A glimpse of the isles of the Pacific

Introduction

This book, as the title indicates, is a brief sketch of some things we saw on a short trip through Hawaiian Islands, Samoan Islands, New Zealand, Tasmania, Australia, The PliilippineSi China and Japan.

I have many friends who are fond of travel; but circumstances make it inconvenient for them to leave home for a long sea voyage. One told me after reading my sketches of a cruise around the Mediterranean entitled "Three Months in Foreign Lands," that he had "enjoyed the trip fully as much as I, much more comfortably, and at less expense." It is for such friends as well as all others who enjoy reading Foreign Travels, that I have written this memoranda of what we saw on a voyage on the Pacific Ocean, the greatest body of water on earth, with thousands of islands inhabited by every race of humanity now living. These sketches are neither history nor fiction and I beg }^ou to excuse and overlook all errors as I am not an author or professional writer, but simply a wholesale dry goods merchant out for health and recreation, and made notes as I traveled along of such things as I saw from day to day. There are so many things different from what we see in our own favored land, that I trust you will be interested in reading the book. Many things can be more satisfactorily shown by photographs than by any other means; having this in mind, I took a kodak with me continually, and made snap shots of such views as to me were interesting, scenic or beautiful, also some photos were purchased at different places.

If you are interested in travel, in seeing different countries, their people and customs, come with me and I will tell you as well as I can, a little of what we saw on a four months cruise around the Pacific .

Why did you go to New Zealand and Australia? asked one of my friends. One reason is, comparatively few travelers go there, and I wanted to see that part of the world where the grass was not beaten down in the path of the tourist.

If it affords my friends half the pleasure to read this narrative that it gave me to make the trip, then my object in publishing this little book is accomplished.

Yours sincerely,

W. \V. Wheeler.

A GLIMPSE OF THE

ISLES OF THE PACIFIC

When Cohimbiis left Spain to discover America, no doubt he knew as much about what he would find, as we did when we sailed out of the San Francisco Golden Gate, on our voyage around the great Pacific Ocean via New Zealand and Australia to China and Japan. On February 7th, 1907, our party consisting of my wife, daughter and self, left Frisco, on board the S. S. Sierra, of Oceanic Steamship Company Line (sometimes called the Spreckles Line) (Captain H. C. Houdlette, commander), a ship of about 6000 tons, which is large for the Pacific Ocean trade, but would be called small for the Atlantic. We carried sixty-six first cabin passengers and thirty-six second cabin, besides a cargo of general merchandise. The crew consisted of two hundred and sixty-four officers and men — all Americans.

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HONOLULU.

After a fair voyage of six days, we landed at Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands, where, much to our regret, about half of the first-class passengers left us, among whom we had formed some very pleasant acquaintances. We went to the Hotel Young for the night and breakfast, then took a White Steamer Automobile to see the city. Much to our surprise, we found it quite up to date. They have a population of 43,000 made up of native Hawaiians, Americans, English, Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese, and a few from nearly all other nations.

There are several fine hotels here, the Capitol building, the Palace of Ex-Queen Liliuokalani. many blocks of store buildings, several hospitals, also many fine mansions surrounded by tropical gardens, being the homes of sugar planters. These fine places usually cover a full block or more, the lawns having a great variety of palms, banana trees, and all the most beautiful trees and flowers, which grow in a tropical climate, surrounded by hedges of Hibiscus, ten to fifteen feet high. This Hibiscus is a tiny and puny plant with us, which only grows with the tenderest nursing, but here it grows to be a small tree with great wealth of blossoms.

They have fine streets, well paved, a good line of electric street cars, and are well supplied with public school buildings, not many churches, and these are Catholic, Congregational and Methodist, also a very good Y. M. C. A., and its membership is made up of Whites, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, and Negroes, who, they claim, all work together very well.

The chief product of these Islands is sugar. They raise fourteen tons to the acre, In this cHmate the cane ripens at any season of the year the planter may desire, according to the time when it is planted, so that on a large plantation they have work all the year round in cutting and grinding sugar cane. Many very large fortunes have been made here in the sugar business. Mr. Clans Spreckles is one who has amassed millions; also Mr. Alexander Young, who still lives here, accumulated a large fortune in this business, and has built the finest hotel in Honolulu, costingover a million and a half dollars, a fire-proof structure six stories high with a beautiful roof garden, and an elegant block of store buildings on first floor. This is a great winter resort for people from the United States who wish to avoid the winters at home, and it is certainly an ideal climate for a lazy man. The highest temperature during the year is 84 in July and the lowest is 58 in January, only 26 degrees of variation during the year.

