Night wears away, and the welcome daylight lifts up the eyelids of the sleepers. The foreigner may probably go to his cabin to procure something as an antidote against his increasing squeamishness. He opens his basket, which some ladyforeigner filled with nice little delicacies for him during his passage, but, alas! a perfect blank stares him in the face; for some dainty native has gone down in the night and stowed every thing away in his own capacious system. Lest the reader may deem me too imaginative, I will merely say,

"Fate draw the curtain; I can do no more."

And yet, for thirty years, the wives of foreigners have been compelled to subserve an inter-island transit so utterly repulsive.*

With a view to obviate these difficulties, attempts were made on the 30th of March, 1853, to organize a joint-stock company, with a capital of $50,000, in shares of $500 each. It was designed to procure a small steam-boat on the "ERICSSON" plan. A list of subscribers was made out, and one or two of the subscriptions were taken up; but, owing to the state of the money market, and a want of confidence in governmental protection, the project became a total failure.

The mere effort to achieve such an object was in itself noble and commendable. Such a step is absolutely necessary and important; but it can never be successfully put into operation until the "stars and stripes" float over the group, and their commercial system is revolutionized by a truly liberal system.

* Since these pages have been in the press, information has been received from the islands that this extremely uncomfortable` mode of inter-island navigation is about coming to a close. The steamer "S. B. Wheeler," from the coast of California, has arrived at the islands for the purpose of plying between them. The Hawaiian government has granted the steam company the exclusive privilege, for five years, of establishing steam communication between the islands of the group, and has agreed to admit coal, machinery, and other materials for the use of the company duty free.

DEVOTIONS OF A HAWAIIAN CREW. 255

CHAPTER XX.

ISLAND OF MOLOKAI.

FROM HONOLULU TO KALUAAHA.

Devotions of a Native Crew.-Fondness for Tobacco.-Despotic Strictures.-Convenience of Native Habits in Traveling. — Kaluaaha Mission Station. — Civilization.-Sewing Circles. - Female Costume.-System of Education.—Schools.—Influence of Christianity. -How it is valued.-A Hawaiian Feast.-A Hawaiian Marriage. -Loves of the Hawaiians.-Instance of.

THE sun was about to dip in the western wave as the Kulumanu left her wharf at Honolulu for the island of Maui. She was crowded with passengers, whose destinations were various portions of the Windward Islands. The seas were

calm, the winds light. The schooner glided along so smoothly, that for a time it seemed as though we were propelled by a magical influence. We had passed the outer reef, and were just gliding into the ocean breeze, when the owner of the schooner―JOHN II, a distinguished chief who had accompanied us, took off his hat, and, in a fervent and impressive prayer, commended us to the God of the ocean, and went ashore.

This was the prelude to the devotional exercises of the crew. That evening, and the next morning, and the subsequent evening, these exercises were faithfully and solemnly performed. In former days they would have worshiped their ocean deity, as the Romans venerated Neptune. A tribute of homage to the Almighty, when performed on the ocean by the mariner, is always impressive and appropriate; but when paid by a crew of Hawaiian sailors, who are always joined by the native passengers, it speaks directly to the sensibilities of any foreigner who may be present, and produces an impression not easily forgotten.

If there is much to annoy, during an inter-island passage

on a native schooner, there is also much to amuse a foreigner. As in the United States, or any other civilized country, a vehicle of any kind is the chief place for the development of character, so on board a Hawaiian schooner, a traveler finds a capital opportunity to study the traits of the Hawaiian. However sea-sick the tourist may be, these traits are so peculiar and prominent, that he can not fail to notice them. The Hawaiian has a greater fondness for tobacco than the North American Indian, and it is on the deck of one of these schooners that this fondness most strongly displays itself. A native would as easily forget to take himself on board as forget his little bag of tobacco. In many instances, he loves his tobacco better than he loves his wife; and so it is in regard to the wife toward her husband. After refreshing themselves when going aboard their schooners, the first thing is to get out their bags of tobacco, containing also their pipes, flint, steel, and tinder-boxes. The tobacco is cut and rubbed finely, and the pipes are filled and lighted. The girls share the pipes smoked by the women, the boys those used by the men. Sometimes there is a general family smoke, and one pipe makes a tour of the entire group of passengers-the foreigner included, if he wishes. It is certainly one of the most comical scenes in the world to witness a young girl (of semi-Greek features, with glossy raven hair and eyebrows, and lids fringed with the same kind of material) take one of those huge wooden pipes

