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VOYAGE

AROUND THE WORLD,

PRINCIPALLY
To California and the Sandwich Islands,
during the years 1826, 1827, 1828 and 1829;

BY A. DUHAUT-CILLY,

CAPTAIN OF THE LONG COURSE, CHEVALIER OF THE LEGION OF HONOR, MEMBER OF THE ACADEMY OF AGRICULTURAL, MANUFACTURING AND COMMERCIAL INDUSTRY, PARIS.

Volume 2.

Paris,

Chez Arthur Bertgrand, Libraire, rue Hautefueille, 25;
Saint-Servan,
Chez D. Lemarchand, Libraire.

1835.

CONTENTS.^*

XIX.

Case of the American ship Franklin. – It leaves the port despite the guns of the Fort. – Letter from Padre Prefecto. – We load horses. – Return of the Waverley. – Mr. R .... is not on board. – Sinking of the Tinea-Mouth. – We leave California. – Arrival at the Sandwich Islands. – King Kaou-Keaouli at Boki's. – Excessive weight of the Chiefs and Princesses. – Costumes. – The Sandwich Islanders. – The King comes on board. – Queen Kaou-Manou. – Fun on the water. – Russian-Mountains of the Sandwich Islanders.

      The further a man is from his homeland, the more he feels he needs support. So for a Parisian, every Parisian is a parent; for a Frenchman, every Frenchman is a friend; for a

European, every European is a compatriot, a fellow citizen. The sailor extends this community of feelings much further. It is enough for him to have the name of a man inscribed on the crew of any ship, for him to look upon him as a child of a large family, like a brother; he will welcome him, defend him, sacrifice himself for him; but, above all, he will regard it as ignominious to serve as an instrument in any measure that would have the object of offending a man of his profession. In this chapter we find a circumstance in which this sympathetic alliance was manifested, to which the whole crew of the Hero was united.

      On entering the port of San Diego, we anchored in the position we had always occupied; but immediately I received the order to go up higher, without being given any reason for this change; I had only remarked that three American ships, which were in the harbor, were as though

staggered along the whole length of the channel: the deepest was the three-master Franklin, about five miles from us; the schooner La Clio was in an intermediate position, and the brig Andes was near us.

      It was only a few moments before we had dropped anchor, when an officer, named Ramirez, appeared on the beach and shouted for a boat, which was sent to him, manned by four men, and who returned without him. The sailors whom I had sent, having told me that he was asking for an officer on board, I suspected some misunderstanding, and I went on shore myself. On reaching the shore, I asked him why he had not boarded the boat. "I did not judge it appropriate," said he; "you should have sent an officer to receive me." This pretension, out of use and of purpose, affected me to a great degree. "The boat which I sent to you, and which I have just used, must suffice, I replied, to the envoy"

"of a government which does not even have a canoe at its disposal. Such a vanity can not suit me; and if you have been ordered to come and take my statements, you can embark with me; but no officer will accompany you to return to the land; you are now the master of taking the course that suits you."

      Seeing that I took him in that tone, he made an awkward apology, motivating his conduct on what had been badly received by other captains. Finally he decided to come on board, and after having fulfilled his mission, I sent him back to shore, with no other attendance than the boat-crew. I had been more recalcitrant with this Republican, who had a bad reputation, and recently had been accused of murder. I had not been sorry to find the occasion to show him my lack of consideration.

      When, the next day, I went to the Presidio,

the Commander-General, after a few moments of conversation, asked me if I would sell him a boat; waited, he told me, that the port had none, and that he could not do without it. I imagined that the reprimand which I had addressed the day before to Ramirez had mainly provoked this request, which it was all the more appropriate that I had all the materials necessary for the construction of a twenty-four-foot boat, which I proposed to have done during my stay in San Diego. I went there, and at once agreed on the price of the boat, as it was. If I mention a fact of so little importance, at first sight it is because it caused me real regret a few days later.

      From San Pedro I had been informed that the American ship Franklin, Captain Bradshaw, suspected of having smuggled in the Gulf of Cortez, was in San

Diego in a sort of arrest; that is to say, that the Commander-General allowed him to follow the course of his commerce in California only under very uncomfortable restrictions: among other obligations imposed on Captain Bradshaw, he had been compelled to land in the Government stores a portion of goods, valued at thirteen thousand piastres (65,000 francs), to meet duties that he might have to pay subsequently.

      Everything, however, seemed to work out, when a vagabond, named William Sinson (I regret to say that he belonged to the same nation as the cruel Mayordomo of Santa Barbara), whom Captain Bradshaw had had the humanity to collect at his board, where he had fed and clothed him, presented himself to the General, and declared, under oath, that the Franklin had violated laws at Loreto and San Jose del Cabo, introducing into his denunciation many

true facts, or false that greatly compromised the captain.

      Things were there when we arrived at San Diego; but I was still ignorant of this last incident, when the General bought me the boat in question. I had no sooner learned that a garrison was on board the Franklin, and that precautions were taken to prevent it from leaving the harbor, that I felt how unhappy I was to have entered into a deal which could harm Captain Bradshaw by giving the General a means of transporting troops on board. That same night I went aboard the Franklin: I informed the captain of my position, and promised to use every means to delay the delivery of the boat.

      This affair went from bad to worse, and the discussion heated up to the point where they tried to seize the Captain, and were threatened to fire on him when he went away in his boat.

At last, when the General pretended to force him to disembark all his cargo, he resolved to leave the harbor, although he might arrive. On the night of the 10th, the Franklin changed anchorage, and came to sail near us; which put the entire presidium in a rumor.

      On the morning of the 11th, a troop of horsemen appeared opposite the Hero, and stopped near the tent where our carpenters were working. My men immediately hoisted the agreed signal to ask me to go ashore, I found the General himself surrounded by his staff. He told me that he wished me to give him the boat I had sold him, which he needed most urgently, without telling me what use he wanted to make of it. Well prepared for this request, I replied that I judged this boat useless for its service, because I did not think I could fill it with oars. "Try," said he, "to find them, you will render me an eminent service."

To avoid arousing his suspicions, I promised him to look for them; but, in my heart, I was quite determined not to find any before the Franklin's departure.

      When I was about to return on board, an aide-de-camp pulled me aside and tried to get use of one of my manned boats, to carry, he said, a letter aboard the Franklin. This attempt, whose true purpose I guessed, was still useless. "Tell the General," replied I, "that, in view of the position of this ship, I can not, without compromising myself with regard to my Government, and vis-à-vis that of the United States, grant him his request. If the General wants to use violence, he can, under his responsibility, seize my boats when they come to land; but I will not lend them to him in this circumstance." However, to avoid the temptation, I re-embarked and returned on board.

      After a few hours I wrote to him that my efforts had been useless; that I could not find oars for the boat, without stripping my other boats; and that, consequently, this one, without oars, could not be useful to him, I begged him to look at the sale as void. I thus gained part of the day, hoping, from one moment to the next, to see the Franklin sailing; he did not do it.

      The next day, early in the morning, I received a letter from the General, who urged me to deliver the boat, as it was, reminding me of the word given. There was no way of going back without compromising myself. So I had her driven to the beach; but as she was making water, (1), and she needed to be caulked, I had her

hauled on the beach while the tide was high, so that she stayed dry at a quite considerable distance from the sea.

