any white nation. That is to say, the country is admirably adapted to its native people. It favors, as it doubtless compelled and formed, all their habits and cu

walls inclosing ponds and taro fields, you will not only see the proofs that the Islands were formerly far m

f land tenure, which has since been swept away, as was inevitable, but which served its day very well indeed. Under this system the chiefs owned every thing. The common people we

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lberry for tapa, and timber land for canoes; but they required also ti leaves in which to wrap their parcels, and flowers of which to make their les, or flower necklaces. And I have seen modern surveys of old "lands" in which the li

hs, made or transported canoes, and did generally what he required. The remainder of the time was their own, to cultivate such patches of taro as he allowed them to occupy, or to do what they pleased. For any important public work he could call out all his people,

trong, for it has survived every change; and only the other day a friend of mine saw a Hawaiian lady, a chiefess, but the wife of an American, and herself tenderly nurtured and a woman of education and refinement, boxing the ears of a tall native, whom she had caught furiously abusing his wife, and the man bore his p

ferings of the fruits of the ground, and even of articles of clothing and adornment. One of the curious sights of Honolulu to us travelers, last spring, was to see long processions of native people, men, women, and children, marching to the palace to lay their offerings before the king, who is a high chief. Each brought something-a man would walk gravely along with a pig under his arm

on the windward side of Oahu was to be built, the chief then ruling over that land gave notice that on a certain day every man, woman, and child within his domain must appear

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for her by a friend of my own, left all her property-a taro patch, a house, and some other land. My friend asked why. He is my chief, was the reply; and sure enough, on inqui

neighboring chief, if the head possessed brains, no doubt the people were made content. Food was abundant; commerce was unknown; the chief could not eat or waste more than his people could easily produce for him; and until disturbing causes came in with Captain

or two kinds of fish, however; these they were forbidden to catch; but as a fisherman can not, even in these islands, exercise a choice as to the fish which shall enter his net or bite at his hook, it followed that the tabued fish were caught--but then they were at once rendered up to the chief. One variety of taro, which makes poi of a pink color, was ta

Kamehameha, his Queen Kahumanu, an energetic and fearless virago, dared for the first time to eat with her son, a c

ul restraints, for I have been told that a tabu preserved girls from marriage until they had attained a certain age, eighteen, I believe; and to this and so

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mpt and because it was certain. One wonders how long the tabu would have been respected, had a violator of it been lodged in jail for eighteen months, allowed to appeal his case through three courts, and at last been brained amidst the appeals for mer

aim to break the power of the chiefs over their people. He established a few general laws, and insisted on peace, order, and obedience to himself. By right of his conques

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e ships brought, forced their unhappy retainers into the mountains to gather this wood. Exposed to cold, badly fed, and obliged to bear painful burdens, they died in great numbers, so that it was a blessing to the Islanders when the wood became scarce. Again, supplies of food we

householder became entitled to the possession in fee of such land as he had occupied, or chose to occupy and cultivate. He had only to make application to a government officer, have the tract surveyed, and pay a small sum to get the title. It is creditable to the chiefs that, under the infl

ommon people are generally small, and the chiefs, or their successors in many cases foreigners, still mainta

many chiefs from six feet two inches to six feet six, and in one case six feet seven inches high. There is no reason to doubt the universal testimony that they were, as a class, taller and finer-looking than the common people; but the older missionaries and residents believe that this arose not from their being of a different race, but because they were

huge cliff is shown, concerning which the tradition runs that it was once the residence of the chief who ruled this valley. This person, with a Titanic and Rabelaisian humor, was accustomed to descend into the valley in the evening, seize a baby and carry it to his stronghold to serve him as a pill

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of people to support. A lady told me that having repeatedly clothed her nurse in good apparel, and finding this liberal soul, every time, in a day or two reduced to her original somewhat shabby clothing, she at last reproached her for her folly. "What can I do?" the woman replied; "they come and ask me for the holaku, or the handkerchief, or whatever I have. Suppose you say they are yours-then I will not give them away." Accordingly, the next new suit was formally declared to belong to the mistress: it was not given away. An old woman, kept chiefly for her skill in lomi-lomi by an American family, asked her mas

h a laugh, that his forefathers in other times did so, and he does the same. It is, in fact, a peace offering to the local divinity of the place. Is he, then, an idolater? Not at all; not necessarily, at least. He is under the compulsion of an

ve almost entirely on cold victuals. A Hawaiian does not need a fire to prepare a meal; a

resemblance in looks and taste to New England molasses-cake; raw fish and shrimps, limu, which is a sea-moss of villainous odor; kuulaau, a mixture of taro and cocoa-nut, very nice; paalolo, a mixtur

pigs-the centre-piece of the feast-have been fattening for a year before. The affair is much discussed. It is indispensable that all who attend shall come in brand-new clothing, and a native person will rather deny himself the feast than appear in garments which have been worn before. A few of the relatives of the fe

atisfaction; they talk and eat; they ride about awhile, and eat again; they laugh, sing, and eat. At last a man finds he can hold no more. He is "pau"-done. He declares himself "mauna"-a mountain; and points to his abdomen in proof of his statement. Then, unless he expects a recurrence of hunger, he carefully wraps up the fragments and bones whi

t down opposite each other, or side by side facing the company. One begins and the other joins in; the sound is as of a shrill kind of drone; it is accompanied by gesticulations; and each chant lasts about two or three minutes, and ends in a jerk. The swaying of

certain part of Kauai; or the teeth, which "resemble the beautiful white pebbles which men pick up on the beach of Kaalui Bay on Maui;" and so on. Indeed an ancient Hawaiian mele is probably, in its construction, much like the Song of Solomon; though I am told that the old meles concerned themselves with personal details by no means suitable fo

For the head they like to use wreaths of the maile shrub, which has an agreeable odor, something like that of the cherry sticks which smokers like for pipe stems. This ornamentation does not look amiss on the young, for to youth much is forgiven; but it is a little startling, at a luau, to see old crones and grave grandfathers arrayed with equal gayety; and I confe

an and his family. He has from five to ten dollars a year of taxes to pay, and this money he can easily earn. The sea always supplies him with fish, sea-moss, and other food. He is fond of fussing at different things; but he also lies down on the grass a good deal-why shouldn't he?-he reads his paper, he plays at cards, he r

of affairs in the world at large. They and their successors, the political rulers, have made life and property secure, and caused roads and bridges to be built and maintained; and the Hawaiian is fond of moving about. T

ith the common people of most European nations; and when one sees here how happily people can live in a small way, and without ambitious striving for wealth or a career, he can n

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