The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1882-01-21
JANUARY 2l. 1882.
EUROPEAN CORRESPONDENCE.
LETTER No. 7~2.-LoNDoN, DEC. 6, 1ss
NEW BOOK ON HAWAII.

NEW BOOK ON HAWAII.
From Sword TO Share; or a Fortune in
Five Years at Hawaii by Captain II.
w. Nicholson. In this book the author
endeavors TO depict the advantages to be
gained by Englishmen, who may desire TO
find a new home abroad and who go TO
Hawaii. He gives 8 good deal of inform
alton about the islands, their population,
laws and manners and social life at Homo
lulu, none of it, however, very new. In
some 80 pages of statistics Captain Nichol-
son then undertakes to show how a certain
capital invested in Hawaii in sugar planting
has been.-or might be it is all the same on
paper-quadrupled within five years. On
so attractive a subject he ought not To lack
readers, and as the book is also aptly illus
trited by photographs, some of them OF
Hawaiian PrincesSes, it is also of consider
able value to intending travellers. a daily
paper speaking of this book, says:-If all
that it claims for the Hawaiian Kingdom
be correct, the country is one which could
not easily be improved upon, and it is but
fair to say that proof is offered for sill the
information so that altogether the land
which King Kalakaua rules over, has
manifold attractions
THE PANAMA CANAL.
Recent news from the Isthmus having
been very conflicting on regard to the pro-
gress of work on this canal, it Is of interest
to hear that at the Paris headquarters
there are no signs of encouragement. AT
Il hICCIlkS vi VIC OAA AAS1AOA
convened by NJ. Lesseps last week, to con-
slider a series ofquestions prior to beginning
the main works, the replies of the COM
mission were all favorable TO the plans TO
the company's engineer. Mr.. Reclus, has
sailed to-day, for Panama, and will inn
mediately work. The Isthmus
will oe attacked at three points simultane-
O~usly-at Colon, on the summit of the
Culebra Range and at Panama.
NOTES.
IL II
cal Institute, the following papers,, relating
to the Pacific, were read: On the affinity
of the Melanesian. Malay and Polynesian
languages, by the Rev'd r. Rodington and
on Fijian riddles, by the Rev'd l.. Tison.
The last volume of the proceedings of this
society also contains an interesting paper
by President Tylor on the geographical dis
tribution of games, in which he draws at
tentiOn to the games of Polynesia and
America, as proving that the drift of civil
lation from Asia, reached these regions,
before they were known in Europe. The
draughts played at Hawaii and New Zea-
land are not the modern games of Europe,
but appear to be a variety of the ancient
classical game, which is still alive in
Egypt to this day. 1t may ave reached
the South Sea Islanders from Eastern Asia
together with kite-fiying at which they are
expert, and which they perhaps had before
the comparatively modern time, when 1T
reached Europe. Wallace mentions that
leafs cradle'' is known all through the
Pacific, and that once, when he was trying
to amuse some natives with 1t, they took
the string off his fingers, and to his aston
ishment Gid many complicated figures quite
unknown to him.
At the Linnean Society a paper was read
some time ago by Mr.. +. Smith, on new
a~culeate Hymenoptera from the Hawaiian
Islands, collected by the Rev'd L. Black
burn. The author stated that the general
aspect of the series is certainly North Amer
lean, with a mixture of a few South Amer
lean forms. The ants are most diverse in
character, some being cosmopolitan in their
range. The house ant of Madeira is COM
mon in Hawaii, and the little European
ant (Ponera Contracta) unexpectedly turns
up there. Mr.. Keane has re-published his
paper, read before the British Association,
on the relation of indo-Oceanic Indo-
Chinese races and languages, with notes on
the POlynesian races. Excluding the dark
races in the area embraced, the author
maintains that there exist only two distinct
types, "a yellow, or Mongolian, and a fair,
or C~aucasian,-and that all varieties arise
from the greater or less preponderance of
either. He finds also only two distinct
forms of speech,-the m~onosyllabic, spoken
Uorio tonO, and the polysyllabic, spoken
rectO tonO. Mr.. Keane's theory is striking
and original and seems to fit into nearly all
the conditions.
THE OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES
of the British fleet in the Pacific will be
changed next month. 1t is therefore prob
able that Rear-Admiral Stirling will not
be able to pay his long-postponed visit to
Honolulu in the Triumph. Rear-Admiral
Algernon NJ. Lyons has just been appointed
Commander -in-chief vice Sterling. He will
leave England on the End prox. for Panama
to join his flagship. Captain Aitchison will
accompany MIN as his f~ag-captain and
Paymaster Geo. Liddell has been selected as
his Secretary. The Triumph was in port at
Coquimbo on the End instant.
A PACIFIC IsLAND
On the passage from Levuka to Yokaha-
ma the Detached Squadron touched at
Pleasant Island, or Nawodo, a solitary coral
reef to the west of the Gilbert group, il. lat.
0037 s., and long. 1853 e. An Englishman
was found there living with the natives.
He gave the name of William Harris, said
he was a native of Yorkshire, and that he
had lived on the island for IS years. He de-
scribed the natives as a dissolute set, drink
being obtained from the Juice of the cocoa
nut palm. They are also constantly ell
gagged in civil war, and he expressed re-
grets that no missionary had ever come TO
this island to convert them.
SHIPPING NOTES.
Further details of the loss of the German
5. s. Quinta have now been received. This
vessel sailed October 2nd from Hongkong
with a cargo and 120 Chinese passengers for
Saigon. On the 7th the Quinta was wrecked
during q terrific typhoon at Tinhosa, Island
of Hainan, and was attacked by over 100
pirate boats, containing s to IL men each.
The crew and passengers, however, succeed
ed in reaching land in safety, whereupon
the pirates sacked the steamer and then set
her on fire. The new White Star steamer
sailed from Queenstown on the 18th
ult., arriving at Sandy Hook on 2nd inst.
She goes to the Pacific for future business.
The Atalanta, which sailed Nov. 3rd, from
Liverpool for Honolulu, has been spoken on
the 18th in the Atlantic in lat. 4940 N, and
90 w. long.