The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1894-03-20

Ut anu llf t'ftlt. WIS Tue hlE hlldls III
the centre Of that there was a billiard
table. in every corner hammoCks. aud
scattered about were light easy chairs.
Then there were other detached cot
tagcs. % detached kitchen. and. step
from the beach. dressing rooms for
hathers. The lanai was, ! should think,
a hundred feet from where the baby
surf broke after rolling in over the i'm.
side coral reef, the big surf breaking ON
the outside reef. | don't know what
the temperature was of air or water
! don't think any one ever looks at
thermometers, or things like that there.
You know that the air Is balmy and
soft and that you are perfectly happy
lying i'm the hammock in pa iamas, or
lying on the white beach sand in your
wet bathing dress, and that to be in
the water is a luxury
The native servants might not Ice ac.
counted very good servants in the estI-
nation of a New York housekeepre.
IL takes two or three to do what one
Chinese or japanese will, and there are
plenty of the latter, if you prefer. But
! the natives can do so many things out.
side of household work which the Chin
ese and Japs cannot. | remember one
night we were lounging on the lanai
with big moon swinging over us, the
| baby surf purring at our feet, the big
surf sending in a faint, drowsy boom
! from the outside reef, and a group of
natives Just beyond the lanai rail softly
singing and laughing. We had all been
silent for a long time when our host
lazlly called one of the servants and
gave him some instructions that caused
the widest delight. The natives ran
out canoe, and three of them. abso-
lutely nude, embarked. One padded
one held a torch, one carried spear,
They silently moved out beyond the
line of inside surf, and there the man
with the paddle held the canoe still.
The torch bearer aud sportsman stood
up. For several minutes they were as
motionless as bronze statues. and as
handsome, too, the torch bearer holding
his flaming light over his head, the
sportsman standing with muscles tense,
his spear poised for stroke. Suddenly
there was quick deXterOus plunge of
the spear, and royal kumu, the big
golden fish of those waters, was a cap
tive. The men in the canoe announced
their prize, and their comrades on the
hea, II danced eXutantly. We had the
kumu for breakfast, and the natives
seasoned their poi with little devil
fish one of the fishermen caught with
his hands and calmly killed by biting it
back of its head as it wound its tenta-
cles around his arm. | saw Kanaka
woman do that once, and her express
sion was Just the same as an American
seamstress wears when she bites heI
thread
But what | was going to say is that
while the natives may not make as good
house servants as some others, they dc
something in compensation. The pic
ture of those men in that canoe that
night might even compensate for the
lack of pictures painted on canvas.
Some nights our host invited parties
of ladies and gentlemen down to Wal
killi. There are number of high-caste
half-white families in Honolulu, and
the poet is not born who can exaggerate
the charm of high-caste half white
belle. Ask any of the naval officers
who have been there and in every other
port in the world famous for the fasci.
nation of its bellies.
Staid old Prof. Draper explained that
the divergent effects of soil and climate
on human nature, as eXemplifed in the
Compartments north and south of
Mason and DiXon's line, caused the late
unpleasantness. Possibly an application
of his scientific theory might result in
some such explanation as that Hawaii
an girls, owing to the effects of their
environment, are possessed of all the
charms of femininity most effective
when directed to the subiugation of the
male human: and that those girls are
no more responsible for the possession
of those attributes than is the lei of
cardinals they put on your neck for its
perfume. But you don't recall Draper
history in Honolulu; especially you
don't when you in the company of a
halfwhite girl by the sands of Waikiki.
Some of the girls bring taro patch fid-
dies with them. A taro patch fiddle is
something like banjo and something
like guitar in its construction and is
played not by picking its strings. but by
softly and swiftly passing over the strings
the tip ends of the fingers as the chords
arc rapidly changed. They all bring
bathing dresses, they all bring Ieis,
and they all bring chaperons. Now an
Hawaiian chaperon-but she would take
a chapter to herself.
Those girls-l am speaking, of course,
of the high castles, those whose mothers
'cended from chiefesses of the days of
Kamehameha | and H., and whose
fathers were well-bred Americans Eng
lishmen, or Germans-all have big black
eyes so deep you can lose yourself in
them without trying clear, dark com.
pleXion, only little darker than that
of an American who would be called a
decided" brunette; masses of hair, and
beautifully regular white teeth. As
they all swim and ride a great deal-rye
seen them ride a bare back horse, astride
on keen run over rough country
there is nothing the matter with their
figures: that is, until they get too ma
ture or lazy to ride or swim much.
While Liliuokalani and her sister
Likelike were princesses of the royal
house, they each had about them a
great deal number of young people,
whites and half whites, who were
known as Likelike's and Liliuokalani's
sets" then there was, in the DAYS of
the dowager Queen Emma, rival party
known as her set. She was herself a
half white, and around her were gath
cred the flowers of the half-white aris-
tocracy of Honolulu. The men of her
set were white, half white, and few,
very few, Kanakas; the remnants of the
old families of chiefs and chiefesses,
whose blood had not been paled by inter.
marriage with whites. Many of the
halt-white men We're American college
bred, and some of the girls had been
sent to the Estates" to be educated and
some to England and Germany; but YOU
might associate with those young men
and women intimately for months, as |
did, without receiving a hint-any more
than an occasional bit of Hazard or Yale
slang, or suggestion of British or
| German accent-which would lead YOU
to suppose they had ever been away
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