We saw great fields of banana trees. These grow, under their plan of cultivation, about ten feet high, and each small tree bears one bunch of bananas. This tree is then cut down and another grown from its sprouts in ten months.

We saw rice fields, and we ate the most delicious pine-apples. These do not grow on trees, but in a garden, like cabbage. They are planted in rows and grow close to the ground. All the trees here are evergreen, and almost anything can be planted at any season of the year, and comes to harvest in a short time.

The native Hawaiians are averse to labor of any kind; in fact are (by themselves) considered above work. Nature has so favored them that very little labor is necessary to get plenty to eat, and the little that they need for clothing.

II

They are a kindly disposed, child-like, copper-colored race. They have a pleasant custom of placing garlands of flowers, called leis, around your neck and hat when you depart from them, always smiling when you say good-by, maybe because they are glad to see you go. At any rate as we were about to sail, our steamer friends, those who left the boat at that point, followed the custom of the Islanders, and covered us with wreaths and garlands of flowers when they came down to the dock to see us off. We said good-by with regret, as there will only be thirty first-class passengers now to Auckland, about one-fourth of the number the ship is prepared to carry, ^nd we shall miss our steamer friends very much, as it is a long voyage we now have before us.

At sea February i8th. Were you ever adrift at sea, without power to direct or guide your boat? Last night, just as we were about to retire, the fusible safety plug blew out of one of our boilers, rendering the power of our ship helpless. The boat immediately swung around into the trough of the sea swells and began rolling very heavily, and drifting. We knew not whether they could repair the break in one day, or even whether they could, in fact, successfully repair it at all. We were almost exactly in the center of the great Pacific Ocean, about one thousand miles from the Samoan Islands, our nearest harbor. No ships ever come over this track except the three owned and run by the Oceanic Steamship Company, and the next one in these waters is the Ventura, due in about two weeks. If we should be still drifting, would she see us and pick us up? The chances are that we would be so far drifted out of our course that she would not see us. Fortunately, the sea was not very rough, but a great big swell was on, which nearly threw us out of our berths, as the ship rolled from side to side. To add to our distress, the ship was badly Hsted to port, and had been for two days. The ofiticers never tell the passengers about what is the trouble in such a case, and, indeed, they had troubles enough of their own. With the ship rolling in such a manner and the temperature at 140 degrees in the engine room, their limit was almost reached, and then, to make their troubles still greater, at 1:30 in the morning the dynamo which makes all the lights for the ship balked, and every light in the ship went out, leaving them in total darkness. Of course, nothing could be done to the boilers until they had light, and the chief engineer then turned his attention to repairing the dynamo, with the aid of a tallow candle and a small hand lamp. He did his best and got the dynamo started at 4 a. m. Then he returned to the boiler trouble again. What if a storm should arise before they could again start the engine, and roll this big steamer clear over? And many times it seemed as if she would go over, but should we take to the small boats before she went over, how many of us would ever be able to reach land, even if the small boats could live in a heavy sea, which is not at all likely. One can imagine that very few of the passengers slept any that night.

The next morning we had breakfast, the boat still drifting and rolling. We made an effort to try to be cheerful and say something to bring a smile and liven up the solemn appearance of our fellow passengers, but it was no go. There was not a smile to be had in that crowd. After TRYING to eat breakfast, we all adjourned to the promenade deck and were then greeted by the sight of more than a dozen big man-eating sharks, ugly looking brutes, as large as a horse, swimming around the boat. To see a shark when your boat is in distress is not an omen of good luck, and you cannot make yourself think so, even if you try. It gave every passenger time for reflection. One suggested that he thought of all the sins of his past life. We thought, ''Well this is surely seeking pleasure under dif^culties," and we wished we were safely home again in old St. Joseph. If we could only get home again, we would say, to use the familiar style, "Missouri is good enough for me." However, all troubles end sometime, and in this case fortune favored us, and after twelve hours of most assiduous labor, the engineer got things patched up so that she would run again at a slower rate of speed, and having fairly good weather, we made Pago Pago, on the Samoan Islands, two days late. The engineer said later that he never worked so hard in his life as he did to get the break repaired, as he knew the passengers would be in a panic if a blow should come up before the engines could handle the ship.