      In the fort, however, four galley oars had been discovered, 50 feet long, which had been there since the arrival of the Spaniards. The carpenters of the Presidio endeavored to shorten them and reduce them to a suitable form; but while they were still uncertain whether they would cut them by the blade or the handle, Captain Bradshaw, who was well prepared, slipped his cable, spread his sails, and made his way out of the harbor, leaving officers and soldiers amazed, and unable to understand how a ship which, a minute before, seemed so fixed on its anchors, had so completely changed its situation in a glance.

      I could have told here by what ingenious maneuvers Captain Bradshaw had known his design for the attentive eyes of

the Mexican officers; how his sails, which seemed as tight on their yards as on a parade day, were suddenly unfurled, without any man seeming to put his hand on them, and by what means the ship who presented the bow towards the interior of the port, turned, like a man, on the opposite side; but I leave it to the profound Fenimore Cooper to render, with such endearing truth, those nautical scenes of which the painting belongs only to him, if it is not yet the author of the Negrier (1).

      The Franklin could not go out without going less than two hundred yards from the fort, a distance at which good gunners could have done him much harm. As soon as the garrison knew of her maneuver, she began a fire which lasted for the 20 minutes necessary for this ship, first to reach the most critical point, and then to get out of

range of the gun. Thirty-six or forty cannonballs shot at him during this interval caused him no other apparent damage than the fall of the flying-jib, whose halyard was cut off.(1) Captain Bradshaw was wrong on this occasion; it was to return fire with two balls in passing. Thus ended a discussion that spread the alarm throughout California.

      Towards the end of July, I received the response from Padre Prefecto who thanked me for my offers.

"I am resolved, he said to me, to abandon the flock that Heaven has confided to me only when violence is used to prevent it. I have made to God the sacrifice of myself, of my freedom and of my life, for the salvation of my soul: I would not like to take a step that was not directed towards this goal. I have written to"

"all my subordinates expressing my opinion and urging them to follow the same course of action. It would be something else if, instead of driving me out of here, I wanted to do something about the testimony of my conscience: what then happens to what Jesus told his disciples: If you are persecuted in one city, flee to another."

      This letter deprived me of all hope of having the Padres for a passenger; for I knew well that they would not act against the principles of their bishop or of him who fulfilled his functions. So I changed my plan, and, to employ the ship, I resolved to take to the Sandwich Islands as many horses as I could buy along with the number of water casks that I could obtain. I was informed that these animals had always sold well, and I had little to pay for their food. I immediately took the crew to cut hay in the neighborhood, and I asked

a trustworthy person to buy the horses, while the casks were being set up, and the carpenters were putting the finishing touches to the new boat.

      On the 25th, everything was ready for departure; the hay and the water were on board, the horses bought and ready to embark: I had settled my accounts with the General and with the Customs. We were preparing to say an eternal farewell to California, when an incident, which still forces me to return to M. R ...., our departure was delayed for a few days. It cost me a lot to leave behind the strong enough amount he had in his power, and although I was not responsible for this loss, it was not without regret and without hesitation that I saw myself obliged to leave California, without recovering it. However, I had no news of this inexplicable personage, who had passed much of the time fixed by himself for his return.

      I could believe him lost; but I rather attributed his tardiness to the carelessness and lightness of his character, which might have led him to change his plans. All that remained was a few goods, discarded from the cargo. The food I had obtained in Lima was consumed every day: having only a very small amount of biscuit, I had to buy flour in the Missions at a very high price in order to reach the Sandwich Islands where I was sure to get biscuit aboard the whaling ships who put in there. So I could not wait longer for Mr. R., let alone look for him in the season we were there. Thus, as I have seen, I had rejected all uncertainty when the Waverley appeared. Against my hope, Mr. R. was not on board. I learned from the Captain's report, and from the letters that he himself addressed to me, all that had happened to him since his departure from Monterey.

      My presumptions were verified. All the values he had brought were dilapidated, dissipated, as a result of his imprudent conduct and his incapacity. I congratulated myself for having made up my mind, and it only remained for me to follow my project, the only one appropriate to the circumstances and which was in the interests of the shipowners.

      The Waverley brought back the captain, the supercargo and the crew of the English ship Teigne-Mouth of Calcutta. The total loss of this vessel in the bay of San Jose del Cabo, for trying to take on a load of horses in the month of July, is a confirmation of what I said about the seasons of Lower California: a hurricane from the south-east surprised them at anchor, and the crew had saved themselves only miraculously from this dreadful catastrophe.

      The supercargo and the captain came on board and asked me for passage for them and their people to the Sandwich Islands. I had

no other objection to them other than the difficulty of obtaining additional water; but the supercargo having obtained some casks aboard the other ships, we agreed on the very moderate price of the passage; and on the 27th we definitively abandoned California, where we had spent nearly two years.

      The crossing offered nothing remarkable: on the seventeenth day we were sighted on the island of Wahu. We went to the south-east part of this island; it's the Pointe des Cocos. All this side seems at first arid, but as we approach it, we soon discover greenery and dwellings. The point advances in a pronounced manner in the Southeast; and then, the coast abruptly turning towards the West, forms a shallow bay, two leagues of circuit, terminated by the Diamond Hill. This low mountain is all the more remarkable, as it is isolated on the seashore, and shows itself

on a low ground, a league from the first elevations of the interior. Its shape, well circular, and truncated horizontally, is that of a volcano crater: there is no doubt that it originated in one of these fireplaces: there is on its summit a pond of sweet water, populated with excellent fish.

      To the west of Cocos Point, the island takes on a brighter aspect: mountains cut by deep valleys which are covered with forests in a permanent state of vegetation. As soon as we had passed the Diamond, we found ourselves in front of a magnificent forest of coconut-tree, whose broad leaves lent their shade to the pretty village of Witite, or rather Waytite (1), where we usually anchored before the establishment of the port of

Anaroura, located one league farther west. We continued another mile along the reef which borders the coast at a depth of eight or nine fathoms, and we cast anchor in eleven fathoms before the harbor, where we noticed several ships.

      It is rare that one can enter Anaroura in the middle of the day. The very narrow channel leading to it is a tortuous opening in the reef, two miles in length. If we do not have a favorable wind, which happens very rarely, we must wait for the calm of the morning to be towed by boats. This difficulty has consecrated to Anaroura a practice which is still connected with the fraternal alliance of sailors among themselves. The day a ship must enter the port, the boats of all those who are there are made available before sunrise at its disposal. The captain who would refuse this touching procedure would be shamed in the eyes of all the others. The port

of Anaroura is a winding canal, where eighty ships can be moored safely, on a muddy bottom that varies from three to six fathoms.

      When the ship was anchored, we made a salute of thirteen cannon shots which was immediately and exactly returned to us by the fort. I was then introduced to the young king Kaou-Keaouli or Taméha-Meha III. He was at the house of Regent Boki, seated, without further distinction, on a chair similar to that which was offered to me. He was simply dressed in white, with a yellow collar on his neck, made from the seeds of the pandanus. It was not even, as I thought at first, a distinctive mark, because many of the inhabitants, men and women, had similar ones.

