Recollections of Full Years

out beyond the line of breakers in long canoes with outriggers and, with a native at prow and stern armed with broad paddles to guide the craft, we rode in on the crest of the waves. Even this modified version of the natives’ foolhardy performance is dangerous enough. There is every likelihood of an upset and not any of us could be said to swim expertly, so there was great excitement when one member of the party after another was plunged, out of depth, into the foaming and seething water. Two members of our party, indeed, had a narrow escape, though we didn’t know it at the time. General Wright and Judge Ide were capsized in a particularly vicious breaker and Judge Ide at once began to make frantic efforts to attract attention and secure aid, but in the confusion his signs of distress were taken for indications of vast enjoyment and he would have been left to drown if he hadn’t been washed ashore by the force of the surf. General Wright, though much the better swimmer, had no less difficulty, and they were both quite white and shaken when they crawled up on the beach.

We stayed four days in this “Paradise of the Pacific,” during which we made many interesting trips, were introduced to many strange Hawaiian customs and were regaled with many feasts, not always, I may say, particularly appetizing. I have had in my time, for politeness’ sake, to eat various queer messes in all sorts of odd corners of the earth, but to me “poi” will always be “poi”⁠—in a class by itself. It is the true Hawaiian dish and is offered to guests by the natives in the same spirit of compliment with which we offer to “break bread” with our friends. It is the custom for Americans residing in Honolulu to introduce visitors to this dish, and the native viands which go with it, in entertainments which are called “poi dinners,” and we were treated to as many of these as our time would permit. “Poi” bears an unpleasant outward resemblance to cockroach paste and, try as I would, I was never able to cultivate a taste for it. But foreigners do learn to like it, for I found Americans in Honolulu eating it with the greatest relish and dipping it up with their fingers in true Hawaiian style.

On our last evening in Honolulu, after a morning of sightseeing, a luncheon, an hour in the buffeting surf, and a large tea-party, we were given a particularly elaborate “poi dinner” where we all sat on the floor and at which all the guests appeared in native costume with “leis” around their necks and in their hair. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Mott Smith, sent the Hawaiian Band, whose leader came out from old Emperor William to King Kalakaua, and they serenaded us with most wonderful Hawaiian music, interspersed, for their own pride’s sake, with well rendered selections from the finest operas. The girls came in flaming bright “Mother-Hubbard” dresses, crowned and covered with “leis,” to dance for us the curious folklore dances of the old-time. It was a delightful whirl of music and lights and colour⁠—added to fish and poi and a cramped position⁠—but I was tired enough not to be sorry when the time came for the singing of “Aloha Oe” and our departure for the ship which lay out in the harbour ready to up-anchor at daybreak and start on its way to Japan.

On the evening of the tenth of May we reached the estuary near the head of which is Yokohama and further on is Tokyo. For at least two hours we steamed past a low-lying shore line before we came in sight of the sweep of steep cliff to the southward which forms the great outer harbour.

Nikko. An ancient cryptomeria avenue and a glimpse of the famous temples

There was just one thing that we could really look at; one insistent, dominant point in the landscape which caught us and held us fascinated⁠—Fujiyama. I had seen Fujiyama on screens and fans and porcelains all my life, but I had no conception of it. For one half hour this “Queen of Mountains”⁠—rightly called⁠—rising thirteen thousand feet out of sheer sea-level, perfect in form, snow-capped, majestic, blazed for us against the western sky. Then a cloud curtain fell⁠—and the sun went down.

As we steamed up close to the breakwater in the grey light of late evening we could see nothing but the dark outlines of many ships and a long row of substantial looking buildings, under high arc lights, stretching along a wide, waterfront street which I was afterward to know as The Bund.

We wanted to go ashore, but it was not possible. We had to lie outside the breakwater and wait for the doctors to come aboard. “Wait for the doctors to come aboard;” how familiar that proceeding becomes to the traveller among the ports of the East, and especially, of Japan. You arrive at Yokohama and are examined there; you go just around the bend of the coast line and arrive at Kobe and you are examined there; you go on through the Inland Sea to Nagasaki and again you are examined. Wherever you arrive in this land of much caution you must “wait for the doctors to come aboard.”

But our doctors didn’t keep us waiting long. About eight o’clock half a dozen of them, important little men with much gold lace, came smiling up the gangway. We worried, rather, about the plague we had braved⁠—and we did hope none of our crew would develop symptoms⁠—but, having faith in the Japanese Vice-Consul in Honolulu, we hoped for special leniency. We were