SAMOAN ISLANDS.

The best harbor in the Samoan Islands is Pago Pago, where we arrived on Washington's birthday and were greeted by the gunboat Adams with a salute of twenty-one guns in honor of the day, and it does look good to see Old Glory, "the emblem of the land we love," floating in this far-away seaport. This Island and harbor is the property of the United States, and we maintain here a gunboat with 150 ofificers and men. The commanding officer is also Governor of the Island, which is twenty miles long, and about six miles wide. Fourteen degrees south of the Equator, it is always warm. The temperature ranges from 65 to 90 degrees and is very humid. The population, aside from our Navy, is thirty whites, and six thousand native

Samoans, who are copper-colored and a fine, shapely lot of humanity. They are, indeed, larger and in better flesh than the average people of our own land, not war-like, but of a kindly disposition. They wear less clothing than any people we ever saw; in fact, the men only wear a breech clout and the women not much more. How Cjuickly one gets accustomed to such garb; it looks all right here for these people to dress in that way.

The Island is covered with cocoa-nut, banana, bread-fruit and orange trees, all growing wild, without any cultivation. Their homes are usually thatched straw, simply to keep the rain out, and it rains there for sure. In the two days before we were there, it rained twenty inches, and 230 inches per year is their usual rain-fall. While we were there the sun was bright and hot.

Their food is altogether the fruits of the trees, which they gather with almost no labor, and the fish, which are very plentiful and easily caught. This is all their livingexpenses, except their clothing, which is very limited, as before mentioned, and to pay for this they cut the meat of the cocoa-nuts in strips and dry it in the sun. Then it is called COPRA and is sold, a large amount of it to our markets, where the oils are pressed out and used for making many of our best soaps.

They are a happy and contented people, excellent divers and swimmers. The prices of railroad stocks, wheat and corn, do not trouble them in the least.

This harbor is quite small, almost a circle about half a mile across, and very deep, supposed to be the crater of an old volcano, surrounded by mountains, about fifteen hundred feet high. Only a narrow strip of level land runs around this harbor, where the straggling town of Pago

Pago is built. The only house of much importance is the Governor's mansion, a large yellow frame on a high point to the south as we enter the harbor. Our Government maintains a coal supply here, which coal comes from England, America and Australia. There is really almost no commerce here, its only value to the United States being Coaling Station in time of war, and it seems that it is very doubtful if it is worth to us what it costs to maintain it.

The London Mission Society established a mission here in 1835, ^^'^^^ nearly the whole native population have become Christians under their teaching. They have taught them to read and most of them to write, and have established schools in different parts of the Island. They have several books printed in their Samoan language, and three or four newspapers. One of them is a weekly, printed under direction and at the expense of our United States Government, and distributed free, intended to educate the people. About thirty years ago, the Catholics established a mission here, and later the Wesleyan Methodists and the Mormons. These last three have made some progress, but nine-tenths of the natives are still adherents of the first church — that is, the Congregational. It is an error for the last three Mission Societies to make an effort here, when the field is well supplied, and effectively, by the London missions.

We went to church on Sunday, February 24th, and heard the Post Chaplain, Mr. Frazier, from Richmond, Virginia, preach a very good sermon.

For much of this informatfon, we are indebted to United States Judge Gurr, who dispenses justice over the Island. He is a very pleasant gentleman, a native of Tasmania, Australia, has lived here twenty-four years, is married to a native Samoan woman, and they have two interesting children, a daughter eleven years of age, and a son nine. The Judge invited the whole ship's passengers out to a picnic on his plantation, about three miles from the harbor. Our Captain accepted and took us all in one of the ship's boats, towed by a small gasoline launch. When we arrived at our landing place, the water for about two hundred yards was too shallow for the boats to come to shore. The ladies were carried ashore on the backs of native boatmen, and the men took off shoes and stockings, rolled up their trousers and waded ashore, where we were met by Judge Gurr, his wife, and three native girls, one of whom was the daughter of a Samoan Chief, and by her own right a reigning belle. They led the way through the plantation, which is thickly covered with sugar cane, cocoa-nut, banana and bread-fruit trees, and many other kinds of trees, among them being the cocoa bean tree, the first we have seen of this tree. The cocoa-beans grow in pods, which contain several beans. They have only been planted a few years, and are just beginning to bear fruit. These trees are about the size of a peach tree and have leaves eight or ten inches long, light green color. Our path led us along a clear bubbling mountain brook through a regular jungle of tropical vegetation. We were obliged to cross the brook half a dozen times on cobble stones, and most of us slipped off the stones and wet our white shoes, but the weather was so warm that there was no danger of taking cold.

