luxury to sit in the perfumed air and forget that there was any world but
these enchanted islands.
It was such ecstacy to dream, and dream–till you got a bite.
A scorpion bite. Then the first duty was to get up out of the grass and
kill the scorpion; and the next to bathe the bitten place with alcohol or
brandy; and the next to resolve to keep out of the grass in future. Then
came an adjournment to the bed-chamber and the pastime of writing up the
day’s journal with one hand and the destruction of mosquitoes with the
other–a whole community of them at a slap. Then, observing an enemy
approaching,–a hairy tarantula on stilts–why not set the spittoon on
him? It is done, and the projecting ends of his paws give a luminous
idea of the magnitude of his reach. Then to bed and become a promenade
for a centipede with forty-two legs on a side and every foot hot enough
to burn a hole through a raw-hide. More soaking with alcohol, and a
resolution to examine the bed before entering it, in future. Then wait,
and suffer, till all the mosquitoes in the neighborhood have crawled in
under the bar, then slip out quickly, shut them in and sleep peacefully
on the floor till morning. Meantime it is comforting to curse the
tropics in occasional wakeful intervals.
We had an abundance of fruit in Honolulu, of course. Oranges, pine-
apples, bananas, strawberries, lemons, limes, mangoes, guavas, melons,
and a rare and curious luxury called the chirimoya, which is
deliciousness itself. Then there is the tamarind. I thought tamarinds
were made to eat, but that was probably not the idea. I ate several, and
it seemed to me that they were rather sour that year. They pursed up my
lips, till they resembled the stem-end of a tomato, and I had to take my
sustenance through a quill for twenty-four hours.
They sharpened my teeth till I could have shaved with them, and gave them
a “wire edge” that I was afraid would stay; but a citizen said “no, it
will come off when the enamel does”–which was comforting, at any rate.
I found, afterward, that only strangers eat tamarinds–but they only eat
them once.
CHAPTER LXIV.
In my diary of our third day in Honolulu, I find this:
I am probably the most sensitive man in Hawaii to-night–especially about
sitting down in the presence of my betters. I have ridden fifteen or
twenty miles on horse-back since 5 P.M. and to tell the honest truth, I
have a delicacy about sitting down at all.
An excursion to Diamond Head and the King’s Coacoanut Grove was planned
to-day–time, 4:30 P.M.–the party to consist of half a dozen gentlemen
and three ladies. They all started at the appointed hour except myself.
I was at the Government prison, (with Captain Fish and another whaleship-
skipper, Captain Phillips,) and got so interested in its examination that
I did not notice how quickly the time was passing. Somebody remarked
that it was twenty minutes past five o’clock, and that woke me up. It
was a fortunate circumstance that Captain Phillips was along with his
“turn out,” as he calls a top-buggy that Captain Cook brought here in
1778, and a horse that was here when Captain Cook came. Captain Phillips
takes a just pride in his driving and in the speed of his horse, and to
his passion for displaying them I owe it that we were only sixteen
minutes coming from the prison to the American Hotel–a distance which
has been estimated to be over half a mile. But it took some fearful
driving. The Captain’s whip came down fast, and the blows started so
much dust out of the horse’s hide that during the last half of the
journey we rode through an impenetrable fog, and ran by a pocket compass
in the hands of Captain Fish, a whaler of twenty-six years experience,
who sat there through the perilous voyage as self-possessed as if he had
been on the euchre-deck of his own ship, and calmly said, “Port your
helm–port,” from time to time, and “Hold her a little free–steady–so–