The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-07-14
HOW To TEMPT THE
AMERICAN TOURIST
CONTINUED from Page s.


snowclad Mauna Loa. Ii has but two
rivals-the Upper Corniehe road of the
famous Riviera, and the drive in Italy
from Salerno to Sorrento, by way of
Amalf. | called upon the President
| of the Hawaiian Inter-Island Com.
pany with the request that his corpora
ton make a special rate of twenty-five
dollars for a cruise to all the Hawaiian
Islands. He was quite willing to do
| so; and doubtless as soon as a deter
| ring contract with a Honolulu trust
company controlling the hotel at XII
| lauea (Which receives a large rebate
from the steamboat company lapses,
cruise tickets for the Hawaiian inter
island trip will be procurable at great
ly reduced rates from the pursers on
all transpacifc steamers touching at
Honolulu.
A month is all too brief stay in the
Paradise of the Pacific. / wish to
make the entire Hawaiian trip over
again, and some day l shall l paid my
one hundred dollars for passage to
Fiji, and left Honolulu most regret
fully. New-made friends loaded me
down with ''leis'' (wreaths) of flow
ers, as is the custom, and 1 sailed
away very like an animated flower
garden There is little monotony in
the trip from Hawaii to FIJI. 1t is
but an eight-day voyage, and two or
three days out St. Mary S Island is
passed. This is the most perfect atoll
formation you are likely to see in the
Pacific, and is in sight for half day
Then there is the Line to cross, with
its boisterous festivities, which are
such delight to the Bninitiated that
| shall not spoil his fun by describing
them. Then comes Suva; and even the
Hawaiian marvels at that picturesque
native life in FIJI that has 50 COM
pletely passed away from the Ha-
waiian Islands Here, too, at Suva.
manly Americans make their first ac-
quaintance with the British barmaid;
and let me say that I have never yet
met an American who cared to see
woman behind the bar. Suva is one
of those places where the hotels are
bounded on either side by barrooms-
public and private and where
most men prefer to take their wives
to a clearinghouse (Which to the
American seems the Australasian name
for a hotel not submerged by the barr.
but he is accustomed to hotels where
he must, perchance, ask the way to
the bar.
| had chat with the Governor of
Fiji, Sir Everard i'm Thurn, on the
possibilities of a friendly American m
vasion; and the Governor expressed a
hope that such an invasion would begin
shortly and continue indefinitely. He
told me that he had tried to interest
capital in hotel that would tempt
through Later, when learned more
of the plans, I was thankful it had
fallen through. Think of a hotel in
tropical Fiji, hotter than Honolulu,
sans broad verandas-an English built
hotel in tropical cline!
1t was my intention to stop in Fiji
for eight days, and then go on to
Auckland, but twenty-four hours after
landing at Suva [ learned that there
was a small steamer ready to make
a twelve-day cruise of the Islands. |
booked at once, and let me say here
that the cruise among the FIJI Islands
is worth the long journey across the
American Continent and the broad
Pacific. The tariff on the Dawn was
but ten shillings a day, food included
cheaper than remaining at the i'm
possible hotels of Suva. There was
friendly party of island planters re-
turning to their cocoanut plantations,
and three ladies from Sydney out for
the cruise.
The long trips between islands were
made at night, the days being spent
stopping at various ports of call where
copra could be picked up, Often we
could go ashore in the morning and
meet the Dawn ten miles down the
island coast at night An entire week
was spent within vast atoll, where
the water was as smooth as glass and
as clear. Everywhere we encountered
native Fijian life in all its simplicity.
At Lomaloma we spent day at the
native metropolis of FIJI Here is
located Tongan village larger than
any in Tonga itself; and while the
Tongans of Tonga live in modern wood
en- houses, those at Lomaloma still
built their houses of thatch. as did
their forefathers. A great avenue of
mango trees divides the Tongan town
from the Fiiian, SO that side by side
the two peoples may be studied and
compared. On this island, where Lo-
maloma lies, is to he seen one of the
dozen or so most beautiful bits of
scenery in the whole world-the Bay
of Islands. From a land-locked trop-
zeal ford YOU ascend FIVE hundred feet,
walk mile, until you suddenly come
TO precipice overlooking the sea and
gaze down upon circlet of water in
which hundred verdant islands gIisten