After a toilsome climb for about a mile in the terrible heat, we came to the picnic ground, situated at the foot of a beautiful little mountain waterfall, about thirty feet high. A good, strong current of water flows over this fall, and o o <

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P^ o drops into a little pool some fifty feet in diameter, nearly round and quite deep. We were surrounded by the tropical forest and jungle, many large and small trees, also ferns growing in every possible place where they could catch hold. On nearly every tall tree, there would be a a bunch or more of these beautiful ferns. Wherever a limb was broken off or a knot hole appeared, a bunch of ferns would immediately begin to grow, appearing much like a large bird's nest located fifty feet above the earth.

An awning was spread and under it was placed our lunch, which had been brought from the steamer. The whole company sat on the ground, the Captain at the head of the line, with Mrs. Judge Gurr at his side, and the native girls next. We were very tired after our long walk and enjoyed the lunch, washed down with plenty of ginger ale and clear, cool spring water.

After lunch, the next thing in order was a swim in the pool. We were all invited to go in and swim, but our party declined. The Judge's wife, the three native girls and the little son of the Judge were soon in the water. They are great divers and swimmers, and did many antics in the water for our diversion.

Next we tramped back to the beach, slipping into the brook several times on our way. The Judge took us to his plantation house and spread mats on the ground, for us to sit on, while waiting for our boats to come, and gave us a lesson in harvesting cocoa-nuts. One of his men walked up a cocoanut tree fifty feet, high, like a monkey. There were about five bushels of cocoanuts at the top of this tree; he knocked off many of them and prepared them for our refreshment. The shell of the cocoa-nut has a heavy covering, or husk, about two inches thick; to remove this.

the native sharpens a stick at both ends and drives it into the ground, then takes the cocoa-nut and strikes it on the sharp point of this stick, driving the stick through the outer shell or husk, and with three or four quick jerks removes it. Then the cocoanut is the same as it appears when it comes to our market. He then takes a long heavy knife and cuts out the end of the cocoa-nut, and hands it to his guest to drink. The milk, which is about a pint, is as clear " as spring water, a pleasant drink and quite refreshing.

After returning to our steamer for dinner, some of our party went out for a moonlight boat ride, with natives to pull the boat. They sing their wierd native songs. The singing became monotonous, however, after they had sung the same verse over two hundred times, they are musical

AND LIKE TO SING.

Mr. and Mrs. Boss, of New York, have been sent here by astronomical societies to make a chart of the southern heavens. They have located their observatory on the top of a small mountain on the seashore near the entrance of the harbor. They live alone on this mountain crag, about two miles from the town, and kindl}^ invited our party to make them a visit, which was enjoyed very much.

The natives have no opportunity to get intoxicating liquors of any kind, but they make a queer substitute, which they call cava, from a plant root which grows here. To prepare this for drink, the original plan was for the women to chew it up fine and spit it into a bowl, where it was allowed to stand in water for a time and ferment. The mixture was then strained to take the small root fibre out, and was then ready for drink. Some of our passengers who drank it, say the taste is rather flat, yet it has some of the effects of alcoholic drink, not affecting the head so much as the legs; the women and children are not permitted to drink this concoction.

Originally there were no animals, chickens or reptiles on this Island, and scarcely any birds. There are now as many pigs as the natives wish, a few chickens, and very few birds of any kind. There are no cattle except three or four cows, which belong to the Catholic Mission. There are fourteen saddle horses on the Island, and they are a sorry lot in appearance, as they get nothing to eat except grass, and the rainfall is so heavy that the grass is not very nutritious. There are no wheeled vehicles of any kind here, except bicycles. A few of these are used in the town, where they have a narrow road built about eight feet wide. While the walking is not good on account of dense undergrowth, yet the only way to "get there" is to walk, when at Samoan Island.

There are only three stores in the town. We visited all of them, and their combined stocks would not amount to more than two thousand dollars in value. In conversation with one of the proprietors, he said business was fair and that there were other places worse than this for trade.

He has been in business here for six years, and is an Englishman; his stock would be worth, at a fair estimate, two hundred and fifty dollars.

