|
HONOLULU, MARCH, 1866.
THE EQUESTRIAN EXCURSION
CONCLUDED
I wandered along the sea beach on my steed Oahu around
the base of the extinct crater of Leahi, or Diamond Head,
and a quarter of a mile beyond the point I overtook the
party of ladies and gentlemen and assumed my proper place
that is, in the rear, for the horse I ride always persists
in remaining in the rear in spite of kicks, cuffs, and
curses. I was satisfied as long as I could keep Oahu within
hailing distance of the cavalcade--I knew I could
accomplish nothing better even if Oahu were Norfolk
himself.
We went on--on--on--a great deal too far, I thought, for
people who were unaccustomed to riding on horseback, and
who must expect to suffer on the morrow if they indulged
too freely in this sort of exercise. Finally we got to a
point which we were expecting to go around in order to
strike an easy road home; but we were too late; it was full
tide and the sea had closed in on the shore. Young Henry
McFarlane said he knew a nice, comfortable route over the
hill--a short cut--and the crowd dropped into his wake. We
climbed a hill a hundred and fifty feet high, and about as
straight up and down as the side of a house, and as full of
rough lava blocks as it could stick--not as wide, perhaps,
as the broad road that leads to destruction, but nearly as
dangerous to travel, and apparently leading in the same
general direction. I felt for the ladies, but I had no time
to speak any words of sympathy, by reason of my attention
being so much occupied by Oahu. The place was so steep that
at times he stood straight up on his tiptoes and clung by
his forward toenails, with his back to the Pacific Ocean
and his nose close to the moon--and thus situated we formed
an equestrian picture which was as uncomfortable to me as
it may have been picturesque to the spectators. You may
think I was afraid, but I was not. I knew I could stay on
him as long as his ears did not pull out.
It was a great relief to me to know that we were all
safe and sound on the summit at last, because the sun was
just disappearing in the waves, night was abroad in the
land, candles and lamps were already twinkling in the
distant town, and we gratefully reflected that Henry had
saved us from having to go back around the rocky, sandy
beach. But a new trouble arose while the party were
admiring the rising moon and the cool, balmy night breeze,
with its odor of countless flowers, for it was discovered
that we had got into a place we could not get out of--we
were apparently surrounded by precipices--our pilot's chart
was at fault, and he could not extricate us, and so we had
the prospect before us of either spending the night in the
admired night breeze, under the admired moon, or of
clambering down the way we came, in the dark. However, a
Kanaka came along presently and found a first-rate road for
us down an almost imperceptible decline, and the party set
out on a cheerful gallop again, and Oahu struck up his
miraculous canter once more.
|
|
The moon rose up, and flooded mountain and valley and
ocean with silvery light, and I was not sorry we had lately
been in trouble, because the consciousness of being safe
again raised our spirits and made us more capable of
enjoying the beautiful scene than we would have been
otherwise. I never breathed such a soft, delicious
atmosphere before, nor one freighted with such rich
fragrance. A barber shop is nothing to it.
A BATTLEGROUND WHOSE HISTORY IS
FORGOTTEN
Gaily laughing and talking, the party galloped on, and
with set teeth and bouncing body I clung to the pommel and
cantered after. Presently we came to a place where no grass
grew--a wide expanse of deep sand. They said it was an old
battleground. All around everywhere, not three feet apart,
the bleached bones of men gleamed white in the moonlight.
We picked up a lot of them for mementoes. I got quite a
number of arm bones and leg bones-of great chiefs, maybe,
who had fought savagely in that fearful battle in the old
days, when blood flowed like wine where we now stood--and
wore the choicest of them out on Oahu afterward, trying to
make him go. All sorts of bones could be found except
skulls; but a citizen said, irreverently, that there had
been an unusual number of "skull hunters" there lately--a
species of sportsmen I had never heard of before. The
conversation at this point took a unique and ghastly turn.
A gentleman said:
"Give me some of your bones, Miss Blank; I'll carry them
for you."
Another said:
"You haven't got bones enough, Mrs. Blank; here's a good
shinbone, if you want it."
