The mirror., 1923-09-27
A GEOGRAPHICAL READER
HAWAII
By Mr.. II. B.

Cook in Seventeen Umpty Something. He
landed on it so hard that when he returned
the next year the natives landed on him
with great joy and much enthusiasm. They
buried him by the moaning sea. Some
peeved descendant of the pilfering Aryans
said they buried him in the cooking pot,
but we discredit this. No human diges-
tive apparatus could assimilate the carcass
of sea captain of the old school, satur-
ated as it was with New England rum,
picked by the salt of forty years sea spray
and reeking with strong navy cut plug.
1t just couldn't be done, that's all. A
people reared on a diet of bread fruit,
cocoanut milk and hibiscus colored kisses
simply haven't got the right foundation.
Now if they had been raised on limburger,
gonzolas, rouquetfort, copenhagen snuff,
chemical beer, synthetic scotch, oleomar-
garine, packing house meats and coperas
pickles they might have done it. Anyhow
they bumped old Cap. Cook off and that
was the end of him.
The islands were first called the Sand
Witch Islands from the Palmolive Soap
Company models who used to flap around
the beaches Turing honest seamen to jump
ship and driving sea captains to drink
and missionaries to distraction. Finally
one inspired descendant of Cotton Mather
perpetrated the Mother Hubbard and by
some foul means induced the golden god
desses to adopt it as their national costume
in place of the traditional string of beads
and smile. Well, believe me, kid, it
certainly put crimp in the vamping bus
iness. No man ever left his happy home
for a woman in Mother Hubbard Fem
inine charm is like Rube Waddels stuff
a matter of curves-even Cleopatra
couldn't get away with Mother Hubbard.
After that they named the islands Hawaii
because the shore going jack met the girls
with How are va? and kept right on
moping up the stem.
Prior to the advent of the white man,
Hawaii was veritable Paradise. A
climate that makes a native son of Cal
ifornia turn pale green with envy. No
noxious insects, no snakes, no predacious
mammalia. Course they had heavy
blow once in awhile when cyclone es-
capes from Kansas and a shake up when
a homesick baby earthquake wandered
from its native habitat in California and
once in a great while when the witch
doctor had made bargain with the devil
and that spike tailed individual kicked off
the lid of his domains and blew off little
steam through, Mount Kil-Kil-what in
thunder is the name of that volcano-oh!
yes Kilkenny. Named after the Irish.
But all in all it was Hollywood bathing
party and the ukie hadn't been invented.
But like the serpent into the Garden of
Eden, came the white man. First the
trader-the "bully" Haynes-the blue
nosed Yankee whiskey trader filled with
Puritanism and rum or cussedness and
Holland gin. Following the trader, as
always, came the missionary spreading the
holy word of God. Then the soldier
ready, as always, "to civilize 'em with
Krag." And within the three sides of
civilizations wedge came the lesser
plaques. The islands became overrun
with rats, mice, Aies cockroaches, Aeas,
lice and malignant bacteria, measles,
and smallpox carried by the trader and
soldier to the natives in civilizations
farthest outpost.
The Hawaiians, magnificent specimens
of physical perfection, their clean blood
lacking the resistive powers of the foul
blood stream of the white, who through
centuries of exposure to disease had devel-
oped antitoain powers, bumped off in great
numbers. The surviving civilization will