The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1885-08-13
Island correspondence.
LANAI, August 5, 1885.


trip up this way ran ahead of the Lehua
and reached Kaunakakai an hour and
half before that vessel.
When she left Honolulu, at 5 O'Clock
p IN. last Monday, there were twenty
one cabin passengers on board-twenty
Hawaiians and one haole. There being
but four hunks in the cabin, and one of
these being reserved for the Captain, it
will be seen at glance that the remain
ing three-each feet long by 20 inches
wide-would be rather crowded with
seven passengers in each. But this
difficulty was gotten over by twenty of
the passengers remaining on deck to
chatter and laugh and sing to the notes
of sort of guitar, on which each in turn
played that solitary refrain to be heard
all over Honolulu
At halfpast II o'clock the DoWsett
was opposite the narrow channel leading
to the anchorage at Kaunakakai Cap
tain Smith went to call the engineer,
directing the man at the wheel to keep
heading for a certain point. The Cap
tain was gone about three minutes, and
when he stepped on deck again he no
ticed the lights in the harbor of Kauna-
kakai on the starboard side of the
steamers bow, instead of the port. He
Immediately ordered the man to port his
helm, but at the same instant the vessel
ran onto the reef on the left of the chan
mel going in. AS she was running fully
nine miles an hour, she went on some
distance before the engines could be re-
versed and she brought to standstill.
The tide was partly out and falling
slowly, and the vessel ground away on
the coral, now and then humping in an
unpleasantly suggestive manner. A boat
was lowered and an anchor taken astern,
the line which was fastened to it being
carried to the windlass and strain got
on it.
For some time this hauling, and the
engines working astern, did not prevent
the steamer from being carried in nearer
the breakers by the swell; but about the
time that the first line of breakers was
under her bows she began to move back
! ward, and in an hour and half from the
time she struck she was adoat again.
The pumps, which had been kept going,
did not show that she was leaking at all,
and the probabilities are that all the
damage that was done to her was the
scraping off of her copper on the keel.
Whether the vessel was much injured
or not does not alter the fact that while
on the reef she was in great danger, and
that she had no business to be where she
was. The vessel is too valuable a one to
lose and . she , oii11 l sadly missed off
her present route.
After leaving Kaunakakai the Dowsett
the breakers, and then ran across to
Halepalana landing on the Maui side of
this island Here the boat took your
correspondent and his luggage ashore,
where a horse was obtained, and the
baggage being placed in hack, the
cayalcade started for Koele, the sheep
ranch of Mr. w NJ Gibson. The hack
spoken of was an accident. It was one
that had been retired from active service
in Honolulu, and purchased by a native
living not far from Koele. It was
mounted on it's wheels last Tuesday, a
good working horse was placed between
it's thills, and then, with drag rope on
each side, fastened to the horns of sad
dies on stout bullock horses, the hack
was dragged for seven miles along the
sandy beach, and then another seven
miles up the hills to Kaele, which was
reached at o'clock p. M, twenty-four
hours from Honolulu.
This ranch is located very nearly in
the center of the island, the main house
looking out over a superb piece of land
to the south shore of the island. Behind
the house rises the mountain range that
runs through the island, and from the
TANKS of which open many deep gorges.
On our right, toward the west, the range
extends in series of rounded, treeless
hills, which finally sink to the level of
the sea, near the northwest point of the
island, where is the harbor of Awalua,
distant from the ranch about ten miles.
Lie COdSG llIIC dTOulIU HUH AWdlud IA0cO
in higher and higher cliffs, breaking off
shear to the sea, until they eliminate in
the grand precipice known as the Pail of
Kaholo. This we visited to-day Thurs
day. and stood on the edge of the ire
mendous cliff, looking five hundred feet
down to the "wrinkled sea-" From
there, looking off to the northwest, We
could trace the long stretch of Molokai,
and beyond it cloudy Oahu. Then there
was the illimitable expanse of the quiet
Pacific, of a lovely sparkling blue,
stretching around to the southeast, where
we could see Kahoolawe, beyond which
was Hawaii, and further around, the
heavy outlines of Maui.
From the Pail we rode around to
point further to our left, where the cliffs
broke off, and on low platform of rock
hitting ont tn form q finV baV was