The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1857-11-12
THE PACIFIC
Commercial Advertiser.
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER Il.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER L.
SATURDAY AFTERNOON is a feature of Honolulu
life seldom met with in any other place. Bust
ness of most kinds is closed for the week at four
O'Clock, and mechanics and laborers receive their
wages. We do not know of any other place
where this practice prevails so universally as
here. to the mutual satisfaction and advantage,
it may be observed, of the employer and the en-
ployed. A chapter might be written upon the
moral good which is calculated to result from this
practice. but we set out to describe the afternoon
itself as it is seen in the streets of Honolulu after
four O'Clock.
With the native portion of our population the
grand idea seems to be to have a ride, and,
mounted on horses, mules and jackasses, saddled
and bareback, bridled or tethered, they gallop
off, up one street and down another, whisking
round corners, and giving the pedestrians hair
breadth escapes. If we stand still at the corner
of Nuuanu and King streets for a half hour, we
will see the same parties ride by three or tour
times, having made the circuit of the town, and
always at the same headlong pace, making it dam
gerous to cross the street, unless one is possessed
of the faculty OF looking two ways at once. In
a very short space of time we shall here count q
thousand horsemen and women. One would
imagine it would be much pleasanter riding out
on the plains Of Waikiki or at Kalihi, where the
air is fresh and free from dust. But our Hawai-
ians ride to be seen and to show their skill In
craftsmanship, and there are no spectators out OF
town; so they continue to gallopalong, the women
in snowy silks and bright-colored robes, sitting
astride like the males and managing their horses
for the most part with energy and skill, until the
shades of evening put an end to their sport, or,
at some unlucky moment they halt, when their
bride is seized by a lynx-eyed native policeman,
and they finish one week and begin the other in
the cells of the station-house, unless some mako-
n,aka (frieId) steps forward and liberates them
by the payment Of six dollars. 1t has always
been a matter of .astonishment that so few acct
dents occur on these occasions.
Here comes a group of mechanics with toll
stained clothes, but pleasant faces, jingling the
dollars in their pockets. They are Englishmen
and Americans, and in point of intelligence are
good specimens of Anglo-Saxons. How many of
them will withstand the temptations of a Satur-
day night in Honolulu and wake up in the morn
ing minus headache and pfls their wages, is
quite another thing. Places of resort for intel
lectual improvement, such as a reading-room, or
a lyceum, or a circulating library are much
needed; for there is literally no society of an ele-
waiting nature for this class in Honolulu, and the
only alternative which many think remains for
them is an unpleasant one to contemplate.
Yonder whirls a merchant with his Boston or
New York turnout and his imported nag. HIS
weeks work too, is done, and bidding adieu for
a time to whaler's bills and 10 per cents. he goes
TO breathe the free air of Nuuanu or the plains.
With skill he avoids a collision in these crowded
streets, where everybody is on the rush. Here
are sailors out of their proper element, and full
of an improper one, with feet well home in the
stirrup, both hands holding on to the pommel of
the saddle as though it was the tiller of the horse,
while the latter goes laundering and shying about
everywhere. There a jabbering Chinaman with
hand-cart, won't get out Of the way old native
woman leading her pig with the rope stretching
half across the street; vehicle coming along, and
,oiH turn the wrong way dust flying so thick
you cannot see; these are some of the incidents
in a Saturday afternoons ride in Honolulu. A
few years ago there might have been added to
this list an occasional wild bullock, escaped from
the lasso, with tail on end, madly cavorting along
the streets, while humanity incontinently scat
tered before him but one Saturday a man was
gored to death and the driver tried for man
slaughter, and that kind of sport was stopped.
There stands a crowd of seamen, landsmen, and
non-descripts, all in animated discussion. With
ordinary powers of imagination you may get
from this crowd a good idea of what occurred a
few thousand years ago at the Tower of Babel.
Every nation that you can readily call to mind,
and others that are yet nameless in history, are
here represented. We doubt if the Apostles had
a better field on which to display their gift of
languages on the 8 day of Pentecost.'' Stolid-
looking Hindoo is cbeek-byjowl with the gesticu-
lating PARLIAMENTARY Spaniard ~jostles the
fair-haired German-pigmy Malay is overshadow-
ed by the huge African-inquisitive Yankee con-
fronts the cat-eyed Chinaman-jaunty Chileno
and blubber-logged Observation-Disclosures Tahi-
tan and cultural manifestations Briton and
not at all fastidious Hawaiian-children of the
sunny south and of the frozen north-sons of the
old and worn out east, and of the young and Wig
orous west black spirits and white, red spirits
and gray all mingle together and form the sin
gular element of a Saturday afternoon in Homo
lulu.
A CURIOUS WAY To GER REsTED.-It is a custom
in Berwickshre, England, among women-workers in
the field, when their backs become much tired by
bowling low down while singing turnips with short
shanked hoes, to lie down with their faces to the
ground, allowing others to step across the lower part
of their backs, on the lumbar region, with one foot,
several times, until the pain of fatigue is removed.
Burton. in his '.First Footsteps in East Africa, - mar
rates n very similar custom in the females who lead
the camels, on feeling ~fatigued, and who lie at full
length, prone, stand upon each others backs, tramp
ling and kneading with their toes, and rise like