The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1907-07-08

oldest thing about these splendid |
drowsy isles of the mid-Pacific is that |
they are part of the United States |
Not colonial dependencies or outlying
possessions, but as much a part of the |
United States as Arizona or New
Mexico. That is the first impression
that has to be reconciled with the Gu
rious sights that come under the eyes
a malihini on his first visit of dis
covery. Mr.. Rudyard Kipling has
somewhere laid it down that
Oh, East is East and West is West,
and never the twain shall meet
Till earth and SKY stand presently, at
Gods great judgment seat.
For once, at least, the poet of the
Seven seas has gone astray. East and
West stand face to face here The re-
suit is enlightening and instructive as
well as diverting. Here is a curious
commingling of peoples and mixing of
bloods.
81 just think of a big fruit-cake ev-
cry time I get inquisitive and begin
asking these people about their pedi-
grees," said the experienced old lady
whose duty and delight it is to make
those exiles happy whose chance wan
behring's bring them within the walls Of
the vine-bowered bungalow which
serves as clubhouse at Kahului.
Any attempt to draw the color line
| in terms of black and white would
give as a result a graphic chart with
a zig-zag tracing resembling nothing
so much as the record of a dangerous
fever case, or the price of wheat from
! 1856 to 1906. 1t is rather difficult to
explain the meaning of race prejudice
and race feeling to a man who has an
equal admixture of Chinese, Hawaii
an, Portuguese and American blood in
his veins. A person with such a well
| diversified set of ancestors is naturally
as cosmopolitan in his outlook as a
marine.
To discover these far-away islands
and this little-known part of the Unit
ed States was the purpose of a party
of Congressman who gathered in Chi
cago on the evening of April 26. They
had been invited to visit Hawaii by
the legislature of the Territory, which
had appropriated a sum of money to
pay the expenses of the visitors. The
coming of the Congressional party
and their three weeks stay in the ISL
and have given the Hawaiians a new
point of departure for reckoning time.
Until now events have been reckoned
from before Tor since) annexation. .
The new period of time began from
when the Congressman were here"
1t is purposed to chronicle in this
and succeeding letters what the visit
ing malihinis saw and learned. A ma
lihini is a tenderfoot or newcomer in
the country. His antithesis is a ka-
maaina, which means an old resident
in the community.
Nature turned dramatist when she
fashioned the harbor of Honolulu. The
charming aspects of the city are Who'll
ly hidden from the newcomer until
after he sets foot on shore Robert
Louis Stevenson, writing to his friend
Sidney Colvin in London, asking the
keeper of the prints to come to Samoa
described Honolulu as 1.-The first stop
to the left after you leave San Fran
cisco" A weary twenty-one hundred
miles of water are to be traversed be-
fore the stopping place is reached The
China mail boats cover the distance in
six days, but the Clearly white trans
ports of our army require eight days
for the voyage.
Sixteen or eighteen hours before
coming into Honolulu, voyagers see
clearly, if the weather is fine the two
great mountains of Mauna Kea AND
Mauna Loa on the Island of Hawaii
one hundred and fifty miles away
Early the following morning the shir
is off Koko Point, and then Diamond
Head, the rugged, volcanic promon'
tory, the great landmark which marks
, the entrance to Honolulu harbor.
The first close sight of land is rath-
err disheartening. The raw, Jagged
hills rise precipitously from the sea
showing a coppery red beneath the
spare, scrubby verdure which covers
them. The high shores are cleanly
and deeply cut, with many valleys II
which the sub-tropical vegetation is
rank. Heavy clouds lie over the noun
tain tops, and the heads of the valleys
are banked with rain-clouds. The to-
Biography of Oahu, the first island seer
closely, gives one the impression of g
, great rough clenched hand laid palm
down on the race of the waters, will
: the knuckles spread slightly apart
Cocoanut palms, their fronds sharply
outlined against the sky, and theil
long, slender trunks twisted by battle
against the northeast trades, give the
necessary tropical note to the picture
like the gulls that Tend conference un-
to pictures of the sea-"
| It is not so many years ago that Wis