      This young prince, then seventeen years of age, looked melancholy; he was of an interesting physiognomy. His face bore some marks of the ravages of smallpox. His

color was a brown chestnut. He spoke little and examined me for a long time. I had on board the portraits of the King, his brother and the Queen, who died in London in 1824: I had them offered by my interpreter. He accepted them, without showing at first a great sensation; It was only a few days after that, having made them wear it, he was struck with the perfect resemblance and the beauty of the execution. For several days these two pictures excited the sensibility of all the inhabitants, who, on that occasion, showed by real tears the attachment they bore to their sovereigns. Almost all the women had the two incisors of the upper jaw broken, a sign of mourning, used in these islands, on the death of the Monarch.

      The house where I found the young King was, as I have just said, that of Regent Boki. It had the same exterior appearance as all those that make up the city of Anaroura. The interior, similarly carpeted with mats,

differed only in European furniture, distributed in every corner of the apartment and mingled with those of the country. Nothing seemed to me more bizarre than to see a magnificent porcelain vase, of French manufacture, making the counterpart of a calabash, a work of nature; two beautiful twin beds, furnished with gauze curtains, with quilt mats; two beautiful mirrors with gilded frames, intended to reflect beauty, adorned with all the attractions of an elegant toilet, and returning only the image of a black skin, half-dressed with a dirty Tapa.

      Be that as it may, this house would have been clean and decent, if it had not been so full of chiefs and servants, lying on the mats and so close to one another, that one could not take a step there, without setting foot on someone; there was hardly a free space, enough for four to five people. The King, being only a child, the regent Boki was the most important person in the state;

he was always surrounded by the principal chiefs of the archipelago, some of whom lived at his expense.

      One would imagine, seeing them, that the authority is in direct proportion to the size; for the highest in power are also the heaviest in weight; and as they are generally tall, we only appeared to them pygmies. I have often asked the cause of this extreme obesity of the chiefs, and it has always been attributed to lack of exercise and abundance of food. This could be for something with regard to size; but why should they be bigger? There is reason to believe that they have another origin than the common people, and that they descend from conquerors of these islands, as the feudal lords of medieval France descended from the Frankish chiefs who invaded the lands of the Gauls; or like the Saxons, and later the Normans, who became, by

conquest, the privileged nobles of England. Tradition, mingled with fables, which forms the basis of the history of the Sandwich Islands, seems to indicate that they were conquered at a very remote period by foreigners of a race different from that of their original inhabitants. What can further support this conjecture is that they do not have the same figure character. The profile of most leaders, instead of offering a straight cut or even advanced like that of other natives, has a concave line, so that by applying a rule on the forehead and on the chin, it would barely touch However, I do not pretend to give as certain a fact so little noticed. For Kaou-Keaouli, he had a native appearance: he was afflicted at being skinny, and the fatness of others was for him a continual motive of jealousy.

      Among the chiefs and courtiers who surrounded the King and the Regent, and who encumbered

the house, some were dressed in the European manner, that is, they wore trousers and a white shirt; others were wrapped in a tapa, a piece of fabric made in the country with the bark of the mulberry paper; but most of them were naked, having around the body only a Maro, a web of cloth so narrow, that it is almost always insufficient for the use for which it is intended.

      Some women wore dresses and had combed hair in the manner of our ladies; but the most ordinary garment of the sex is a white shirt (I speak of color), broad and floating. Princess Boki having accompanied her husband to London, when he came with King Rio-Rio, has more taste than the others for the European costume, and she was also much better put than they. All retain a piece of their national adornment; it is a collar of feathers, usually red, green, and yellow, which they wear, sometimes around

the neck, and sometimes on the head, in the shape of a crown; this last way suits them perfectly.

      Nearly all travelers have been pleased to adorn the women of the various South Sea archipelagoes with all the charms of beauty. I can not speak of those of the Marquesas Islands and the Society Islands; but, if we must judge by the Sandwich islanders to whom they have lavished the same praises, I am obliged to say that they are far from the portrait they have drawn. However, it is impossible not to admit that they possess those natural graces which, without taking the place of fine and regular features, of a delicate and white complexion, at least have an almost irresistible attraction. All their movements are easy and rounded; all their attitudes have an enchanting abandon; but it is especially in their eyes that an indefinable seduction is met with.

      The freedom they enjoy makes them

foreign to pain and constraint: hence a state of constant peace manifested in all the habits of the body. If the thunderstorms of the heart are known to them, they can only be very far-fetched, because no obstacle accumulates them. Inconstancy is like the base of their manners, and they ignore the boredom which arises from a badly matched union. Willing to have fun of the slightest trifle, one sees on their lips only the smile, and their mouth never opens to pronounce a refusal. It is not surprising, then, that the stranger, who has found among them so easy a welcome, indulges in flattery, when it would only be to raise and embellish his conquests.

      A few days after our arrival, the young King having desired to see the Hero, we prepared for him a small snack, and he came there accompanied by the Regent and a numerous suite. Kaou-Kéaouli drank with pleasure a good liquor and ate our pastries eagerly. We

even noticed that he did not touch the poi (1) that he is always brought wherever he goes; he preferred our good bread. When he was in his boat he was greeted with thirteen cannon shots, a politeness of which he was very flattered. On his return to shore, his guard was waiting for him on the quay: it consisted of about twenty good-looking young men, simply dressed, but in a uniform manner: white trousers, blue jacket, round hat, rifle, bayonet and pouch.

      The house of the King is placed in the same enclosure as that of Boki; it is also of the same form and size; it is always a very high roof, supported on very low sides and inclined inwards. This form gives these mansions of wood and straw much more strength than if the sides

supporting the roof were perpendicular. The King has another house built according to the rules of our architecture; but he never inhabits it and prefers that of thatch. In fact, these types of housing are better suited to their habits. They like to lie on mats; they drop there in the first place where the desire comes from them, and thus spend the greater part of the day lying pell-mell on these rush-mats. It would not be the same in furnished apartments like ours, where they would need a sofa for each person. The young King does not even sleep in his great thatched house except during bad weather: when the night is fine, he lives in a little hut where one can only enter by crawling and barely big enough to hold four people sitting or lying down. His young court imitates his example; each raises his little cabin near his; and all together form a camp

around the main house, which serves him little more than furniture storage.

      The King and the Regent are not the only principal authorities of the Archipelago: a wife of the famous Tameha-Meha, Queen Kaou-Manou, exercises a great power, at least in fact, if not in law. She has her own court and coterie apart. She lives in the city during the winter, and spends the summer in a pretty valley, a league east of Anaroura. I went one day to see her, with the English consul, at her dwelling which was composed of two principal houses and several huts.

      We found her sitting on mats and leaning on cushions covered with silk. She showed a lot of interest, but she received us with dignity. She was a fifty-two-year-old woman, who seemed to have been very fat. Her health destroyed by well-known excesses had produced her premature old age, which gave her

little hope of a long life. So the party of the young King took patience, while waiting for the death of Kaou-Manou, who was supposed to be near, to deliver him from his feminine yoke. She was dressed in a gray silk dress and had a madras around her head, like our Creoles. Few important chiefs surrounded him, except Kaou-Noua, the colonel commanding the troops, who reached this eminent rank by his marriage with one of the Princesses; but women of the highest distinction were with her, all remarkable for their large size and excessive stoutness.

      I saw among them a twenty-year-old woman who was given the title of Princess. At this age she had reached such a degree of thickness that it would have been impossible for her to walk without help. She represented this enormous seal, the elephant seal, which its gravity makes it remain whole weeks in the

same place where its soft body lends itself by sinking into all the unevenness of the ground (1).

