The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1907-11-22
AS Others See Us
LoWrey correspondent of the New York
Evening Post accompanied Congressional Party.

HONOLULU, June 13.-Hawaii's
needs, as voiced by her citizens, are
harbors, a breakwater at Hilo, forth
fications Of the ports, Qualifications and
strong naval base at Pearl Harbor,
white immigrants. diversified crops,
and the refunding Of the customs
moneys the Territory now pays into
the Treasury of the United States.
This appears a rather long list for so
small a country.
After spending three weeks climbing
up and down the sides of a steamship
rolling heavily in choppy channels,
and going ashore in surf boats, one is
able TO vouch personally for the need
of harbors Hilo and Honolulu are
the only two ports visited in the island
where it is practicable for a steamship
to be warped into a berth alongside a
dock. and a gangplank thrown out up
on which passengers may leave the
vessel. At Kahului Hanalei, Eleele,
Hanamaulu, Napoopoo, and Laupa-
hoehoe, among the ports visited, pas
sengers and cargo must be conveyed
between the shore and the steamship
in the ships boats.
As there are no real harbors except
ships is accomplished either by light
ering in small boats, or by means of
cable ways extending from the sugar
warehouses on the cliffs over the deck
of the ship. Sometimes these cable
ways are two hundred or three hun
dred feet long. There is danger both
of losing life and cargo. The lack of
adequate landing facilities has develop
III h
ably unexcelled by any sailors in the
world. Many times in the last three
weeks, I have stood on the decks of
one of the little inter-island steam YES
sells, watching the surf beat thunder
ously against the Jagged lava-rock
shore
This lava formation is as hard as
iron. The rocks rise out of the sea
cruelty sharp and pointed. A boat
thrown against one of them by a wave
would be dashed to splinters, and even
the most experienced swimmer would
stand no chance for his life in the boil
ing surf. Yet below me the kanaka
boatmen would be composedly loading
the big whale boats which all the in
ter-island steamers carry. They would
pile boat high with all sorts of mis-
cellaneous freight and then, with four
men at the sweeps, start for the shore,
the boat rolling and tumbling on great
waves, some of them ten or fifteen feet
high.
Not once did we see boat or cargo
come to grief, and only once did the
captain of the steamship decline to send
passengers ashore because of the high
seas running. At Laupahoehoe the
landing place is in little cove. The
entrance is hidden until one comes al
most upon it, and is guarded upon
either side by gnarled and broken lava
cones. The morning we were landed
there we lay in the blight of the bay
for nearly half an hour, waiting for a
favorable wave on which we could ride
in safely. When our boat was caught
up it raced shoreward and through
the narrow jaws of the little gut with
almost the speed of an express train.
The experience is rather terrifying un-
til one comes to know and have i'm
boatmen.
NEEDS OF HILO AND PEARL
HARBOR.
The people of Hilo apparently have
but one idea in the world; to get a
breakwater for their harbor. One be-
gins to hear about the need of a break
water at Hilo at Honolulu, and at Hilo
one hears nothing else. At present
Hilo harbor is but an open roadstead,
protected by a reef from severe storms,
but exposed at all times to heavy