The Hawaiian archipelago : six months among the palm groves, coral reefs, & volcanoes of the Sandwich Islands / by Isabella L. Bird.
- Isabella Bird
- Date:
- 1890
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The Hawaiian archipelago : six months among the palm groves, coral reefs, & volcanoes of the Sandwich Islands / by Isabella L. Bird. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.
45/378 page 23
![LETTER II.] THE HAWAIIAN HOTEL. ^3 JS^evadcCs officers, riding in the stiff, wooden style which Anglo- Saxons love, and a horde of jolly British sailors from H.M.S. Scout^ rushing helter skelter, colliding with everybody, be- striding their horses as they would a topsailyard, hanging on to manes and lassoing horns, and enjoying themselves thoroughly. In the shady, tortuous streets we met hundreds more of native riders, dashing at full gallop without fear of the poHce. Many of the women were in flowing riding dresses of pure white, over which their unbound hair, and wreaths of carmine-tinted flowers fell most picturesquely. All this time I had not seen our domicile, and when our drive ended under the quivering shadow of large tamarind and algaroba trees, in front of a long, stone, two-storied house with two deep verandahs festooned with clematis and passion flowers, and a shady lawn in front, I felt as if in this fairy land any- thing might be expected. This is the perfection of an hotel. Hospitality seems to take possession of and appropriate one as soon as one enters its never-closed door, which is on the lower verandah. Everywhere, only pleasant objects meet the eye. One can sit all day on the back verandah, w^atching the play of light and colour on the mountains and the deep blue green of the Nuuanu Valley, where showers, sunshine, and rainbows make perpetual variety. The great dining-room is delicious. It has no curtains, and its decorations are cool and pale. Its windows look upon tropical trees in one direction, and up to the cool mountains in the other. Piles of bananas, guavas, limes, and oranges, decorate the tables at each meal, and strange vegetables, fish, and fruits var^^ the otherwise stereo- typed American hotel fare. There are no female domestics The host is a German, the manager an American, the steward a Hawaiian, and the servants are all Chinamen in spotless white linen, with pigtails coiled round their heads, and an air of superabundant good-nature. They know very little English, and make most absurd mistakes, but they are cordial, smiling, and obliging, and look cool and clean. The hotel seems the great public resort of Honolulu, the centre of stir—club-house, exchange, and dramng-room in one. Its wide corridors and verandahs are lively with English and American naval uniforms, several planters' families are here for the season; and with health-seekers from California, resident boarders, whaling captains, tourists from the British Pacific Colonies, and a stream of townspeople always percolating through the corridors](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21042305_0045.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
