New-York tribune., 1873-01-06
VIEWS OF MARK TWAIN.
CHARACTERISTIC LETTER FROM THE HUMoRIs1

| TO the EdttOr Of The Trf6une
| SIR: When you do me the honor TO suggest that
write an article about the Sandwich Islands. just
now when the death of the King has turned some
thing of the public attention in that direction,
| unkennel man whose mOdesty would have kept
him in hiding otherwise. could fill yOu full OF sta
tistics bnt most human beings like gossip better.
and 80 you will not blame me If proceed after the
largest audience and leave other people to worry the
minority with arithmetic.
| A PARADISE FOR ALL SORTS.
| Ispent several months in the Sandwich Islands.
six wears ago. and if could have my way about 1t.
| / would go back there and remain the rest OF my
| days. IL is paradise for All indolent man. III q man
is rich he can live expeDsiyely. and his grandeur
will be respected in other parts Of the earth; II 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 long deep dream of peace the past is afor-
gotten thing the present ia heaven, the future you
leave to take care of itself You in the center OF
the Pacific Ocean you are two thousand miles from
any continent; you are millions Of miles from tho
! world as far as you see on any hand, the
crested pillows wall the horizon, and beyond this
| barrier the wide universe is but foreign land to
| you, and barren of interest.
The climate is simply delicious-never cold at tho
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 for this reason the eight inhabited islands
are merely mountains that lift themselves out Of the
sea-a group of bells if you pease,with some but not
very much) flare" at their basis You get the idea.
| Well you take thermometer, and mark on it where
you want the mercury TO stand permanently forever
| with not than IL degrees yariation) Winter
| and Summer. If SO in the shade is your figure
| with the privilege of going down or up
| 5 or 6 degrees at long interyals)' 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 Honolulu. tho cap
ital of the kingdom. IL you mark 20 as your mean
temperature, you build your house any mountain
sde 400 OF 500 feet above level If you mark 55
| or CO. go 800 feet higher If you mark for WiDtry
weather, go on climbing and watching your mer-
| curry. II 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 nail because tho
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.
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 furs you
may cast your eye down the sweep of the mountain
side and tell exactly where the frgd zone ends and
| vegetable life begins; stunted and tormented
growth of trees shades down into q taller and freor
Species and th~t in turn into the full foliage and
+aoft tba fan, 70 furtb dauyu
the mere ordinary green tone of forest washes
over the edges of broad bar of orange trees that
embraces the mountain like belt, and is so deep
and dark green that distance makes it black and
still further down. your eye rests upon the levels OF
the sea-shore where the sugarcane Is scorching In
the sum- and the feathery cocoa-pam CHASING itself
in the tropical waves and where you know the sim
full natives are oling about in utter nakedness and
never knowing or caring that you and your snow
and your chattering teeth are so close by. SO you
perceive you can look down upon all tho climates Of
the earth, and note the kinds and coors of all the
vegetations just with 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
50,000 and the whites about 3000 chiefly Americans.
According to Capt. Cook, the natives numbered
100000 less than hundred years ago. But the
traders brought labor and fancy diseases-in other
words long, deliberate infallible destruction and
the missionaries brought the means of grace and
got them ready. So the two forces working
along harmoniously, and anybody who knows any
thing about figures tell you exactly when the
last Kanaka will be in Abraham's bosom and his
islands in the hands Of the whites II is the same
as calculating an eclpseif ycu get started right.
you cannot miss it. For nearly century the
tives have been keeping up a ratio of about three
births to five deaths, and you can see what that
must result in. No doubt in fifty years a Kanaka
will be curiosity in his own land, and an in
vestment will be superior to circus.
am truly sorry that these people are dying out.
for they are about the most interesting svages there
are Their language is soft and musical it has not
Kissing sound in it, aud all their words end with
vowel. They would call Jim Fisk Jimmy Fkki, for
they will even do violence to proper name if it
CRATES too harshy in its natural state The Italian
sraspy and disagreeable compared to the Hawaiian
tongue. -.- ....- ......r.. ......
These people used to go naked but the mission
aries broke that up; in the towns the men wear
clothing now, and in the country plug hat and q
breech -clout il they have company they put
shirt collar and vest. Nothing but religion and
education could have wrought these admirable
changes. The women wear a single loose calico
gown that falls without break from neck to heels.
In the old times, to speak plainly there absO-
lutely no bar to the commerce Of the sexes. To
refuse the solicitations of stranger was regarded
a contemplate thing for a girl or a woman TO do;
but the missionaries have so bitterly fought this
thing that they have succeeded at least in driving it
out of sight and it exists only in reality, not in
name. NsJ aIl atals -.la
These natives are the simplest, the klndest-
hearted. the most unseish creatures that bear tho
image of the Maker. Where white influence has not