Such observations as these fell from the lips of ladies
with reference to their queer newly-acquired property:
"Mr. Brown, will you please hold some of my bones for me
a minute?" And, "Mr. Smith, you have got some of my bones;
and you have got one, too, Mr. Jones; and you have got my
spine, Mr. Twain. Now don't any of you gentlemen get my
bones all mixed up with yours so that you can't tell them
apart."
These remarks look very irreverent on paper, but they
did not sound so, being used merely in a business way and
with no intention of making sport of the remains. I did not
think it was just right to carry off any of these bones,
but we did it, anyhow. We considered that it was at least
as right as it is for the Hawaiian Government and the city
of Honolulu (which is the most excessively moral and
religious town that can be found on the map of the world),
to permit those remains to lie decade after decade, to
bleach and rot in the sun and wind and suffer desecration
by careless strangers and by the beasts of the field,
unprotected by even a worm fence. Call us hard names if you
will, you statesmen and missionaries! but I say shame upon
you, that after raising a nation from idolatry to
Christianity, and from barbarism to civilization, you have
not taught it the comment of respect for the dead. Your
work is incomplete.
LEGENDARY
|
|
Nothing whatever is known about this place--its story is
a secret that will never be revealed. The oldest natives
make no pretense of being possessed of its history. They
say these bones were here when they were children. They
were here when their grandfathers were children--but how
they came here, they can only conjecture. Many people
believe this spot to be an ancient battleground, and it is
usual to call it so; and they believe that these skeletons
have lain for ages just where their proprietors fell in the
great fight. Other people believe that Kamehameha I fought
his first battle here. On this point, I have heard a story,
which may have been taken from one of the numerous books
which have been written, concerning these islands--I do not
know where the narrator got it. He said that when
Kamehameha (who was at first merely a subordinate chief on
the island of Hawaii), landed here, he brought a large army
with him, and encamped at Waikiki. The Oahuans marched
against him, and so confident were they of success that
they readily acceded to a demand of their priests that they
should draw a line where these bones now lie, and take an
oath that, if forced to retreat at all, they would never
retreat beyond this boundary. The priests told them that
death and everlasting punishment would overtake any who
violated the oath, and the march was resumed. Kamehameha
drove them back step by step; the priests fought in the
front rank and exhorted them both by voice and inspiring
example to remember their oath--to die, if need be, but
never cross the fatal line. The struggle was manfully
maintained, but at last the chief priest fell, pierced to
the heart with a spear, and the unlucky omen fell like a
blight upon the brave souls at his back; with a triumphant
shout the invaders pressed forward--the line was
crossed--the offended gods deserted the despairing army,
and, accepting the doom their perjury had brought upon
them, they broke and fled over the plain where Honolulu
stands now--up the beautiful Nuuanu Valley--paused a
moment, hemmed in by precipitous mountains on either hand
and the frightful precipice of the Pari (pronounced
Pally; intelligent natives claim that there is no r
in the Kanaka alphabet) in front, and then were driven
over--a sheer plunge of six hundred feet!
The story is pretty enough, but Mr. Jarves' excellent
history says the Oahuans were entrenched in Nuuanu Valley;
that Kamehameha ousted them, routed them, pursued them up
the valley and drove them over the precipice. He makes no
mention of our bone yard at all in his book.
There was a terrible pestilence here in 1804, which
killed great numbers of the inhabitants, and the natives
have legends of others that swept the islands long before
that; and therefore many persons now believe that these
bones belonged to victims of one of these epidemics who
were hastily buried in a great pit. It is by far the most
reasonable conjecture, because Jarves says that the weapons
of the Islanders were so rude and inefficient that their
battles were not often very bloody. If this was a battle,
it was astonishingly deadly, for in spite of the
depredations of "skull hunters," we rode a considerable
distance over ground so thickly strewn with human bones
that the horses' feet crushed them, not occasionally, but
at every step.
