The Project Gutenberg eBook of Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands
Title: Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands
Author: Charles Nordhoff
Contributor: Jules Remy
Release date: August 19, 2004 [eBook #13222]
Most recently updated: October 28, 2024
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Ronald Holder and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
Also, in Chapter I, the author mis-stated information on taro fields; it should say that a square forty feet on each side will support a person for a year; this is equivalent to a square mile feeding 15,000.
An explanation of footnotes in the Appendix: The book has both footnotes at the bottom of each page, to which I assigned letters, and four pages of notes at the end of the Appendix. The latter includes comments by the translator in brackets, therefore these notes, which use numbers, will not be enclosed in the normal [Footnote: ] brackets to avoid any confusion. The lettered footnotes follow the numbered notes at the end.]
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA,
OREGON,
AND THESANDWICH ISLANDS.
BY CHARLES NORDHOFF,
AUTHOR OF
"CALIFORNIA: FOR HEALTH, PLEASURE, AND RESIDENCE," &c., &c.
NEW YORK:
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,
FRANKLIN SQUARE.
1875.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by
HARPER & BROTHERS,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
TO MY FRIENDS,
MR. AND MRS. HENRY A. DIKE,
OF BROOKLYN, N.Y.
PREFACE.
The favor with which my previous volume on California was received by the public induced me to prepare the present volume, which concerns itself, as the title sufficiently shows, with the northern parts of California, Oregon (including a journey through Washington Territory to Victoria, in Vancouver's Island), and the Sandwich Islands.
I have endeavored, as before, to give plain and circumstantial details, such as would interest and be of use to travelers for pleasure or information, and enable the reader to judge of the climate, scenery, and natural resources of the regions I visited; to give, in short, such information as I myself would like to have had in my possession before I made the journey.
Since this book went to press, Lunalilo, the King of the Sandwich Islands, has died of rapid consumption; and his successor is the Hon. David Kalakaua, a native chief, who has been prominent in the political affairs of the Islands, and was the rival of the late king after the death of Kamehameha V. Colonel Kalakaua is a man of education, of better physical stamina than the late king, of good habits, vigorous will, and a strong determination to maintain the independence of the Islands, in which he is supported by the people, who are of like mind with him on this point. His portrait is given on the next leaf.
CONTENTS.
HONOLULU AND THE ISLAND OF OAHU
HILO, WITH SOME VOLCANOES
MAUI, AND THE SUGAR CULTURE
KAUAI, WITH A GLANCE AT CATTLE AND SHEEP
THE HAWAIIAN AT HOME: MANNERS AND CUSTOMS
COMMERCIAL AND POLITICAL
THE LEPER ASYLUM ON MOLOKAI
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA:
ITS AGRICULTURAL VALLEYS, DAIRIES, FORESTS, FRUIT-FARMS, ETC.
THE SACRAMENTO VALLEY: A GENERAL VIEW, WITH HINTS TO TOURISTS AND SPORTSMEN
WINE AND RAISINS—PROFITS OF DRYING FRUITS
THE TULE LANDS AND LAND DRAINAGE
SHEEP-GRAZING IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
THE CHINESE AS LABORERS AND PRODUCERS
THE MENDOCINO COAST AND CLEAR LAKE—GENERAL VIEW
AN INDIAN RESERVATION
THE REDWOODS AND THE SAW-MILL COUNTRY OF MENDOCINO
DAIRY-FARMING IN CALIFORNIA
TEHAMA AND BUTTE, AND THE UPPER COUNTRY
TOBACCO CULTURE—WITH A NEW METHOD OR CURING THE LEAF
THE FARALLON ISLANDS
THE COLUMBIA RIVER AND PUGET SOUND—HINTS TO TOURISTS
APPENDIX.
CONTRIBUTIONS OF A VENERABLE SAVAGE TO THE ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS
ILLUSTRATIONS.
