We had an abundance of fruit in Honolulu, of course.
Oranges, pine-apples, bananas, strawberries, lemons,
limes, mangoes, guavas, melons, and a rare and curious
luxury called the chirimoya, which is deliciousness
itself. Then there is the tamarind. I thought
tamarinds were made to eat, but that was probably
not the idea. I ate several, and it seemed to
me that they were rather sour that year. They
pursed up my lips, till they resembled the stem-end
of a tomato, and I had to take my sustenance through
a quill for twenty-four hours.
They sharpened my teeth till I could have shaved with
them, and gave them a “wire edge” that
I was afraid would stay; but a citizen said “no,
it will come off when the enamel does”—which
was comforting, at any rate. I found, afterward,
that only strangers eat tamarinds—but they
only eat them once.
In my diary of our third day in Honolulu, I find this:
I am probably the most sensitive man in Hawaii to-night—especially
about sitting down in the presence of my betters.
I have ridden fifteen or twenty miles on horse-back
since 5 P.M. and to tell the honest truth, I have
a delicacy about sitting down at all.
An excursion to Diamond Head and the King’s
Coacoanut Grove was planned to-day—time,
4:30 P.M.—the party to consist of half a
dozen gentlemen and three ladies. They all started
at the appointed hour except myself. I was at
the Government prison, (with Captain Fish and another
whaleship-skipper, Captain Phillips,) and got so interested
in its examination that I did not notice how quickly
the time was passing. Somebody remarked that
it was twenty minutes past five o’clock, and
that woke me up. It was a fortunate circumstance
that Captain Phillips was along with his “turn
out,” as he calls a top-buggy that Captain Cook
brought here in 1778, and a horse that was here when
Captain Cook came. Captain Phillips takes a just
pride in his driving and in the speed of his horse,
and to his passion for displaying them I owe it that
we were only sixteen minutes coming from the prison
to the American Hotel—a distance which
has been estimated to be over half a mile. But
it took some fearful driving. The Captain’s
whip came down fast, and the blows started so much
dust out of the horse’s hide that during the
last half of the journey we rode through an impenetrable
fog, and ran by a pocket compass in the hands of Captain
Fish, a whaler of twenty-six years experience, who
sat there through the perilous voyage as self-possessed
as if he had been on the euchre-deck of his own ship,
and calmly said, “Port your helm—port,”
from time to time, and “Hold her a little free
—steady—so—so,”
and “Luff—hard down to starboard!”
and never once lost his presence of mind or betrayed
the least anxiety by voice or manner. When we
came to anchor at last, and Captain Phillips looked
at his watch and said, “Sixteen minutes—I
told you it was in her! that’s over three miles
an hour!” I could see he felt entitled to a compliment,
and so I said I had never seen lightning go like that
horse. And I never had.
