The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1907-11-11
AS Others See Us
Lowrey, Washington correspondent OF the Ne" i0A
Evening Post accompanied the Congressional Party

HONOLULU, May 12.-In some OF
its aspects Honolulu is almost as much
of an anachronism as would be a
Roman Senator carrying a Waterbury
watch in his toga. To the impression
able stranger entering her gates today
she somehow suggests the half-fedged
state Of a man wearing evening clothes
| with tan shoes at an eleven O'Clock
breakfast. II you know a nice, prime,
tidy, old New England town-Kenne-
bunk, Ne, for instance can make a
picture Of Honolulu for you by merely
splashing in a little tropical scenery
for a background.
Instead of the white picket fence Of
the New England town, put in a tall
hibiscus hedge covered with heavy,
brilliant crimson blossoms the size Of
a cocoanut. IN place of the oaks or
elms growing in the front yard SUBJ
stitute slender twisted cocoanut palms
leaning perilously before the steady
northeast trades. For the modest
shrubs growing in tubs, scatter about
groups Of luxuriant banyans. Where
the fragrant unobstrusive beds of pan
sizes, sweet Williams, and violets grow
along the edge of the piazza and about
the steps, conceive great, brilliantly
hued, Towering plants of the tropics,
whose names I am not enough of a
botanist TO know.
Now. imagine, if You can, a severely
plain New England house, but orna-
mented with the architectural ginger
bread horrors of the late sos, set in
this lush magnificence of sub-tropical
vegetation. The house of the banker
and the county judge would have an
avenue of royal palms instead of the
more common cocoanut. That is one
impression Of Honolulu. AS one. might
say, a Salvation Army girl with her
cheeks painted and her eyebrows pen
cilled
This is the one bill of complaint that
the visiting stranger with a passion
for the fitness of things can bring
against the citizens of Honolulu; that
when they came to build their homes
they did not take advantage of their
scenic environment and the rich, gay,
tropical background. The omission is
easily accounted for. The first white
settlers who came here were mission
aries from New England, and they
have made a deep impress on the is
lands. When they came to build their
homes they built the only sort of
houses they knew anything about. The
only concession made was in adding
deep. cool. shady lanais (porches) and
in subdividing the interior of the house
into as few rooms as possible.
The late corners followed the ex-
ample of their predecessors, and did
not strike out along new lines Unlike
the gay and artistic home-builders Of
Victoria. B. c., they did not build for
rambling bungalows and
bower them with creeping roses and
towering vines. This isn't to say that
Honolulu isn't a delight to the eye, for
it is. But the people have not lived
up TO the stage setting provided by a |
bountiful nature. One peers about |
eagerly and in vain for the grass huts
and semi-nude natives of the picture |
postcards. 1t is in the people, their |
mode of life. and the customs of their !
that one finds the typical |
island life. rather than in the houses, |
whose architecture has been drawn |
from the old missionary spirit
AsIATIC PREPONDERANCE.
Looked down upon from a balloon |
Honolulu might be any New England |
g
not for the background of voice nc |
hills and mountains and the frond-, OF
the cocoanut palms silhouetted against |
the blue color of the sky. The church |
spires of every American town rise
from the greenery. In the business
section of the town there are modern |
shops and office buildings of the same |
type to be seen in every American |
city. The streets are macadamized
and traversed by an excellent system
of trolley cars. It is only in the pic
turesaue street life and the preponder- !
ance of Asiatics that one first sees
difference from things as they are at
home. Delicate little adventures en-
broider the routine Of the day.
One day an automobile taking US
out to Waikiki and around Diamond
Head suffered mishap TO its interior
economy opposite the aquarium. /
went in 10 see the preposterous hshes,
leaving the chauffeur TO dree his weird
alone. The aquarium building is sim
Div two bisecting corridors with
stone basin full of gold
fish set into the ground in the center
of the building.
Seated on the low stone coping Of
a PQnriVQrinR little