The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1893-07-07
Continued from Third PAGE

der, though they both leaned well to
windward, and although Nina Nina
reached over and cut the halliards with
her knife in a moment the little craft
filled and sank from under them, drawn
down by her load, leaving the three
floating on the agitated sea with only
one paddle, which Manae held. Mi
MAMMA had swung her baby over her
back, and his little round head, like
cocoanut, peeped well forth from the
water as his mother struck out by the |
side of her husband for the shore under |
Koko head
Although this lay fully two leagues
away, there was nothing in the situation
greatly to disconcert a Hawaiian family. |
If only the young husband had been in
his proper strength, he would have
shifted the baby to his own shoulder,
and side by side, while the sea grew
quiet again, they would have managed
to make their long swim to land if no
shark intercepted them. For any one
less familiar with the open ocean than
these islanders no doubt it would have
been dreadful plight Even from
boat the wide and naked face of the
sea appears terrible in its spread and
fatness. The long, huge, ponderous
swell of it, which you did not notice
from the deck of the ship or steamer,
gives new and awful impression of its
elemental weight and bulk.
Even in the quietest weather there is
a throb of solid motion in the shining
surface which drops a small boat into
vast, shallow valleys and again lifts it
upon the breast of gradual but farreach-
ing slopes, and the very peace of the
sleeping element becomes dreadful
But when a swimmer beats the salt sea
far from land or help his chin upon its
shining top, his eyes just level with the
long glitter of the surface, the vastness
and baroness and deadlness of it be
comes to all but the hardest absolutely
terrible
There is no man who, swimming in
the ocean, has not experienced even
when he bad safety close at hand, that
irresistible horror at the littleness of his
powers and at the argeness of the
chilly depth leaping and washing all
around him, before and behind, and
right and left, as far away on every
quarter as to where the sky comes down
to the sea. And it is worse when he
thinks of the deep abyss of liquid be
meath his feeble feet-although, for the
matter of that, seven feet of water will
choke the life from a weared swimmer
as well as 1000 fathoms of the mid
Pacific
Actual death by drowning is probably,
like most other forms Of dying, not at
all painful, but never does death appear
more visible and dreadful than when
you look along the face of the sea,
struggling with its waters for every
breath that is drawn and every yard
that is won, while the dance of the
brine washes over the lips and nostrils
and filings its bitter menace into the
blinded eyes
Nina Nina soon found that her man
could not keep the baby's head and his
own at the same time above the water.
The little brown imp was nevertheless
laughing and growing at the sparkling
waves without any fear or trouble, and
when she drew him down beside her in
the sea and let him paddle for a cables
length or 50, the tiny castaway swan
like small fish, and all three were
making fair progress. In the moment
of capsize they had fallen into the sea
of course fully clothed, but both had
since loosened and cast aside in the
water their garments of tapa for freer
swimming, although Mina-Mina still
retained her waist band, in which she
kept her fishing knife.
The ocean was quoted down again
after the sudden blast, and it was not
difficult to rest sometimes by floating,
the wife holding up their small com
panion. Only this would not do for
any long time together, because a cur
rent was running before the light trade
wind, and they might drift too far to
reach the land at last.
Presently Nina Mina's bright eyes
perceive upon the water to the right on
her husbands side dark edge moving
slowly, like a blade of black seaweed
tilted up.
ooh, Mokuhalii (great god of the
fish, help us now" she cried "He
kokua, help Here is he mano, the
shark !"
"Your amakua is the great fish. He
will not hurt you, wife, but he will take
me or the little one"
Being of the fish gods line, she was
taboo to sharks, and they to her, and
to injure the butcher of the deep was
forbidden to her, for there is plenty OF
ancient belief still among them, in spite
of the missionaries. But now she was
thinking only of her husband and her
baby, and superstition fled to the winds
for the dear sake of those she loved.
OF all examples of similar religious
courage in Hawaiian women, none is
better known than that Of Kapiolani, the
daughter of the chief of Hilo, who
broke the spell of Pele, the goddess OF
the great volcano, eating the sacred
berries of the dreaded goddess anC
hingng stones into the seething, fiery
crater of Mauna Loa, thereby con,
H. C,A,,