The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1906-05-07
NEW zEALANDER'S VIEWS
Of THINGS HAWAIIAN
How Visit to Honolulu Impressed Colonial
Globe Trotter--A Guest of Gov. Cleghorn
--Need of Small Farms.
w. J. Napier writes as follows in the
Auckland Weekly News:


Auckland Weekly News:
We sighted Honolulu at daybreak on
February - New Zealand time), and
in an hour were safely anchored out
side the reef. Before | landed an invi-
tation reached me from Governor Cleg-
horn to visit him at his rural residence.
After a spin around the town on the
electric ears l proceeded to Governor
CIeghorn s home, some four miles from
the city. Ny host was waiting to re-
ceive me at his park gates. We pro-
ceeded through a long avenue of giant
palm trees of every kind, through
cocoanut grove, through a shrubbery
and park shaded from the sun s rays by
the interlacing of the thick foliage over
head. The shrubs and trees displayed
wealth of color and beauty that was a
positive revelation to me who had been
accustomed to the more sombre tints of
the New Zealand fora and the wild lux
uriance of Fiji and Samoa. The date
palms especially attain an immense
height here, and the glories of the
creepers spreading canopies of heavenly
blooms from tree to tree no pen can
adequately describe. What we in New
Zealand rear with tenderness as small
plants in Conservatives here develop
into tall shrubs of great luxuriance.
The hibiscus hedges seemed like Grim
son nantes. Great banyan trees "in
the park spread over a large extent of
ground, and | saw one under which the
rapidly dwindling volunteer force of
Auckland could easily drill.
GOVERNOR CLEGHORN.
Governor Cleghorn is a charming
host. He is a tall and stately man, well
knit, and with a highly intellectual east
of countenance. His hair, beard, and
moustache, are snow-white, and his fea
lures are regular and clear cut. His
eyebrows are very white, shaggy and
Bismarckian in appearance. lie has
lived in Honolulu 90 years, and married |
into the Royal family. His manners |
are courtly, and reminded me of those
of Sir George Grey. and, indeed, there |
is in many respects a resemblance be- I
tween him and our great pro-Consul.
His grounds bear testimony to the |
same refinement and love of the beauti |
full that Sir George Grey possessed, and |
surpass in loneliness anything that Sir |
George ever achieved at Hawai-. This
is mainly because of the greater amen |
ity of the climate of Hawaii than that |
of New Zealand. He has rahsacked |
the nurseries and gardens of the Orient, |
and of every tropical and sub-tropical |
cline for the Identification of his truly |
earthly paradise. We were ushered !
into his mansion, a double wooden
building of extensive proportions. His
reception room is about as large as the
two rooms of the Auckland Art Gallery
thrown into one, and is veritable
treasure-house of curiosities from every
land. 1t is furnished in tropical style,
and with every device to give ease and
comfort. The walls are hung with
paintings and photographs of members
Of the Hawaiian Royal family. The
room is an ideal resting place for a
man of culture and refinement. Our
host exhi5itt1 to us, with loving ten
derness, has, .:nique Satsuma vases, por-
celains, bronzes, brasses and worries
from Japan, country which he fire.
Iuently visits. The time was all too
hort to enable us to take in more than
coup d 'oeil of his bric -brac and ar
.icles of virtu. Governor Cleghorn
keeps a small corps Of japanese garden
ers, and has retinGe of kimono-clad
naidens of the same nationality as his
lomestics. He loves the japanese, and
praised them as a people ecStatlca1Iy.l
Governor Cleghorn is an old New Zea
ander. He received his early education
1t st. Johns College, in the early ff-
les, and ran away from the school be-
.ause of the excessive severity of the
lominie, who then, in that seat of
earning. held the doctrine that knowl-
dge could best be impaired by the I'M
nerciful use of supplejack. He is an
fol
tories of infant Auckland. The Gov
rnor has not visited our city since
81, when he stayed at the Northern
Tub, and will no doubt be remembered
y the surviving clubmen of that epoch.
HOTEL AND AQUARIUM.
After leaving this charming abode
re visited the Moana Hotel and the