Hawaii and a Revolution; The Personal Experiences of a Correspondent in the Sandwich Islands During the Crisis of 1893 and Subsequently (Paperback)

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1898. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XXI. SOCIAL LIFE. THE excellence of the servants, the perfection of the climate, the absence of many of the ills against which house-keepers wage ceaseless war in England and the United States, as well as of the varied amusements which are offered the public in American and European cities, have brought the art of entertaining, as it is understood in Honolulu, very nearly to perfection. People have been thrown upon their own resources, and, there being neither theatre nor opera to distract their attention, have made their dinners and luncheons and picnics a compensating substitute. The reciprocity treaty with the United States, which has been already mentioned, and which, it will be remembered, was negotiated in 1876, revolutionised the commercial and social status of the Islands. Up to that time, while there was no oppressive poverty, neither was there any very great wealth, except among a few of the highest chiefs and chiefesses; and their possessions were mostly 1894.] MARK TWAIN'S EXPERIENCES. 251 in land, much of it uncultivated, so that they had no great excess of ready money, and lived simply and unostentatiously. When Mark Twain visited the Islands in 1866, Honolulu contained, as he states, "between twelve and fifteen thousand inhabitants." He found "a place of contrasts, with dwellings built of straw, adobe, and cream-coloured coral cut into oblong blocks and laid in cement; also a great number of neat white cottages with green window-shutters." There were none of the " flat front yards like billiardtables with iron fences around them," such as he had seen in San Francisco. "I saw these houses," he writes, "surrounded by ample yards, and shaded by tall trees, through whose dense foliage the sun could scarcely penetrate . . . huge-bodied, widespreading forest trees, ...