      These women and these chiefs have more than one relation with the amphibia to which I compare them: just as the seal, so heavy, so apathetic, on the rocks and the shores which it inhabits, is endowed, as soon as he finds himself in the water, a surprising suppleness and vivacity; thus these men and women, so heavy on their mats, are the most skilful and intrepid swimmers.

      We saw them often, lying flat on a board six feet long and fifteen inches wide, waiting, more than a mile off the village of Waytity, for the most formidable wave, so as to present feet, head turned towards the shore:

and, in this position, swimming with feet and hands to skilfully manage their board and hold it constantly in the front of the crest, to grow in this way, in a few minutes, with the speed from the arrow, to the land where the wave was coming to die. But if, seconded by an inconceivable address, they make this journey with so much speed, they need even more talent, if they want to start again; because then they have to overcome the velocity and violence of all the successive waves, and that is why we can judge if they are good swimmers. To overcome this obstacle, they have no other way than to dive through each wave that sweeps, to swim swiftly as soon as it has passed, and to repeat the same maneuver for the one which follows it, until at last reaching the last, they allow themselves again to sail to the shore. They also use the canoe at the same entertainment; but you must know how to drive it with

even greater dexterity, for the slightest stroke of paddle, given to the wrong, is enough to make it capsize. Besides, such an incident has no other effect than to give them to the jokes of their compatriots, whose hilarity, so easy to excite, is at its height.

      This amusement that women and men also know how to procure, could be regarded as the analogue of our roller coaster, if they did not have another much more similar one still. Above the town of Anaroura, about two hundred meters high, is an old crater of volcano, everywhere covered with a light earth and grass: it is a truncated cone whose section is concave, and that for this reason the English, no doubt in honor of a sweet habit, have called the Punchbowl. The last conqueror of the Sandwich Islands, Tameha-Meha, brought with him heavy canons, which are still hanging on the lava tips which

form the outline of the mountain, almost as the chamois on the projections of Mont-Blanc. The tyrant, suspicious and cunning, under the pretext of defending the entrance to the port, had thus built a citadel from which he could, in case of revolt, smash the inhabitants of the city.

      In the rainy season, when the ground was wet and fat, the amateurs of the exercise of which I want to speak, practiced, from the top to the bottom of the mountain, on its flank which is very fast, gutters in gutters which descended until to the plain; and, having settled down on a wooden sledge with their heads down, they let themselves slip into this position, with a velocity from which one can form an idea, considering that the slope of the channel is at least fifty-five degrees; also, when they arrived on the flat ground, they continued to slide for a long time and reached almost the city,

before having lost the impulse which the rapidity of their race had impressed them.

      I can not say, however, that I have witnessed this amusement, for it is forbidden today, and later on I will say the reason; but it was described to me by people who had no interest in deceiving me and who deserved all confidence. Besides, there is nothing more surprising than what was practiced, I believe, on Mont-Cenis, before the strong head of a man of genius had calculated paths and his powerful will would have made them executed. The Chileans still use the same means to descend the Cordillera of the Andes in winter, when it is covered with snow, with the difference that in the Alps, sleds were used, and that, on the Andes, they slip on the skin of a cow.

XX.

French Missionaries and American Missionaries. – Cruelty and despotism of these. – Travel to Way-Aroua. – Imposing scene. – Nightmare. – Hunting Excursions. – Utility of the Sandwich Islands for Browsers. – The guarantee that should be given to this Archipelago. – Desirable changes in their Government. – Culture.-Travel to Pearl River. – The High Priest. – The whalers. – The executioner. – The fur trade is almost zero today. – The causes. – Departure for Canton.

      In the early days of my arrival at Anaroura, I went to see the three French Missionaries whom the Comet had brought some time before. I found them

rather poorly lodged; but they seemed to support their situation with gaiety and courage. They told me all the difficulties they had had to be admitted, adding that it was only by a kind of fraud that they had been able to avoid re-embarkation, and that the captain, seconding in this respect their wishes had set sail when it was going to force him to take them back.

      When, before my departure from France, the Minister of the Navy told me about this Mission, I had foreseen that these gentlemen would not be received in the Sandwich Islands without strong opposition, and that their presence could harm the commercial operation. the captain who would take care of it. I knew that Protestant missionaries had been established there for several years, and enjoyed great favor with old Kaou-Manou; however, I did not yet know to what degree of credit they had arrived: they knew how to monopolize so much

the spirit of this woman, that she sees only by their eyes and acts only by their impulse. It was natural, then, to think that they would not see the missionaries of the Catholic faith without envy. This was the only reason which prevented me from acceding to the request made me by the Minister, to pass them on these islands. Prudence dictated a refusal, well justified, some time later, by the position of the captain who brought them to the island of Wahou; since, in order to avoid taking them back, he was obliged to return hastily under sail, without being able to engage in any commerce.

      In spite of the power of the protestant Missionaries and the efforts they made to prevent them from going ashore, and then to send them back on board, the religious indifference of Boki and some of the efforts of the English consul partly frustrated their plans: the precipitous departure of the Comet did the rest. From then on, they remained without much

attention, even carefully avoiding anything that might attract attention. When I visited them in their solitude, they devoted themselves tirelessly to the study of the language of the country, in order to be able later to deploy resources far superior to those of their rivals, poor artisans who know little more than to read the Bible, but have the advantage of being able to translate it to Islanders.

      It can not be denied, however, that these American Missionaries have contributed much to the civilization of this archipelago, as we understand this word; and if the pure Christian doctrine is not the basis of their instructions, they have at least made these people enjoy some of the benefits of Christianity by teaching them the morality of the Gospel. They were able to adapt to the Sandwich islander's language the alphabet or part of the English alphabet, and they managed to make them read and write their own idiom. They have a printing-house which serves them to transcribe into

the Sandwich Island's language the works which they think fit to put in their hands.

      This is all that can be said in favor of those propagators of Methodism; but the evils they have caused are above the good they have been able to do. It is indisputable that, since they gained in these islands a certain influence, cultivation has diminished by a third. What scourge can be more harmful and more destructive?

      Instead of starting to spread the benefits of education among a nascent generation, they wanted to bring the entire population into their schools: women and children, old people and adults, all were forced to attend their lessons, and spend the whole day there, leaving their fields fallow, and their plantations devoured by weeds. The loss of time and the abuse have been so great, that the irrigation canals have almost everywhere been obstructed; that the little ponds where the taro is

cultivated have dried up; and that the unfortunate ones, frightened at the sight of the work which they would need to put their fields in order, have abandoned them. We see large areas of land where remains of roads, already almost arrived at a level of ground, testify in an incontestable way that there were formerly cultivated fields.

      These Missionaries obtain all these sacrifices, by means of the Taboo, which is a law or perpetual or momentary, which the islanders rarely venture to transgress. By the influence of Kaou-Manou, they obtain from the King the Taboos for all their desires; they get it to build their churches, their houses, their fences, their walls, etc. On these occasions, the whole population is obliged to fulfill the prescribed task. Another Taboo fills the schools. These taboos favor of the Missionaries, while not preventing the King, the Queen, and the chiefs from using the same means for their own labors, it follows

that a great part of the year is expended in this manner. From there, the scarcity of food and the difficulty of feeding his family: hence the lack of desire to have children, and the noticeable decrease experienced by the population of this Archipelago. Before the Europeans brought with them the products of their industry, the chiefs especially, and the people in general, had fewer needs; the former required less chores, and the culture flourished. Only the cutting of Sandal wood occuping a quarter or a third of the population on behalf of the chiefs during the year.