SENTIMENT
|
|
Impressed by the profound silence and repose that rested
over the beautiful landscape, and being, as usual, in the
rear, I gave voice to my thought. I said: "What a picture
is here slumbering in the solemn glory of the moon! How
strong the rugged outlines of the dead volcano stand out
against the clear sky! What a snowy fringe marks the
bursting of the surf over the long, curved reef! How calmly
the dim city sleeps yonder in the plain! How soft the
shadows lie upon the stately mountains that border the
dream-haunted Manoa Valley! What a grand pyramid of billowy
clouds towers above the storied Pari! How the grim warriors
of the past seem flocking in ghostly squadrons to their
ancient battlefield again--how the wails of the dying well
up from the--"
At this point the horse called Oahu deliberately down in
the sand. Sat down to listen, I suppose. Never mind what he
heard. I stopped apostrophizing and convinced him that I
was not a man to allow contempt of court on the part of a
horse. I broke the backbone of a chief over his rump and
set out to join the cavalcade again.
Very considerably fagged out we arrived in town at nine
o'clock at night, myself in the lead--for when my horse
finally came to understand that he was homeward bound and
hadn't far to go, he threw his legs wildly out before and
behind him, depressed his head and laid his ears back, and
flew by the admiring company like a telegram. In five
minutes he was far away ahead of everybody.
We stopped in front of a private residence--Brown and I
did--to wait for the rest and see that none were lost. I
soon saw that I had attracted the attention of a comely
young girl, and I felt duly flattered. Perhaps, thought I,
she admires my horsemanship--and I made a savage jerk at
the bridle and said, "Ho! will you!" to show how fierce and
unmanageable the beast was--though, to say truly, he was
leaning up against a hitching post peaceably enough at the
time. I stirred Oahu up and moved him about, and went up
the street a short distance to look for the party, and
"loped" gallantly back again, all the while making a
pretense of being unconscious that I was an object of
interest. I then addressed a few "peart" remarks to Brown,
to give the young lady a chance to admire my style of
conversation, and was gratified to see her step up and
whisper to Brown and glance furtively at me at the same
time. I could see that her gentle face bore an expression
of the most kindly and earnest solicitude, and I was
shocked and angered to hear Brown burst into a fit of
brutal laughter.
As soon as we started home, I asked with a fair show of
indifference, what she had been saying.
Brown laughed again and said: "She thought from the
slouchy way you rode and the way you drawled out your
words, that you was drunk! She said, 'Why don't you take
the poor creature home, Mr. Brown? It makes me nervous to
see him galloping that horse and just hanging on that way,
and he so drunk.'"
I laughed very loudly at the joke, but it was a sort of
hollow, sepulchral laugh, after all. And then I took it out
of Oahu.
AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE
I have found an old acquaintance here--Rev. Franklin S.
Rising, of the Episcopal ministry, who has had charge of a
church in Virginia, Nevada, for several years, and who is
well known in Sacramento and San Francisco. He sprained his
knee in September last, and is here for his health. He
thinks he has made no progress worth mentioning towards
regaining it, but I think differently. He can ride on
horseback, and is able to walk a few steps without his
crutches--things he could not do a week ago.
"WHILE WE WERE MARCHING THROUGH
GEORGIA!"
|
|
The popular-song nuisance follows us here. In San
Francisco it used to be "Just Before the Battle, Mother,"
every night and all night long. Then it was "When Johnny
Comes Marching Home." After that it was "Wearin' of the
Green." And last and most dreadful of all, came that
calamity of "While We Were Marching Through Georgia." It
was the last thing I heard when the ship sailed, and it
gratified me to think I should hear it no more for months.
And now, here at dead of night, at the very outpost and
fag-end of the world, on a little rock in the middle of a
limitless ocean, a pack of dark-skinned savages are
tramping down the street singing it with a vim and an
energy that make my hair rise!--singing it in their own
barbarous tongue! They have got the tune to perfection--
otherwise I never would have suspected that "Waikiki
lantani oe Kaa hooly hooly wawhoo" means, "While We
Were Marching Through Georgia." If it would have been all
the same to General Sherman, I wish he had gone around by
the way of the Gulf of Mexico, instead of marching through
Georgia.
MARK TWAIN
|