LETTER XVIII

Summary

Oahu, with its grey pinnacles, its deep valleys, its cool chasms, its ruddy headlands, and volcanic cones, all clothed in green by the recent rains, looked unspeakably lovely as we landed by sunrise in a rose-flushed atmosphere, and Honolulu, shady, dew-bathed, and brilliant with flowers, deserved its name, “The Paradise of the Pacific.” The hotel is pleasant, and Mrs. D.'s presence makes it sweet and homelike; but in a very few days I have lost much of the health I gained on Hawaii, and the “Rolling Moses” and the Rocky Mountains can hardly come too soon. For Honolulu is truly a metropolis, gay, hospitable, and restless, and this hotel centralizes the restlessness. Visiting begins at breakfast time, when it ends I know not, and receiving and making visits, court festivities, entertainments given by the commissioners of the great powers, riding parties, picnics, verandah parties, “sociables,” and luncheon and evening parties on board the ships of war, succeed each other with frightful rapidity. This is all on the surface, but beneath and better than this is a kindness which leaves no stranger to a sense of loneliness, no want uncared for, and no sorrow unalleviated. This, more than its beauty and its glorious climate, makes Honolulu “Paradise” for the many who arrive here sick and friendless. I notice that the people are very intimate with each other, and generally address each other by their Christian names.