      The Methodist propagators are also engaged as traders who know how to use their influence to make profits. They have small ships destined, they say, to communicate from one island to another, in the sole interest of what they call religion; but these steamers carry goods and come back laden with Sandal wood. They are much more

powerful in the other islands than in Wahou itself. One of these Missionaries willingly gave the title of King to Otowai. Several ships, having touched there in recent times to obtain refreshments and especially potatoes which were usually abundant, could not find a single bag: because the king, having noticed that when ships visited his island his business suffered a failure, had forbidden the cultivation of this root, so that it was no longer an attraction which would bring strangers to his house and give him dangerous competitors for its traffic.

      We have seen cruelties exerted by the American Missionaries, under the mask of religion, against islanders rebellious to their wills; cruelties, I say, at least comparable to those which have been alleged of the inquisitors of Spain and Portugal. They showed me a young woman of eighteen, whose

neck, body, and limbs were crisscrossed by scars marked on them. Her crime, I am told, was to have fled a husband whom the Methodists had given her. What an attack! for a poor Sandwich islander, who had never had any other idea about marriage than that of her father and mother, that is to say, to be faithful until she agreed to her not to be!

      But it seems that the Sandwich Islands are still only in the first period of this species of decay: those of the Society, submitted for a longer time to Methodism, have arrived, following the same system, zg a state of disrepair and of such abandonment, that they do not account for a third of the population they had at the time Cook visited them. When this great navigator arrived there, food was abundant, and the fields were in a state of prosperous cultivation, so that scarcely any firewood could be obtained:

today, the forests have taken the place of the gardens, and the woods have advanced to the edge of the sea. The inhabitants, reduced by two-thirds, no longer know happiness by tradition, flee and emigrate from all sides, seeking soil that feeds them and places where the American Missionaries did not reach.

      By calculating a little the probabilities, we are led to conclude that the moral means of our French Missionaries must at least compensate the material and interested means of their competitors. As soon as they are sufficiently versed in the Sandwich Island language to be able to deploy their oratorical resources, it will necessarily engage a fight between the apostles of the two religions. This time will undoubtedly be that of the death of Queen Kaou-Manou, protector of the Reformed. If, before this catastrophe, the Catholics know how to take advantage of the opposition of the two Courts, to obtain

the support of the young King, they will easily triumph over their rivals: otherwise, it might well happen that both of them are driven out. because their principles are also opposed to the mores and passions of the Court.

      One of Kaou-Keaouli's main grievances against the American Missionaries was that they opposed his marriage to his sister, whom he loved very much. This custom, which we repel, existed in the archipelago of the Sandwich Islands; but Kaou-Manou, doubting the power and influence of a young and beautiful queen, used the pretext of religion to disconcert this alliance; and, to make Kaou-Keaouli forget this desire, she separated the two young people, sending the Princess to the island of Mauwi where she was kept confined. It occirs on the Sandwich Islands as it almost always happenes in Europe, for minors. Those who were interested in preserving

authority sought to prolong the minority of the heir to the throne. They surrounded him with seductions and easy pleasures, so that in the midst of dissipation he would forget his destiny and the duties which his birth called him. They delayed, by all possible means, the moment of emancipation which was to take away their power. Too happy the people, when the corruption of the heart of the Monarch was not the result of these shameful maneuvers!

      Before closing this article on the Methodist Missionaries, I will say again that it is they who have prohibited the slides of the Punchbowl, innocent as they were. It would be necessary to applaud this measure, had it been brought by some grave accident, and had it been an effect of their humanity; but no, it is because the exterior and hypocritical principles which they profess are of very great rigidity. According to them, no entertainment can

be legitimate, because all the time that is not used at work, sleep or meals, must be devoted to prayer or meditation in the church. They have gone so far as to want to have bathing restrained, as necessary to the health of a Sandwich islander as his food or the air he breathes. It is thus that by refusing to the man any recreational exercise, one weakens his body, and that one impoverishes his spirit to better dominate it.

      I sold to Anaroura what was left of my goods, in exchange for sandalwood. The stowage of this wood on the ship is long and thorough, if you do not want to lose space. After having weighed the ship to the sixth of its tonnage, we begin to secure by the two ends; Slices of the same length are stacked up to the bridge, and each slice is then inserted into each slice, by forcefully pressing into it, by means of the mallet.

      While this operation was going on aboard the Hero, I accepted the offer made to me by the English consul to take a little trip to the north of the island, aboard a schooner which belonged to him, and which was about to acquire Sandalwood in a place called Wai-Aroua.

      We left at three o'clock in the afternoon, and, to double Cocos point and the eastern part of the island, we tacked until noon, than, being sufficiently windward, we reached to the north-west toward our destination.

      For some time, the chain of mountains that seems to cross the island from East to West, and which, on the side of Anaroura, lowers gently forming beautiful valleys, presented on the North side where we We found a steep wall serving as a barrier to a plain two or three leagues long, stretching from the edge of the sea to the foot of this severe escarpment. Soon the mountains, turning

abruptly towards the North, advance to the edge of the sea, leaving between them and the shore only a very small space, where a large number of huts are everywhere erected.

      We were less than a mile offshore, and we ranged the coast in dark and rainy weather. The sun, close to lying on the opposite side, left in the shade all the part which was offered to us. I do not believe that it is possible to imagine something more imposing than what struck our sight at the moment.

      These enormous masses, hanging over our heads, were composed of dreadful and immense precipices dominating each other, impenetrable forests raised in stages on other forests, obscure ravines whose depths were scarcely measured, slopes fast and slippery, bare and wet rocks, mixing their blackish color with the dark green of these old woods. High and noisy

waterfalls, after having traversed hundreds of fathoms, came down on the tops of the trees, where these torrents broke in foaming and met again to fall again, until some crack of the rock offered them a bed to lead them more gently to the sea. If we add that the progress of the vessel was changing for us, and constantly varying this scene, we may form an idea of such a spectacle; but you must have it in front of you; one must see these thick clouds, sometimes motionless above the forests, which they flood with their deluges, sometimes swirling with rapidity, ascending, descending perpendicularly, at the whim of the wind which, behind these mountains, whirls in a whirlwind; we must see them, in a continual form, moving, disappearing, and recovering themselves in a new form, as we advance, so as to feel all that this picture had for us, magical and mysterious.

      These mountains open from distance to distance, as if a powerful hand had pushed them away with effort, and narrow, well-populated valleys wind their tears. A large number of fishermen's canoes appeared near us: one of these light boats was called to have a pilot who indicated to us the port of Wai-Aroua (of the two streams). The fisherman showed it to us, a few miles ahead of us, and we were not long in penetrating it, through a fairly wide opening of the reef, where we found no less than four fathoms of water.

      It was almost dark when we went down to the ground where we were received by the village chief, who invited us to supper and sleep at his place. We brought some provisions from the edge, and we added a few bottles of wine to the excellent fish he offered us.

      Although the house where we were was very

large, it scarcely sufficed for the numerous guests who were there, for we were no less than forty persons, men and women, under this hospitable roof. We lay there, like the others, on mats; but it was not until well into the night that my companion, the English consul, and I, was able to get to sleep. In addition to the insects, flying, crawling or jumping, which tormented us, the Chief, after reciting, in the language of the country, a Christian prayer, held, with a few persons, a conversation so long, that, although I do not I did not understand a word; this eternal conference did not keep me awake for a long time.

