The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1873-01-16
A PARADISE FOR ALL SORTS.

spent several months III the Sandwich
Islands, six years ago, and. if | could
have my way about it, | would 90 back
there and remain the rest Of my DAYS It
is a paradise for an indolent man. If a
man is rich he can live expensiveiy, and
his grandeur will be respected as in other
parts of the earth; if he is poor he can
herd with the natives, and live on next to
nothing; he can sun himself all day long
under the palm trees, and be no more
troubled by his conscience than butterfly
would
When you are in that blessed retreat,
you are safe from the turmoil of life you
browse your days away in a long deep
dream of peace; the past is forgotten
thing, the present IS heaven, the future
you leave to take care of itself You are
in the centre of the Pacific Ocean; you
are two thousand miles from any conti-
nent; you are millions of miles from the
world; as tar as you can see, on any
hand, the crested pillows wall the horizon,
and beyond this barrier the wide universe
is but Il foreign land to you, and barren
of interest.
The climate is simply delicious-never
cold at the sea level, and never really too
warm, for you are at the halfway house
- that is, twenty degrees above the
equator. But then you may order your
own climate tor this reason: the eight in
habited islands are merely mountains that
lift themselves out of the sea-a group of
bells, if you please, with some (but not
very much) ''1are" at their basis You
get the idea. Well, you take thermome-
ter, and mark on it where you want the
murcury to stand permanently forever
with not more than II degrees variation)
winter and summer. If 80 in the shade is
your figure with the privilege of going
down OF up 5 or 6 degrees at long inter-
vals), you build your house down on the
''flare"-the sloping or level ground by
the sea-shore-and you have the deadest
surest thing in the world on that tempera-
ture. And such is the climate of Homo
lulu, the capital of the kingdom. If you
mark 70 Us your mean temperature, you
build your house on any mountain side,
400 or 500 feet above sea level If vou
mark 90 or 60, 60 1,5OO feet higher. If
you mark for wintry weather, go on climb
ing and watching your mercury. If you
want snow and ice forever and ever and
zero and below, build on the summit OF
Mauna Kea, 10000 feet up in the air. If
you must have hot weather, you should
build at Lahaina, where they do not hang
the thermometer on a nail because the
solder might melt and the instrument get
broken; or you should build in the crater
of Kileaua, which would be the same as
going home before your time. You can
not find as much climate punched together
anywhere in the world as you can in the
Sandwich Islands. You may stand on the
summit of Mauna Kea, in the midst of
snow-banks that were there before Capt
Cook was born, may be, and while you
shiver in your turs you may cast your eye
down the sweep of the mountain side and
tell exactly where the frigid zone ends
and vegetable life begins; a stunted and
tormented growth of trees shades down
into a taller and freer species, and that in
turn, into the full foliage and varied tints
of the temperate zone; further down, tho
mere ordinary green tone of forest
washes over the edges of broad bar of
like belt, and is so deep and dark
still further down, your eye rests upon the
levels of the sea-shore, where the sugar
cane is scorching in the sun, and the
Ieatnery cocoa-palln SlaSSlnS Itself III the
tropical waves; and where you know the
sinful natives are lolling about in utter
nakedness and never knowing or caring
that you and your snow and your chatter
ing teeth are so close by. So you per-
ceive, you can look down upon all the
climates of the earth. and note the kinds
and colors of all the vegetations, Just with
a glance of the eye-and this glance only
travels over about three miles as the bird
flies, too.
ABOUT THE NATIVES.
The natives of the islands number only
about 50 600 and tho mbitos aho,,t 3 Ql0