The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1897-07-24


Till the work of the race is done
The Karika of the hymn was thu
name of chief alluded to in the oldes
traditions of West Polynesia. TIL,
chiefs of the several migrations al
bore this name. To the people of the
colony there was only one Karika, with
whose existence was bound up the fate
of the race. From this point of view
therefore the intervals between the
migrations were merely short periods;
and the continuity of the races men
tai being was preserved in the mem
DRY of the successive generations OF
individuals.
Comes Karika in the hour of the dawn
Bringing gifts from the Western
isle?
1t seems but yesterday he came mere
in the morn,
And we greeted with the cheeriest of
smiles.
Can it be that we shall never meet
again,
That the end of the race is nigh?
Nay rather, let us see thee now and
then;
With thee, Karika, all our people
die.
Yet, welcome to thee, though this be
the last
The Kavika trees will guide thee on
thy way,
And farewell to thee, with the South
ern blast
Another race may see the coming
day.
AS if an echo had carried back the
song. there came on the light breeze
down the strait the chant of the ap-
preaching multitude AS the sun rose
above the high cliffs opposite to them,
the people of the colony beheld the YES
sells of the great migration rounding
the corner of the bay. They were large
double canoes, supporting between
them a broad platform or raised deck.
In short time about so of these craft,
each carrying a hundred persons.
Presently an elderly chief, carrying
large yellow fruit of the Shaddock,
stepped on shore, and, approaching the
head of the colony, he saluted him as
an old familiar friend and thus ad-
dressed him:
Karika brings you from the Western
land
A fruit that yet may earn the
Maori's hate,
Gift to Malava at a strangers hand,
Tt bears within its seed our nation
fate.
Still. plant it where you will, you yet
may stay
The curse a little, if its flowers
bloom;
Where it grows not, short and meet
Rut lies between our people and the
gloom.
Yet reckon not, our race will die away, |
Because its sons lack courage. 1t
will fall
AS Won tall forest trees in health decay |
Surrounded by the dread AOa's pail |
Not in the combat will our story close, |
Not in the din of battle comes the
end.
We have to meet that direst Of all foes, |
The perfidy and cunning OF 1rlenu'
Whore grows the Fei in the mountain
vale,
Where blooms the Drala, loveliest OF
the trees;
Where grows the Kape in the watered
dale,
Where bends the Niu to the South
ern breeze.
There still in peace our people pass
their lives,
By labor light their sustenance pro-
cured;
There with their little children and
their wives
The years glide by, their happiness
secured.
But come the Strangers. In our quiet
bays
Their errand with loud noise and
smoke proclaimed,
To turn our people from their simple l.
ways,
To teach what is by them the Lotu
named.
Well did it end thus; but we learn to
buy
And commerce ushers in disease and
vice;
Our people sicken and in thousands
die,
A race decaying is the LOTUS price.
Then comes the close. The last Karika
stands
On far Tahii's peak with fevered
brain.
He looks around and scans the nelgn-
boring lands, ..
The hiH-slope and the valley and
the plain. l