As before stated, the natives have almost no use for goods of any kind, and they scarcely know the use of money; they are almost communistic in their ways. While they are not dishonest and will not steal, yet they will take and appropriate anything they see that they want. That is, if one of their number has anything that his neighbor wants, he simply takes it and the owner will not refuse

NATIVE NEW ZEALAND WARRIOR.

him. There are several small villages scattered over the Island; if any of these villages get scarce of food, they all go in a body to the next village and stay with them as long as there is anything to be found there to eat, and the host makes no objection.

We spent three days quite pleasantly in this far-away and queer country of Samoan Islands. The sun is intensely hot during the middle of the day, and one that is not accustomed to this heat should not venture out when the sun is high; he is liable to sunstroke. We did not suffer from heat at night.

The Fiji Islands are located five hundred miles west of the Samoan Islands. We are told there are no cannibals there now, as they have been taught by the Missionaries, and many of them are now Christians, but they were originally cannibals.

The Solomon Islands, which are near here, are populated with savage natives, and they still eat human flesh, not for a regular diet, but when in war they will kill and eat an enemy.

We arrived at Auckland, New Zealand, on Saturday, March 2nd, after a voyage of twenty-two days from Frisco, including the two stops. Omitting the unpleasant times mentioned heretofore, on account of defective machinery, the S. S. Sierra is one of the most pleasant boats we ever traveled upon. Captain Houdlette was most kind and obliging to the passengers, and Chief Engineer Mcintosh is a hero. He stood by his task, night and day; the passengers wrote him a letter, acknowledging their gratitude for his arduous services, and presented him with a watch charm at Auckland to commemorate the trip.

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NEW ZEALAND.

The name is appropriate, in that the country is the NEWEST on the face of the earth today, having only been settled by the whites sixty-seven years. It is of volcanic origin, and in my opinion, came to the surface of the ocean centuries later than all the large continents of the earth. There are many things which lead me to this conclusion, one of which is that when first settled by the English, there was really no animal or bird or reptile life on these islands, and there is none to the present day, except those which have been imported from other countries, and no fresh water fish in its waters except importations. A friend once told me, "When you are traveling, go to New Zealand; it is the original 'Garden of Eden.'" I had always been of the belief that the original "Garden of Eden" was situated on the River Euphrates, in Asia; however, the very first trip we made after landing was to the top of "Mount Eden", a coincidence which might mean that others had been of the belief that this was the original "Garden of Eden." I do think, however, that it is the garden spot OF THE EARTH, TODAY, Considering its salubrious and even climate, its beautiful scenery, hill and dale, mountain, farm and grazing land, and the most accommodating and pleasant people to be met anywhere.

We were delighted with the appearance of Auckland as we entered the bay, which is a fine large harbor, and deep, so that ships come alongside the wharf. This is a beautiful city of about 75,000 population. New Zealand is an English Colony, and nearly all the population are EngHsh, Scotch or their descendants, and a fine people they

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> o o are. We did not see a drunken man, or hear any profane language while we were in New Zealand. We stopped at the Grand Hotel, on the top of a beautiful hill overlooking the bay; this hotel is small and has no elevators, but it is scrupulously neat and clean, and the table fare is good.

We drove to the top of the highest mountain in this vicinity, an extinct volcano 500 feet high, with a crater about 100 feet deep. This mountain is situated almost in the middle of Auckland and a grand view is had from this point over the entire city and bay. We never saw so many beautiful small cottages, with fine landscape gardens surrounding them. These cottages are frame buildings, mostly one story, with porches on two or three sides, ornamented with much filigree and neatly painted, usually canar}' color with white trimmings. They are occupied by the laboring classes and are so far superior to the houses in our own cities, which are occupied by the laboring classes, that there is really no comparison.

The city of Auckland is well situated for foreign trade, and does a large export and import business. It is well supplied with churches, schools and hospitals. A ferry boat line runs across the bay every half hour to a beautiful suburb called Davenport; distance across the bay one mile; fare, twelve cents round trip.

The climate is semi-tropical; they raise some oranges and many palm trees.

On March 5th, we went by rail to Rotorua, the hot springs district. The railroad runs through a fine farming country for the first one hundred miles, then seventy miles through the mountains. This road is a narrow gauge, three feet six inches, and has many sharp grades and curves. The mountain scenery is fine, and there is much heavy timber along the line, which is being wasted by cutting and burning, simply to clear the ground for farming. There will be a time, not far in the future when these people will find they have made a great mistake in wasting their timber, as they will need it.