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STORY OF THE SQUEAKING SHOE. 185

a part of the shoe, and they are willing to pay for it extra; so that the shoemaker who can manufacture the most squeak will be likely to have the largest run of custom among Hawaiians. There was an escaped Botany Bay convict shoemaker in Mr. Bond's district, that married one of his church members, and the natives used to employ him for making squeak.

He was expected one day at Mr. Bond's, and a native who knew it left word to have a pair of shoes made with a squeak. Willing to see how far the man's fondness for squeak would carry him, Mr. Bond asked how much worth of squeak he would have put into his shoes, whether a hapaha's worth or a hapalua, a quarter of a dollar squeak or a half-dollar squeak. The man's love for squeak got the better, I believe, of his love for money, and he concluded to have the largest squeak that Crispin could manufacture, even if it cost as high as a dollar. Now,

As rhyme the rudder is of verses,

With which, like ships, they steer their courses,

we might say of this our Hawaiian knight of the squeak, with a slight accommodation, what Butler did of Sir Hudibras,

A wight he was, whose very sight would
Entitle him mirror of knighthood,

That never bow'd his stubborn knee

To any thing but chivalry.

He was well stay'd, and in his gait
Preserved a grave, majestic state;
And yet so fiery, he would bound
As if he grieved to touch the ground.
Cæsar himself, who, as fame goes,
Had corns upon his feet and toes,

Was not by half so tender-hoof'd,
Nor trod upon the ground so soft.
From out his soles a squeak did sound
That brought him gazers from around;
But being loth to wear it out,
He therefore bore it not about,
Unless on holidays or so,

As men their best apparel do.

ARRIVAL AT KAILUA.

187

CHAPTER IX.

THE POETRY OF TRAVELING, AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF LIVING AT A MISSIONARY'S.

From that lovely retreat though forever I part,

Where smile answer'd smile, and where heart beat to heart;

Yet how often and fondly, when far we may be,

Will we think, thou bless'd isle, of each other and thee.

I

go from the haunts where the blue billows roll, But that isle and those waters shall live in my soul.

Anon.

Nor without many regrets, I have cut adrift from the quiet missionary house of my boyhood's friend, that has been harboring me so hospitably for many weeks; and I am here at the Metropolis of the old Hawaiian conqueror, Kamehameha I., and at the station first occupied in 1820, just after the providential downfall of idolatry, by missionaries from the United States. The missionary pair that was left here then, poorly supplied, not knowing what should befall them, where all was rude and heathenish, and the grim idols of decaying paganism stood guarding the bay, are here still, in health and vigor, gathering the fruit of their labors, and blessing God for the change they behold in the people, and for the comforts of house, furniture, children, and friends with whom they are now surrounded.

I arrived two mornings ago, after half a day and

the livelong night upon the sea in a little open canoe. It was a tedious night, with but little wind, and the three natives had to paddle almost all the time, when so sleepy that they could scarcely keep open their eyes, and one of them was every now and then nodding into the water and against the sides of the canoe so amusingly as to provoke me to laughter, though it sometimes provoked his nose to bleed.

The boatmen, also, being too fearful of the mumuku (a blast that sometimes rushes down with irresistible fury from between the mountains, and capsizes or drives canoes out to sea) to venture far from land, I had a good opportunity to observe the rough lava shores of Hawaii, and to look into the ragged throats of some of those yawning caves that line the coast.

We passed in the afternoon the Bay of Kawaihae, and saw the huge heiau which Kamehameha II. went to consecrate at the death of his father, when he boldly broke the tabus, and in his revelry and intoxication brought idolatry to its end. I watched the stars come out one by one from their azure depths, kept vigil with them the livelong night, and saw them fade away again before the dawn, and the sun rise up in his glory from over Mauna Hualalai, in the rear of Kailua.

Here was the boundless ocean, there the sky

O'erarching, broad and blue,

Telling of God and heaven, how deep, how high,

How glorious and true.

It was new and grand also, "in the stilly night,” to see the hoary breakers dashing and spurned against the giant rocks, to feel our little canoe lifted by the

VIEWS IN A CANOE.

189

backward wave, and to hear the thunder-beat, and in- .

cessant roar of the surf.

"Up through the cavernous rocks amain,

With short, hoarse growl, they plunge and leap,
Like an armed host, again and again,

Battering some castellated steep.
Great pulses of the ocean heart,

Beating from out immensity,
What mystic news would ye impart

From the Great Spirit of the sea!”

Sights and sounds so unlike the din and dust of coaches, the booming of steam-engines, and the hissing and clatter of locomotives, have made me think a man must come out to Hawaii nei in order to know the romance of travel. They can never get here railroads and locomotives; but if Yankee enterprise has its way, steamers will soon come and take off all the shine from Hawaiian canoes and schooners.

The aspect of Kailua is sternly forbidding, and its radiated and reflected heat exceedingly oppressive, after living amid the verdure and grateful trades of Kohala. If caloric be visible, you can see it going up all over the Kailua lava, like heated air from a stove. The harbor is only a little bight in the lava, with a small beach, the rocks on each side covered with large and rich coral, which they burn into lime. The northern boundary was formed by an eruption, forty-five years ago, from one of the large craters on the top of Mauna Hualalai, which inundated with fire several villages, destroyed a number of plantations and extensive fish ponds, filled a deep bay twenty miles in length, and formed the present coast.

When the impetuous fire-stream had been running

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