      My sleep was not even calm: the imagination still filled with the grandiose and sublime scene of the mountains, I dreamed that, trying to flee a torrent that pursued me, I had taken refuge under the projection of a rock that was coming off and crumbled on me. I

awoke with a start, and at the same time I felt on my breast the two heels of a big Sandwich islander, my bed-boy, who was sleeping deeply in this position and who had been the cause of my nightmare. The day appeared; I took my gun, with the intention of killing some birds, while walking. I could not reach the foot of the mountains: all the ground was cut by a labyrinth of taro fields, separated by slippery paths, covered with a tall and wet grass, on which it was very difficult to walk, without falling in these species of muddy ponds. I killed only a few plovers and a duck, and returned to the harbor. Our little schooner was loaded early, and in the evening we set sail again to return to Anaroura.

      During our stay in the Sandwich Islands, I often went with Dr. Botta, in the mountains and in the valleys of the neighborhood, in the hope of obtaining some pretty birds.

The species are few, and the forests so impenetrable, that it was only by dint of perseverance, that we could procure some of them. We were particularly looking for a pretty frugivore whose shape is quite singular and whose colors are very lively. This bird, the size of a sparrow, has the tail and the edge of black wings; all the rest is of the most beautiful red, sometimes mixed with a little yellow towards the underside of the neck, at the origin of the mandibles. The most remarkable part of the animal is its beak, a pale red, ten lines long, very sharp and strongly curved in all its extent. The natives call this bird I-i-vi. We also killed another of the same kind, smaller and longer; the beak is of the same structure, but it is not proportionally so long. The plumage, mixed with black, blue and red, produces a generally violet hue.

      We met a third of the same kind, but the size of a blackbird, whose plumage is all black, with the exception of a few yellow feathers on the flanks. The Sandwich islanders make much of these yellow feathers, which, with the red of the I-i-vi, serve them to compose very beautiful coats. These are the only remarkable species found in the woods; we can still see tits whose plumage is more or less mixed with gray, yellow and green.

      In the plains there were only owls and plovers; still these are there only passing.

      On the fresh waters we saw only a small species of duck and rails.

      On the shore of the sea we found a little gray heron, curlews, larks, magpies, and a godwit with a flattened bill and long stilt-like legs. It's the only place in the

whole trip where we did not see any gulls.

      If, in the reign of the animals of the Sandwich Islands, the birds are only in small numbers, the native quadrupeds are still much rarer: except the pig, the rat and the mouse, I do not know any other which does not have its origin to other countries: such are the horses, the cows, the goats, the sheep, the donkeys and the dogs. It is said that there are neither serpents nor snakes in these islands.

      The Sandwich Islands, of which there are seven principal ones, the most fertile of which is Wahou, are a place which must now be the attention of all the nations which have a navy and a maritime trade. They seem to have been destined, by Providence, to become a general warehouse between Asia and America, a place of rest and refreshment for seamen, after long and perilous navigations; and finally, a refuge for the ships

that need repairs, in order to continue their voyage.

      Their population, it is said, amounted to two hundred thousand souls at the time of the discovery; I do not believe that it now reaches a figure greater than one hundred and fifty thousand, including foreigners. The city of Anaroura, in the south of Wahu, contains, I am told, six thousand inhabitants; it is the most important place of the Archipelago. With the exception of a few two-storey houses, built of wood and stone by foreigners, it consists of thatched huts, more or less large, whose roofs are very high, to give it more slope. The frame is made of trunks of young trees, perfectly joined together, without the help of nails. They are all surrounded by fences, of rather unequal lengths, but always forming squares or parallelograms.

      The sweetness of character of the Sandwich islanders

makes them loved by all who frequent them, and their intelligence makes them fit for anything. They are especially suitable for navigation. I do not exaggerate by saying that these islands possess at least eight hundred excellent sailors. On English and American whaling ships they are taken on to replace their dead and deserters. The ships that are engaged in the fur trade on the Northwest Coast complete their crews; and what is remarkable is that these men, born under the torrid zone, support the temperature of this icy coast more easily perhaps than the sailors of Boston. The King's ships, seven in number, have whites on board only as captains and the officers; all the rest are Sandwich islanders.

      It is in the presence of the commander of the fort that the native sailors engage with the foreigners and that the wages are fixed. The captain declares under oath that he will bring them back to their country; and on his return he pays

for them to the same Commander, who withholds a part of their pay for the Government.

      But, in order that these islands might be a permanent resource for all the maritime nations, their independence should first of all be assured by a treaty or convention between all the States interested in its maintenance, and that the same treaty establishes forever the neutrality of the ports of this archipelago, in time of war. We are no longer in the time when we seized, without scruple and without respect for property, all the countries we discovered. Such an act would excite today the indignation of the whole Christian and civilized world.

      Nevertheless, in spite of the empire of sound philosophy, and of the liberal ideas so generally diffused, three formidable powers have attempted successively, if not to seize it, at least to create an effective suzerainty.

      One of them, Russia, even did more,

a few years ago; and, without the firmness of Tameha-Meha, perhaps the world would have had to deplore a great violation of the law of nations. Perhaps the ideas I profess and which are in accordance with the opinion of the whole world, are the only bulwark that guarantees the Sandwich Islands a second invasion by this power.

      The Americans have resorted to milder ways. They have, as we have seen, sent and support Missionaries who, under the pretext of religion, pursue, it is said, a more worldly and more political goal; and if a better understanding had reigned between these personages and the consuls of the United States, they would be well advanced in their designs. Fortunately for the islanders, these ridiculous apostles of the Methodist sect do not wish to share their influence with anyone; and, instead of having united in interest with the consuls, they paralyze each other's means and

do the most harm they can. This rivalry has existed since there were American Missionaries and Consuls in the Sandwich Islands. The animosity is pushed so far that, during my stay, the diplomat, far from wanting to turn his children into Catholics, had one of them baptized by the French Missionaries, with the sole view of mortifying those of his country.

      On the other hand, England has declared herself protective of the Sandwich Islands; and it was not necessary that Napoleon should have taken the title of Protector of the Confederation of the Rhine, to know what the words Protector, Protectorate, Protection signify in politics. You even hear sometimes, British subjects, slip into the conversation a few sentences, of an alleged donation made by Tameha-Meha to the King of England, represented by Captain Vancouver. It is possible that this learned navigator was in good faith convinced that the Sandwich islanders had conceded to him, as he

says, the island of Owayi; but these two men could only be understood by means of very bad interpreters; and it is very doubtful that Tameha-Meha, who had sacrificed everything to attain the sovereignty of the whole archipelago, has abandoned the greater part of it to a man whom, in his shrunken ideas, he must regard as an adventurer.

      Be that as it may, England has hitherto been liberal in her relations with the Sandwich Islands, and her consul, Mr. Richard Charleton, must be held to have the right to declare that no one, better than he, knows how to combine what he owes to his country with a philantropy worthy of praise. Any foreigner, of any nation, is sure to find at his home protection and welcome.

      It would be desirable, therefore, for each maritime power to renounce in good faith any subsequent domination. After that, we would see without envy and even with pleasure that England,

who knows how to improve so well, was busy with the prosperity of the Sandwich Islands. A beautiful population, a delicious climate, a vast ground and a fertile ground in the highest degree, are elements that can realize all the dreams of happiness, if we could make it adopt better laws, and I believe that it would not be impossible. I am not talking here about a criminal code or one of administration: it's about the fundamental law.