6. Government Buildings, Honolulu
10. Kawaiaho Church — First Native Church in Honolulu
11. Dr. Judd
12. Dr. Coan
13. Bethel Church
14. Dr. Damon
15. Queen's Hospital, Honolulu
16. Native School-House in Honolulu
17. Cocoa-Nut Grove, and Residence of the Late King Kamehameha V., at Waikiki, Oahu
20. Emma, Queen of Kamehameha IV
21. A Hawaiian Chief
22. The Crater of Kilauea—one phase
23. Kealakeakua Bay, Where Captain Cook Was Killed
25. Hawaiian Temple, from a Russian Engraving, About 1790
26. Lava Field, Hawaii Flow of 1838
27. View of the Crater of South Lake in a State of Eruption, from the Crest of the North Lake
28. Hilo
29. Surf Bathing
31. Cascade and River of Lava — Flow of 1869
32. Map of the Haleakala Crater
35. Chain of Extinct Volcanoes Near Koloa, island of Kauai
36. Waialua Falls, island of Kauai
38. Grass House
40. Lunalilo
41. Kamehameha I
46. Hula-Hula, Or Dancing-Girls
48. Native Pipe. Necklace of Human Hair
51. Wine Vats
52. Training a Vine
54. Indian Rancheria
55. Piedras Blancas
57. Shipping Lumber, Mendocino County
60. Coast View, Mendocino County
62. Another coast view, Northern California
63. A Saw-Mill Port on Puget Sound
65. Saw-Mill
68. Indians Spearing Salmon, Columbia River
70. View on the Columbia River
71. Lumbering in Washington Territory — Preparing Logs
72. Victoria Harbor, Vancouver's island
73. Port Townsend, Washington Territory
74. Point Reyes
76. Street in Olympia, Washington Territory
77. 'Tacoma,' Or Mount Rainier
78. Indian Cradle, Washington Territory
79. Running the Rookeries — Gathering Murre Eggs
80. Light-House on the South Farallon
81. Arch at West End, Farallon Islands
82. Sea-Lions
83. The Gull's Nest
84. Shags, Murres, and Sea-Gulls
87. Indian Girls and Canoe, Puget Sound
89. Seattle, Washington Territory
90. Victoria, British Columbia
91. Map of Puget Sound and Vicinity
92. Puget Sound Chiefs: The Duke of York. Queen Victoria.
93. Nanaimo, Vancouver's Island
95. The Taro Plant
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA, OREGON,
ANDTHE SANDWICH ISLANDS.
CHAPTER I.
HONOLULU AND THE ISLAND OF OAHU.
The Hawaiian group consists, as you will see on the map, of eleven islands, of which Hawaii is the largest and Molokini the smallest. The islands together contain about 6000 square miles; and Hawaii alone has an area of nearly 4000 square miles, Maui 620, Oahu (which contains Honolulu, the capital) 530, and Kauai 500. Lanai, Kahoolawe, Molokai, Niihau, Kaula, Lehua, and Molokini are small islands. All are of volcanic origin, mountainous, and Hawaii contains the largest active crater in the world—Kilauea—one of the craters of Mauna Loa; while Maui contains the largest known extinct crater, Haleakala, the House of the Sun—a pit thirty miles in circumference and two thousand feet deep. Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea are nearly 14,000 feet high, as high as Mount Grey in Colorado; and you can not ride anywhere in the islands without seeing extinct craters, of which the hill called Diamond Head, near Honolulu, is an example.
The voyage from San Francisco to Honolulu is now very comfortably made in one of the Pacific Mail Company's steamers, which plies regularly between the two ports, and makes a round trip once in every month. The voyage down to the Islands lasts from eight to nine days, and even to persons subject to sea-sickness is likely to be an enjoyable sea-journey, because after the second day the weather is charmingly warm, the breezes usually mild, and the skies sunny and clear. In forty-eight hours after you leave the Golden Gate, shawls, overcoats, and wraps are discarded. You put on thinner clothing. After breakfast you will like to spread rugs on deck and lie in the sun, fanned by deliciously soft winds; and before you see Honolulu you will, even in winter, like to have an awning spread over you to keep off the sun. When they seek a tropical climate, our brethren on the Pacific coast have to endure no such rough voyage as that across the Atlantic. On the way you see flying-fish, and if you are lucky an occasional whale or a school of porpoises, but no ships. It is one of the loneliest of ocean tracks, for sailing-vessels usually steer farther north to catch stronger gales. But you sail over the lovely blue of the Pacific Ocean, which has not only softer gales but even a different shade of color than the fierce Atlantic.
We made the land at daylight on the tenth day of the voyage, and by breakfast-time were steaming through the Molokai Channel, with the high, rugged, and bare volcanic cliffs of Oahu close aboard, the surf beating vehemently against the shore. An hour later we rounded Diamond Head, and sailing past Waikiki, which is the Long Branch of Honolulu charmingly placed amidst groves of cocoa-nut-trees, turned sharp about, and steamed through a narrow channel into the landlocked little harbor of Honolulu, smooth as a mill-pond.
It is not until you are almost within the harbor that you get a fair view of the city, which lies embowered in palms and fine tamarind-trees, with the tall fronds of the banana peering above the low-roofed houses; and thus the tropics come after all somewhat suddenly upon you; for the land which you have skirted all the morning is by no means tropical in appearance, and the cocoa-nut groves of Waikiki will disappoint you on their first and too distant view, which gives them the insignificant appearance of tall reeds. But your first view of Honolulu, that from the ship's deck, is one of the pleasantest you can get: it is a view of gray house-tops, hidden in luxuriant green, with a background of volcanic mountains three or four thousand feet high, and an immediate foreground of smooth harbor, gay with man-of-war boats, native canoes and flags, and the wharf, with ladies in carriages, and native fruit-venders in what will seem to you brightly colored night-gowns, eager to sell you a feast of bananas and oranges.
