monarchy is affable and respected.  If the question as to giving her substantial recognition were left to the Americans here, they would vote for her by a large majority.  It would not be bad policy for the government to be generous toward her.  She is not in the same boat with the ex-Queen.  The Americans who have been steadfast in upholding the policy that at last has prevailed are happy, but not wildly so, just happy.  Now that they have gained their cause, their unity will be shaken by discussions on public questions and personal preferments.

There should be no delay in understanding that in this Archipelago the race questions forbid mankind suffrage, and that our new possessions are not to become states at once, or hurriedly; that it will take generations of assimilation to prepare the Hawaiian Islands for statehood.

The objection to the climate of the marvelous islands of which we have become possessed is its almost changeless character.  There is no serious variation in the temperature.  There is a little more rain in “winter” than in “summer.”  There is neither spring nor fall.  The trade winds afford a slight variety, and this seems to be manipulated by the mountains, that break up the otherwise unsparing monotony of serene loveliness.  The elevations of the craters, and the jagged peaks are from one thousand to thirteen thousand feet.  If you want a change of climate, climb for cold, and escape the mosquitos, the pests of this paradise.  There are a score of kinds of palms; the royal, the date, the cocoanut, are of them.  The bread fruit and banana are in competition.  The vegetation is voluptuous and the scenery stupendous.  There is a constellation of islands, and they differ like the stars in their glories and like human beings in their difficulties.

CHAPTER XXI

Early History of the Sandwich Islands.

Captain James Cook’s Great Discoveries and His Martyrdom—­Character and Traditions of the Hawaiian Islands—­Charges Against the Famous Navigator, and effort to Array the Christian World Against Him—­The True Story of His Life and Death—­How Charges Against Cook Came to Be Made—­Testimony of Vancouver, King and Dixon, and Last Words of Cook’s Journal—­Light Turned on History That Has Become Obscure—­Savagery of the Natives—­Their Written Language Took Up Their High Colored Traditions, and Preserved Phantoms—­Scenes in Aboriginal Theatricals—­Problem of Government in an Archipelago Where Race Questions Are Predominant—­Now Americans Should Remember Captain Cook as an Illustrious Pioneer.

Regarding the islands in the Pacific that we have for a long time largely occupied and recently wholly possessed, the Hawaiian cluster that are the stepping stone, the resting place and the coal station for the golden group more than a thousand leagues beyond, we should remember Captain Cook as one of our own Western pioneers, rejoice to read his true story, and in doing so to form a correct estimate of the people who have drifted into the area of our Protection, or territory that is inalienably our own, to be thoroughly Americanized, that they may some day be worthy to become our fellow-citizens.