FONDNESS FOR TOBACCO.

257

in her mouth, and inhale the smoke until her cheeks are distended as though they would burst, and, after retaining it there several seconds, puff it out in a perfect cloud. It tends to fling a shadow over their romance and beauty. What a native most wants the first thing in a morning, and the last thing at night, is his pipe. It would be almost impossible to recount the number of times the pipe is used by the same person in a single day; and every time he wakes up at night he fills and smokes his pipe. One is forced to conclude that both men and women retire to refresh their memories by dreaming of the "weed" and its "vapors." It is their food when hungry, and their consolation when full. It is their antidote in affliction, and especially in sea-sickness; and the more severe this horrible feeling becomes, the more eagerly the pipe is sought after. A physician, long a resident on the group, thus describes this native propensity:

"The use of tobacco has evidently a deleterious influence on the natives, whatever may be its effects on others. In smoking, the natives do not sit down deliberately, and finish a cigar or pipe, but take one or two quiffs, inhaling the full volume of smoke directly into the lungs, and retain it there as long as the breath can well be retained. Individuals have been killed by its effects, and how much disease may have been induced or exacerbated thereby remains to be ascertained."*

This inveterate love for tobacco has given rise to the most despotic restrictions on the part of a few of the missionaries. Several of the churches are organized on the anti-tobacco principle, and the luckless wight who happens to violate his pledge—or, I had rather say, who is caught breaking it—is certain to be excommunicated for his sin (?). This is especially the case with the Church at Lahaina, on Maui. By some of the missionaries it is thought to lead to the vice of licentiousness. The mode in which some of the native women are said to procure private gratifications is certainly novel. Missionary testimony says: "They are not 'keepers at home,' *Hawaiian Spectator, vol. i., p. 263.

but, wandering about, fall into the society of the profligate, and, as is often the case, become tempters of others. Smoking tobacco leads, in multitudes of cases, to the commission of this sin. Many a female has risen at midnight, filled her pipe, and gone in the darkness to some neighbor to procure a light, when she has fallen into sin.”* Under such circumstances, they are, of course, expelled.

But the wisdom of expulsion is exceedingly questionable. The restrictions placed on smokers are both unwise and despotic. Every where over the group the natives smoke. It is amusing to see how carefully a Church member of Lahaina puts away his "smoking tackle" when he goes ashore from a schooner. So long as the natives are fond of mimicking foreigners, just so long they will smoke. The foreign population very generally smoke. A number of ex-missionaries, and a few regular missionaries, chew the "filthy and destructive weed." Numbers of the members of the "Bethel," and of the " Foreign Church" in Honolulu, smoke in the public streets, and in the presence of the natives. To excommunicate Hawaiians for smoking is, therefore, "straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel."

But the despotic restriction not only creates a more intense desire for the forbidden article, but it leads directly to falsehood. A striking instance was related to me by Mr. Parker, missionary at Kaneohe, on Oahu. During one of his pastoral. visits, he entered a house in which he found a woman and her little daughter, and a large cloud of tobacco smoke. His first question was,

Who has been smoking?"

Reply: "No one."

66 'But there has, for I can see it."

He was mistaken; no one had been smoking.

Again he labored under a mistake; it was only the smoke

from a wood-fire which had just been put out.

This was more than Mr. Parker could endure. With the * See "Answers to Questions," p. 31.