The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1869-07-17

Letter from Hawaii.

! eccentric are the freaks Of nature. This quiet little
capital is proving false to its moist traditions, ard
as TRANQUILITY misceginates with dust as formerly with
rain and mud. Having complacently recovered from
its one annual %lilliputian sensation, the Assizes to
wit, g melancholy little Hilo - subsidies again into
its own element Of exceeding dizziness and the very
dust behaves with propriety and is at peace. There
is no snow on the sad old mountains there is very
little water and no prattle in the streams there
are no vegetables in the market, no fruit on the
trees birds don't sing. and dogs don't bark, and
excepting the weary murmur of the monotonous
waves along the beach, there is scarcely a sound to
break the oppressive silence that only wants space to
be awful.
Yet this dead-alive little place is growing. Like
an old whale, it is getting barnacled. A new Court
House sprang with n single bound into formidable
existence, even whilst murders were being c~haritably
clipped of their fair proportions inside the dark old
shanty, and this present tall and imposing edi6ce
now looms up portentous in all the pride and pre-
tenoe Of new paint, greatly of course to the orna-
mentation of the town. 1t is in reality a very cred
liable structure, covering fine roomy offices for the
fortunate incumbents, who L trust will never cease to
consider themselves worthy thereof. The court room
is very nice indeed. One might almost be tempted
to commit some amiable offense, to spend n few hours
in the cosy little prisoners dock. 1 am sure that
many an ancient worthy couple of the simple native
type would, and probably will, feel highly honored to
behold the hope Of their house occupying so charm
ing a position.
The jury room is ' handy by only one might
perhaps object to its fine window, commanding q
wide extent of house tops and other pleasant scenery,
which may possibly distract the attention of twelve
thoughtful men, brimful of honesty and evidence,
whose care should be to handle such precious mate
rial vifhout smiling a 1rop Thera is another side
room, for the benefit of the Honorable Court itself,
where, at eleven o'clock or otherwise, it may recupe-
rate without being peeped at, for it has no window.
One interesting popularity about the building is,
that by some unaccounted for caprice, it stands like
the miraculous horse Spoken of in history with its
tail where its head ought to be, and you approach
the front from behind. 1t seems really to be ashamed
of itself, and I'll defy any man (however pure his
intentions) to come out of it without an appearance
of ~sneaking, or if as it were, ne would be back again
presently.
How this happened has not yet been explained,
and l don't believe it was intentional My own
theory is that whilst the many to whom was en-
trusted the planting of this appropriation shrub
were trying to consult over the matter, holding it in
their hands the while, being greatly unused to such
grave and tieklish business, and possibly in fear of
offending some ~bugbear, they got nervous, let it fall,
ran away anu lett IT, L Understand that our usually
smooth and ever complaisant Excellency the Minister
of the Interior, when he first caught sight of the
anomaly, forgot for an instant his proverbially
patient and long suffering good breeding, and like a
wrathy Moses, calculated something stronger than
tobacco juice, which the Plying Angel may as
well smear over. Mott wasn't him
Your correspondent is not a man of business, yet
it appears to him that amid all this prosperity in
esse and in posse, Hilo, in a business point of view,
is declining, or if any business is ever now trans
acted there, it is done in whispers. Many of the
F. FPS understand this and are getting themselves
handsomely housed for the occasion. The streets are
silent, the beach is n bare stretch of untrodden sand,
and the stores are dollarless shady retreats for the
heavy unoccupied. Even on Saturdays the parti-
cOlored riders are nearly a thing of the past. You
never see enough of them to feel interested. Their
kiheis: seem to be washed out. All they say, if
only Prince Alfred Tor any other man with money in
his purse) would come. And the hungry Chinese
merchants lugubriously echo the thought. Solitary
'' police 1" capped guardians of the quiet sit half
asleep on dry good boxes ut the corners a sore
backed horse is tethered in the sun, and a gang of
victims to the Penal Code carry sand and penitence
laboriously through the hot streets. This is about
all betokening life that one finds in Hilo nowadays
or, possibly, n manager!
iou ouluu I tiiuhs-uO,-yOu ueCeT suspect
that you were in the close vicinity of sugar planta-
tons, unless peradventure you should chance to
foregather with this same self persecuted s~elf-deny- !
ing and unappreciated individual of the human
family. You have read about sugar plantations of
course, in Cuba, in Manila, in Louisiana and else
where, and you have a preconceived idea in your
minds eye that causes your mouth to water and sets
your Imagination all ablaze. " Breadths of tropic
shade and palms in cluster, knots of Paradise
And you thought that sugar was sugar candy and
that plantation life was swinging in a hammock of
dreamy romance or revelling in golden haze. Now
attentively at this herring bellied, dusty gentle
man in dirty boots and disheveled w~hiskers, with
face and anxious hurried mien, who can't
time to eat his dinner, scarcely time to be civil
to his friends-persecuting the Sheriff, hunting the
Judge,-studying nor'west fractions in q hot lumber
yard,-computing unknown quantities at the ma
chine shop,-lOOking seaward, as if expecting some
thing not wanted looking landward as if wanting
not expected-on the 60, on the go, like a
steam cork leg, from the first minute of crossing the
bridge until you shall see him again in a touzled frame
Of mind and more disheveled than ever, vanish to-
wards the regions of laborious obscurity through a
cloud of dust, or in an areola of impairment mud.
The measure of his misery is always full, the emblem
Of his work is the stone of Sisyphus, ever to be rolled
up again, and the object of his life is the fruit of
And look at that wry-mouthed atomy in a pig-tail.
holding his celestial jaws and painfully creeping
owards the doctors shop to get his tooth pulled.
Such is his holiday, and what a pity that his teeth
ire so few!
These are the representative martyrs of our sans
and rheumatical sugar plantations. They
ire not romantic nor poetical. but simply, like grind
tones, useful. The luxuries will come with the
Social life on the plantations, what is
hatf 1t is another phase of " social life in the trop-
even as st. Giles and Five Points are phases of
wo great cities, and opens a problem for better
nen than I am even to speak of.
As 1 write, our mosquito feet of three schooners is