There are several other fine views of Honolulu, especially that from the lovely Nuanu Valley, looking seaward over the town, and one from the roof of the prison, which edifice, clean, roomy, and in the day-time empty because the convicts are sent out to labor on public works and roads, has one of the finest situations in the town's limits, directly facing the Nuanu Valley.
From the steamer you proceed to a surprisingly excellent hotel, which was built at a cost of about $120,000, and is owned by the government. You will find it a large building, affording all the conveniences of a first-class hotel in any part of the world. It is built of a concrete stone made on the spot, of which also the new Parliament House is composed; and as it has roomy, well-shaded court-yards and deep, cool piazzas, and breezy halls and good rooms, and baths and gas, and a billiard-room, you might imagine yourself in San Francisco, were it not that you drive in under the shade of cocoa-nut, tamarind, guava, and algeroba trees, and find all the doors and windows open in midwinter; and ladies and children in white sitting on the piazzas.
It is told in Honolulu that the building of this hotel cost two of the late king's cabinet, Mr. Harris and Dr. Smith, their places. The Hawaiian people are economical, and not very enterprising; they dislike debt, and a considerable part of the Hawaiian national debt was contracted to build this hotel. You will feel sorry for Messrs. Harris and Smith, who were for many years two of the ablest members of the Hawaiian cabinet, but you will feel grateful for their enterprise also, when you hear that before this hotel was completed—that is to say, until 1871—a stranger landing in Honolulu had either to throw himself on the hospitality of the citizens, take his lodgings in the Sailors' Home, or go back to his ship. It is not often that cabinet ministers fall in so good a cause, or incur the public displeasure for an act which adds so much to the comfort of mankind.
The mercury ranges between 68° and 81° in the winter months and between 75° and 86° during the summer, in Honolulu. The mornings are often a little overcast until about half-past nine, when it clears away bright. The hottest part of the day is before noon. The trade-wind usually blows, and when it does it is always cool; with a south wind; it is sometimes sultry, though the heat is never nearly so oppressive as in July and August in New York. In fact, a New Yorker whom I met in the Islands in August congratulated himself as much on having escaped the New York summer as others did on having avoided the winter.
The nights are cool enough for sound rest, but not cold.
It is not by any means a torrid climate, and it has, perhaps, the fewest daily extremes of any pleasant climate in the world. For instance, the mercury ranged in January between 69° at 7 A.M., 75½° at 2 P.M., and 71½° at 10 P.M. The highest temperature in that month was 78°, and the lowest 68°. December and January are usually the coolest months in the year at Honolulu, but the variation is extremely slight for the whole year, the maximum of the warmest day in July (still at Honolulu) being only 86°, and this at noon, and the lowest mark being 62°, in the early morning in December. A friend of mine resident during twenty years in the Islands has never had a blanket in his house.
It is said that the climate is an excellent one for consumptives, and physicians here point to numerous instances of the kindly and healing effect of the mild air. At the same time, I suspect it must in the long-run be a little debilitating to Americans. It is a charming climate for children; and as sea-bathing is possible and pleasant at all times, those who derive benefit from this may here enjoy it to the fullest extent during all the winter months as well as in the summer.
Of course you wear thin, but not the thinnest, clothing. White is appropriate to the climate; but summer flannels are comfortable in winter. The air is never as sultry as in New York in July or August, and the heat is by no means oppressive, there being almost always a fresh breeze. Honolulu has the reputation of being the hottest place on the islands, and a walk through its streets at midday quickly tires one; but in a mountainous country like this you may choose your temperature, of course. The summits of the highest peaks on Hawaii are covered with almost perpetual snow; and there are sugar planters who might sit around a fire every night in the year.
Unlike California, the Islands have no special rainy season, though rain is more abundant in winter than during the summer months. But the trade-wind, which is also the rain-wind, greatly controls the rain-fall; and it is useful for visitors to bear in mind that on the weather side of every one of the Islands—that side exposed to the wind—rains are frequent, while on the lee side the rain-fall is much less, and in some places there is scarcely any. Thus an invalid may get at will either a dry or moist climate, and this often by moving but a few miles. Not only is it true that at Hilo it sometimes rains for a month at a time, while at Lahaina they have a shower only about once in eighteen months; but you may see it rain every day from the hotel piazza in Honolulu, though you get not a drop in the city itself; for in the Nuanu and Manoa valleys there are showers every day in the year—the droppings of fragments of clouds which have been blown over the mountain summits; and if you cross the Pali to go the windward side of the island, though you set out from Honolulu amidst brilliant sunshine which will endure there all day unchanged, you will not ride three miles without needing a mackintosh. But the residents, knowing that during the greater part of the year the showers are light and of brief duration, take no precautions against them; and indeed an island shower seems to be harmless to any one but an invalid, for it is not a climate in which one easily "takes cold."
