somebody would bring Williams, and the old man would grow weak and begin
to quiet down at once. And as soon as he was done, Williams in his
dulcet, insinuating way, would invent some history (referring for proof,
to the old man's own excellent memory and to copies of "The Old Guard"
known not to be in his possession) that would turn the tables completely
and leave the Admiral all abroad and helpless. By and by he came to so
dread Williams and his gilded tongue that he would stop talking when he
saw him approach, and finally ceased to mention politics altogether, and
from that time forward there was entire peace and serenity in the ship.
CHAPTER LXIII.
On a certain bright morning the Islands hove in sight, lying low on the
lonely sea, and everybody climbed to the upper deck to look. After two
thousand miles of watery solitude the vision was a welcome one. As we
approached, the imposing promontory of Diamond Head rose up out of the
ocean its rugged front softened by the hazy distance, and presently the
details of the land began to make themselves manifest: first the line of
beach; then the plumed coacoanut trees of the tropics; then cabins of the
natives; then the white town of Honolulu, said to contain between twelve
and fifteen thousand inhabitants spread over a dead level; with streets
from twenty to thirty feet wide, solid and level as a floor, most of them
straight as a line and few as crooked as a corkscrew.
The further I traveled through the town the better I liked it.
Every step revealed a new contrast--disclosed something I was
unaccustomed to. In place of the grand mud-colored brown fronts of
San Francisco, I saw dwellings built of straw, adobies, and cream-colored
pebble-and-shell-conglomerated coral, cut into oblong blocks and laid in
cement; also a great number of neat white cottages, with green
window-shutters; in place of front yards like billiard-tables with iron
fences around them, I saw these homes surrounded by ample yards, thickly
clad with green grass, and shaded by tall trees, through whose dense
foliage the sun could scarcely penetrate; in place of the customary
geranium, calla lily, etc., languishing in dust and general debility, I
saw luxurious banks and thickets of flowers, fresh as a meadow after a
rain, and glowing with the richest dyes; in place of the dingy horrors of
San Francisco's pleasure grove, the "Willows," I saw huge-bodied,
wide-spreading forest trees, with strange names and stranger appearance
--trees that cast a shadow like a thunder-cloud, and were able to stand
alone without being tied to green poles; in place of gold fish, wiggling
around in glass globes, assuming countless shades and degrees of
distortion through the magnifying and diminishing qualities of their
transparent prison houses, I saw cats--Tom-cats, Mary Ann cats,
long-tailed cats, bob-tailed cats, blind cats, one-eyed cats, wall-eyed
cats, cross-eyed cats, gray cats, black cats, white cats, yellow cats,
striped cats, spotted cats, tame cats, wild cats, singed cats, individual
cats, groups of cats, platoons of cats, companies of cats, regiments of
cats, armies of cats, multitudes of cats, millions of cats, and all of
them sleek, fat, lazy and sound asleep. I looked on a multitude of
people, some white, in white coats, vests, pantaloons, even white cloth
shoes, made snowy with chalk duly laid on every morning; but the majority
of the people were almost as dark as negroes--women with comely features,
fine black eyes, rounded forms, inclining to the voluptuous, clad in a
single bright red or white garment that fell free and unconfined from
shoulder to heel, long black hair falling loose, gypsy hats, encircled