      Change would be reduced to making, from the present feudal government, a purely monarchical government. This revolution would not be too abrupt and would suffice for a long time. The King alone would lose something. The Chiefs would become a nobility, privileged in some respects, the chief of which would be a more advantageous part in the distribution of lands. The soil, which up to this moment belonga only to the King, would be distributed, with all property, among all the inhabitants,

under the condition of a property tax. The hereditary succession would be established, and each one would be free to sell his property, without, however, being able to sell it to foreigners. The abolition of the corvée would be a consequence of this revolution.

      By this means, each inhabitant no longer looking at himself as the precarious farmer of a piece of land, would feel himself animated by new hope by fertilizing his property for himself and for his descendants. Culture would resume a new growth. Everyone being free to dispose of his products, the market would furnish himself better than today, and the foreigners, attracted by the abundance, would offer him an easy market for their commodities.

      These ideas inspired by the desire for the welfare of a good people would probably need to be elaborated by a better legislator; but, in admitting my insufficiency, I persist in believing that this revolution, which would be

sensible for the great majority, only in its happy results, and which, irrevocably assuring the rights of the chiefs, would really give them more than it would have taken from them. I think, I would say, if England wanted to provoke it, she would succeed.

      When the Sandwich Islands were visited and not discovered by Cook, he found the plains and valleys cultivated as they are today, and even much better; and if this people, misled by idolatry, had not then offered human victims to their imaginary gods, it would not have been possible, without injustice, to class it among the savage nations; an agricultural population must not deserve this name; for if the Sandwich islanders then showed barbarous dispositions towards some navigators, it is necessary to make the part of the mistrust which they had to give birth to strangers who came to speak to them in masters, and whose conduct justified all too often the resentment of the

Islanders. Did not Cook himself ever do anything that could provoke their revenge?

      Their main crop was, as nowadays, that of taro, a plant with broad leaves, whose bulbous root grows in water and produces a mealy tuber, very substantial and of a pleasant taste. It is eaten in two ways; simply boiled like yam, or reduced to a mucilaginous paste, which is eaten with the fingers to which it attaches itself. Taro comes only in ponds where the water is continually maintained by canals. These fields, separated by narrow paths, rise amphitheatrically one above the other, and the water which has watered one, then flows into that which is below. Almost all of these ponds are also used as reservoirs where farmers grow young mullets that grow very quickly and are delicious. It's the best fish you can buy,

but it's almost always reserved for the Chiefs.

      Towards the end of October, I took advantage of the same schooner that had taken me to Way-Aroua to visit a village called Pearl-River, located west of Anaroura. I went on board with Mr. Charleton again, and we left the harbor with a strong north-east breeze. We had with us the former High Priest of the island who, at the time of Tameha-Meha, had all the confidence of this Prince and enjoyed a credit which has almost been extinguished since the arrival of the Missionaries. Nevertheless, he still retains a great deal of consideration among his fellow-citizens, and they never give him any other title than that of King, which had been conferred on him by Tameha-Meha. We are told that he was a man of high probity and great means; but we could scarcely judge, for he was so drunk the whole time that he remained with us, that, had he had a hundred times more wit and

reason, neither one nor the other would have could withstand the many attacks he had made all day. This priest can no longer live on his abandoned altar; he had come to the port to obtain some presents from Boki, and the latter, more politically than generously, and to close his mouth at Chalchas, had given him eight hundred piastres. He had converted this sum into stuffs and strong liquors, and I think that, when he returned home, he should have had very little of all these provisions, for he had distributed some of them to his numerous suite and drank them with others during the trip. Thus ended one of those periodic visits of the High Priest, always embarrassing for the Chiefs to whom he might reproach himself for having abandoned the religion of their fathers, and who have always to fear an uprising in favor of the worship of idols.

      At the end of an hour and a half of navigation, we found ourselves opposite Pearl River,

and there we passed by a broad opening of the reef where there is only eight to nine feet of water. This lack of depth prevents us from making use of a place that would otherwise be one of the most beautiful ports in the universe. Hardly past this shallow point, one finds oneself in a channel a mile in width, where everywhere one finds ten to twenty fathoms of water. Our schooner was to take on a load of salt from in front of a small village near the entrance; but the High Priest having desired that he should be brought nearer to his dwelling, we did not stop there, and continued to ascend the port, which widened still further and divided into several branches, all as wide and as sound as the one we followed. One is heading north-east, another west-north-west, and the one we're navigating to, to the northwest. The land where these channels wind are low and plain, and on the edges, they are cut like steep docks.

      We advanced thus, nearly three leagues, into the interior; and having disembarked the Priest, his suite, and his baggage, we returned to anchor near the village at the entrance. We went ashore with an indigenous interpreter named Tupia, who accompanied me on all my excursions. We entered the house of the Chief, whom we found sitting near his wife, in a very clean cabin, of which they alone occupied almost half. To judge by their size and their weight, they must have been very noble. These good people received us as friends from childhood, and neglected nothing to make us have a good supper; and indeed, we were soon served an excellent meal, and especially this delicious mullet that could be called domestic fish, cooked with such perfection, that when removed from the banana leaves where it had been parboiled, he had scarcely received a slight alteration in its form and color.

      We spent the night in this little house, men and women, stretched pell-mell, as in the golden age, on mats. The next morning, we went to see the saline that make the wealth of this village. We admired the cleanliness and skill with which salt is made there. The water of the sea, which arrives by pretty channels to spread in the various squares where it crystallizes, has the limpidity and the transparency of the diamond; and the salt that forms in it compares with the snow for whiteness; it could only be harmed by refining it.

      After lunch, which was as succulent as the dinner of the day before, we let the schooner take her load, and being transported to the other side of the port, we made our return to Anaroura, on foot, hunting, as we had planned. We only killed a few plovers, the only winged inhabitants on the plains of white coral, partly

covered with grass, which we had to cross. We dined at the village of Mawona-Aroua (Double mountain), which occupies, a league northwest of Anaroura, a pretty valley, shaded by a large grove of coconut palms, and we arrived early in the town.

      The months of October and November are when the British and American whaling ships, who have spent the summer on the coast of Japan, come to the Sandwich Islands to refresh their crews and to prepare their ships sor sea, either to return home, if their fishing is over, or to continue, if they are not fully loaded. A great number of them belonged to these two nations.

      We can not help but notice a great difference between the two. The Americans do not use ships over four hundred tons for this fishery. They all arrive in a state of uncleanliness and

decay that suggests little order and care. The English, with much larger vessels and more difficult maintenance, because they are almost all old renovated warships, on the contrary appear in a pleasing aspect of neatness and order. We have seen American whalers stay a week in the port without loosing their wet sails to dry, and others leave them for several days flapping in the wind, without tightening them. The oil casks in the English ships are stowed as they fill up, and they are not touched until they arrive in England. The Americans are obliged to mount them at least once on deck to reseal them; without this precaution, they would lose half of their cargo. It is because the former have perfected their casks, and the shipowners of Boston and Nantuket follow old practices which they do not want to change.