The very slight changes in temperature between day and night make the climate agreeable, and I think useful, to persons in tender health. But I do not believe it can be safely recommended for all cases of consumption. If the patient has the disease fully developed, and if it has been caused by lack of nutrition, I should think the island air likely to be insufficiently bracing. For persons who have "weak lungs" merely, but no actual disease, it is probably a good and perfectly safe climate; and if sea-bathing is part of your physician's prescription, it can, as I said before, be enjoyed in perfection here by the tenderest body all the year round.
Honolulu, being the capital of the kingdom, contains the government offices; and you will perhaps be surprised, as I was, to find an excellent public hospital, a reform school, and other proper and well-managed charities. When you have visited these and some of the numerous schools and the native churches, and have driven or ridden to Waikiki for a sea-bath, and have seen the Nuanu Valley and the precipice called the Pali, if you are American, and familiar with New England, it will be revealed to you that the reason why all the country looks so familiar to you is that it is really a very accurate reproduction of New England country scenery. The white frame houses with green blinds, the picket-fences whitewashed until they shine, the stone walls, the small barns, the scanty pastures, the little white frame churches scattered about, the narrow "front yards," the frequent school-houses, usually with but little shade: all are New England, genuine and unadulterated; and you have only to eliminate the palms, the bananas, and other tropical vegetation, to have before you a fine bit of Vermont or the stonier parts of Massachusetts. The whole scene has no more breadth nor freedom about it than a petty New England village, but it is just as neat, trim, orderly, and silent also. There is even the same propensity to put all the household affairs under one roof which was born of a severe climate in Massachusetts, but has been brought over to these milder suns by the incorrigible Puritans who founded this bit of civilization.
In fact, the missionaries have left an indelible mark upon these islands. You do not need to look deep to know that they were men of force, men of the same kind as they who have left an equally deep impress upon so large a part of our Western States; men and women who had formed their own lives according to certain fixed and immutable rules, who knew no better country than New England, nor any better ways than New England ways, and to whom it never occurred to think that what was good and sufficient in Massachusetts was not equally good and fit in any part of the world. Patiently, and somewhat rigorously, no doubt, they sought from the beginning to make New England men and women of these Hawaiians; and what is wonderful is that, to a large extent, they have succeeded.
As you ride about the suburbs of Honolulu, and later as you travel about the islands, more and more you will be impressed with a feeling of respect and admiration for the missionaries. Whatever of material prosperity has grown up here is built on their work, and could not have existed but for their preceding labors; and you see in the spirit of the people, in their often quaint habits, in their universal education, in all that makes these islands peculiar and what they are, the marks of the Puritans who came here but fifty years ago to civilize a savage nation, and have done their work so thoroughly that, even though the Hawaiian people became extinct, it would require a century to obliterate the way-marks of that handful of determined New England men and women.
Their patient and effective labors seem to me, now that I have seen the results, to have been singularly undervalued at home. No intelligent American can visit the islands and remain there even a month, without feeling proud that the civilization which has here been created in so marvelously short a time was the work of his country men and women; and if you make the acquaintance of the older missionary families, you will not leave them without deep personal esteem for their characters, as well as admiration of their work. They did not only form a written language for the Hawaiian race, and painfully write for them school-books, a dictionary, and a translation of the Scriptures and of a hymn-book; they did not merely gather the people in churches and their children into schools; but they guided the race, slowly and with immense difficulty, toward Christian civilization; and though the Hawaiian is no more a perfect Christian than the New Yorker or Massachusetts man, and though there are still traces of old customs and superstitions, these missionaries have eradicated the grosser crimes of murder and theft so completely, that even in Honolulu people leave their houses open all day and unlocked all night, without thought of theft; and there is not a country in the world where the stranger may travel in such absolute safety as in these islands.
The Hawaiian, or Sandwich Islands, were discovered—or rediscovered, as some say—by Captain Cook, in January, 1778, a year and a half after our Declaration of Independence. The inhabitants were then what we call savages—that is to say, they wore no more clothing than the climate made necessary, and knew nothing of the Christian religion. In the period between 1861 and 1865 this group had in the Union armies a brigadier-general, a major, several other officers, and more than one hundred private soldiers and seamen, and its people contributed to the treasury of the Sanitary Commission a sum larger than that given by most of our own States.