The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-08-18


steep, in queer little COW and horse
pasture in which I had planned to pitch
tent This was on the trade-wind edge of
Honolulu. But the harbor side is quiet.
1t might bore you to tell how I had just
completed, at the point of the sword, you
might say, history of thousand pages
for a rushing Chicago firm. and had sought
the islands, or almost anywhere, for seclu-
sion and rest; for my nervous forces were
all dried up, and I was on the edge of
death from malaria, quincy, nostrums,
nervous exhaustion and all the other
dozen ills and ailments from overwork.
But how receptive is the mind, the body,
the whole being at such times! How the
bowling trade winds do howl! How one
re memb ers all that is fantastic, weird.
tender The dreamful smell of sandal
wood will fill my nostrils while live, and
the wild and tremulous winds of that cow
pasture with its half-prostrate palms, its
roofless old cottage will roar in my ears
till l have set foot in the brink of the
River of Rest.
l had bought a tent, the better to be
alone, and the privilege to pitch this
there was my share and interest in the
renting of the rickety cowsheds at the
remote end of aristocratic Judd street, on
the windy edge of Honolulu.
A man with intermittent malaria don't
want too much wind. I asked the enter
prising owner of the cow-cottages, when
he was showing them to me one windy
day, how it happened that the palm trees
and mango trees and tamarind trees came
to be leaning along with the trade winds
at an angle of forty-five if the place was,
as he protested, "as restful as a lamb"
and he said there had been few earth
quakes and landslides and volcanoes and
little things like that lately, and so the
trees had got a little twisted; but if [
would just wait the wind would go down
and l could pitch my tent and all would
be lovely and mblike.
| waited-waited a week, waited a
month. Meantime he turned in his cows
and his secondhand horses. They turn
their horses out on the islands to cato
eat lava, presumably, as the hay is about
all brought from California-and the little
horses soon get woolly and they rub and
rub against your house, your trees, any
thing and everything, till the wool and
hair hang in mats and knobs. Then they
look as if they had been stuffed and the
stuffing was coming out, as if they were
old sofas. That is why they seem so second
hand. The cows are also little bits of bony
things, sharp-footed and sharp-featured,
thin and light so they can climb the lava
crags and crevices for sandalwood. People
say they climb trees. | have seen pictures
of COWS climbing trees in the islands. and
they look as if they could and would really
do so if they could get anything to eat by
it; yet in truth | never saw them climb
trees. But l will tell you what I have
seen. / have, time and again, seen cows
80 Ioo hos~ h hot
hired cow-pasture of mine where / wanted
to pitch my tent, ana eating manages out
of tree, and the tireless trade winds kept
roaring and roaring like cyclone.
Why didn't go away out of the nerve
destroying trades2 Well, the reasons
would need a volume for themselves.
Briefly, war times, troubles; two big, red
faced mounted German policemen riding
up and down the lane before my door
night and day daring me TO make any sort
of move so that they might arrest me for
treason! And thus, and so, until martial
law was lifted from off Honolulu was | in
mine own hired house, pent up in those
belligerent days of wind and weird cows
and woolly secondhand horses.
AS l sat shivering one afternoon on the
sunny and lee side of cowshed watching
COW with giraffe neck and tongue as
long as my arm reach up, and up, and up
through the leaning top OF mango tree
for clump of mangoes which, am glad
to report, proved to be in the end not quite
out of reach, a crowd of silent, sad and
wholly respectful natives approached.
"Do you know place about here where
the wind don't blow?' I chartered this
gruffly through my teeth and felt mean
and vicious, as if they had made the trades
and were responsible for my malaria. A
sad-eyed and beautiful girl came forward.
1--WE do, Santa Claus, we do"
Fancy yourself bundled up so that chill
drep call you Santa Claus in a land hot
enough to bake a sweet potato!
The natives looked at one another,
glanced half-unkindly at the slim, nervous
little girl and then furtively at the abrupt
end of Judd street and the dense Jungle of
algeroba trees against the steep lava noun
tain.
''Take me there then, please | am dy-
ing, dying of this tireless and eternal roar
and rush of winds.
"We will need lanterns, lots of lanterns,
Santa Claus
The others of the party were the body,
but this little, nut-brown nervous sprite
was the soul of that sad and curious COM
pany of natives.
Lanterns? Yes, had lots of lanterns
waiting to light that tent-that tent that
never saw the light of sun, lamp or lam
tern, and we were off straight for the al
geroba thlcket at the abrupt end of Judd
street, the little barefooted and brown
limbed sprite running far ahead. Pushing
myself through the thorny copse, at her
heels, she soon turned hastily back.
Two brown and haggard old women had
confronted her at the dark mouth of the
cavern, and she was as white as any little
brown body could be; but the old women
melted silently aside into the brush in
moment, and, lighting our lanterns, we
entered the lava mountain, the child ahead
as usual, the others in a string behind.
The women of the islands are fat as
rule, especially the elder ones, enormously
so. Commodore Wilkes, U. S. N, tells us
(vol 4, page 10) of daughter of the first
king of the islands who was more than
six feet in height and of giant frame well
covered with fat" But these two women
at the mouth of the cave were as lean,
hungry and hollow-eyed as Macbeth's
witches. and quite as uncanny to see.
They set me to shaking again. Maybe
that is why / remember them so wildly,
but think there is something more than
that. There are times when you feel
rather than see. There are atmospheres
that are like daggers. Even dog can tell
in second whether or not you like him or
ho ii1-oc P,f Sc 4