      But if I agree that the English whalers show more taste and capacity in the keeping of their ships, once arrived at the Sandwich Islands, all compete in their disposition to debauchery. English or Americans, officers or sailors, all have the same manners. As soon as they put their foot on the ground, one sees in the streets only drunken men; we only hear quarrels and disputes. It's a show for the Sandwich islanders: you see them running screaming to the places where Yankis and John Bull exercise their differences. Captains, often more drunk than their seamen, intervene; they want to send them back on board; these resist; captains strike; sometimes the sailors fight back; all are screaming at once; God Damn and Damnation are shouted; kicks and punches are thrown; Black Eyes shine like of lightning. It is only well into the night that this storm subsides and

starts again the next day. Few of these ships make their journey without mutiny or revolt; but there is every reason to believe that if the captains and officers were more sober, the sailors would be more submissive and more peaceful. Every day the English Consul was obliged to punish them by flogging.

      In general, and with very few exceptions, the foreigners who are established in the Sandwich Islands are the dregs of all nations: they have brought all vices to it. There are always many around the young King who corrupt him and give him bad advice. Among them are several who escaped from Botany-Bay who had been punished in England. The Consul knows this well, but he has no way of opposing this order of things. However, for the honor of his country, he should not suffer that the flogger was one of his compatriots.

      The time that brings to this archipelago the

English and American whaling vessels is also reminiscent of those who are in the fur trade on the northwest coast, and whose winter shores are decided by little. Four arrived in the month of October, which had absolutely missed their operation. One of them, the Louisa, of Boston, had remained there one winter and two summers, and had been able to procure there only eight hundred beaver skins and one hundred and twenty otter skins: again they had him they cost eight times what they were worth ten years ago. It seems that this trade, formerly so productive, is entirely lost. The natives disgust themselves with their relations with the whites. Always at war with each other, they have become wilder and more intractable than ever: they no longer fish for the otter only for their needs. In the years 1827 and 1828, the traffic of ten ships had not furnished half of the otter skins that only one could buy in three months; and those

they had obtained, they had paid four or five times more. Also, all those who returned to the Sandwich Islands during my stay in Anaroura, were obliged to sell at auction all that remained to them of their trading objects. I had myself been led to use the same means to get rid of three hundred rifles. They were pushed into public sale at a price of five reals apiece (about 8 francs, 60 cents); but the captain of the Louisa, a month later, found only seven reals (4 francs 55 centimes.) The bad quality of these arms, drawn from Liege, the great quantity which they brought, and the Annihilation of trade on the North West Coast of America, are the causes of the depreciation of this article (1).

      The ill-will of the Indians on the

North-West Coast of America was so grave that the Russians could no longer resist their attacks without increasing the garrison of their Sitka establishment, that they abandoned it. Captain Muke, coming back from this colony, told me that when he left they were determined to transfer him to the island of Kodiak and burn everything they could not carry.

      The inhabitants of these coasts have always been described as very ferocious by the navigators who have frequented them; however, by means of some precautions, one could deal with them. There were even tribes where one found the most frank and friendly dispositions. The chiefs were usually true to their word. Where does it come from, that they have become so insociable today? Will it still be necessary to accuse the conduct of the captains who have been there for some years?

It is with embarrassment that I

pronounce for the affirmative. Far from recognizing and encouraging among the natives this good faith, so precious especially in the business of commerce, the navigators of whom I speak were the first to give them the example of infidelity. They have sought, by all sorts of tricks, to deceive them, sometimes on the quantity, sometimes on the quality of the objects of exchange; they sometimes went so far as to use violence to seize their furs; lastly, they did not omit anything that could exasperate the natives; and the fatal word retaliates, once written on the front of their canoes, as on the star-studded flag of the Union, the reign of confidence endured for ever.

      The whaling and trading vessels of the Northwest Coast were not the only ones who relaxed at the Sandwich Islands during our stay: vessels of various nations passed through all parts of the western coast of America, in China, in Manila, and in the other ports of the Indies.

A few days before our arrival, the corvette of S. M., la Bayonnaise, commanded by Mr. Le Gouaran Tromelin, left to visit the island of Vanikoro, where recently evidence was discovered of the loss of Mr. de Laperouse. This corvette, by its good behavior and the decent conduct of its crew, had left in the minds of the Sandwich islanders a high opinion of the French navy: they did not refrain from the praises they bestowed on the commander and the officers. These reports, which flattered me as a Frenchman, were particularly agreeable to me as a friend of many of these gentlemen.

      At the beginning of November the ship was loaded and we were ready to sail for Canton. I did not wish to leave Anaroura, without being fixed on the pretended powers which M. R .... had arrogated to me; and, for my responsibility, I begged the English and American Consuls to be present at the explanation I

wanted to have with Regent Boki, to whom I asked for a conference on this subject. A Spaniard, named Marini, who had been established in this country for a number of years, was also a Government interpreter. It is useless to relate all that I learned in this assembly; it will suffice to know that M. R, acting in the name of this Government, had played the part of a knight of industry and an intriguer. I obtained the written proofs of his bad faith, signed by the Regent, the Consuls of England and the United States, and the Interpreter.

      On the morning of the 15th, the ship was ready for sea. The King wished to accompany us to the harbor. When we unfurled the sails, all the ships of the port, as well as those of the Government, saluted us with all their cannon, and we answered them with seven carronades. Once outside the pass, Kaou-Keaouli bade us goodbye, and we immediately took to the open sea.

NOTES:

      Duhaut-cilly's two volume work from the mid-1830's has not been completely translated into English. The two chapters presented here were translated using the Google Translate utility. In some cases the result has been altered for improved readablity by the editor.

AUGUST DUHAUT-CILLY,
1790-1849

Note:

The following biography of Auguste Bernard Duhaut-cilly is largely a Google Translation from a French work from mid-nineteenth century. A shorter account of the life of Duhaut-Cilly may be found at the French Wikipedia site:

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auguste_Duhaut-Cilly

Auguste Bernard-Duhautcilly.^*

      Bernard-Duhautcilly (Auguste) was born in Saint-Malo on March 26, 1790. Like his other brothers, he was destined to embrace the career of the Navy, and on February 25, 1807, he embarked as a volunteer on the privateer the Revenant, commanded by the famous captain Surcouf, who went to the Ile-de-France. In various engagements which took place during this first campaign, he manifested a bravery of which Surcouf was pleased to tell the interesting features. Surcouf having made a second campaign in the Bay of Bengal, left the Revenant and entrusted it to his second captain, Joseph Potier. This last cruise was signaled by the capture of the Portuguese vessel of 64, the Conceçdo. The young Duhautcilly distinguished himself by his bravery and deserved praise from Captain Potier.

      He embarked in 1808 aboard the Young Henry, Captain Perrot; he was a sign. The privateer found himself on the harbor of Aden, where he had to support a fierce fight against Arab ships; Auguste showed an admirable coolness. Perrot retired with honor from this meeting and captured one of these enemy ships.

      In 1809 he undertook as a lieutenant a voyage to Batavia, on the Venus, an adventurer ship, Captain Lavaux. On her return and when she reached anchorage, the ship was caught by the boats of the British frigate Boadieea, which was blockading the French colony. Promptly exchanged with his companions, he re-embarked second captain on the ship Y Hirondelle; but here again, fatality caused him to fall in the midst of an English division stationed around Bourbon Island, recently conquered by the enemy. His captivity was short-lived, and he was returned to the government of Ile-de-France.

      General Decaen admitted him as a second class aspirant and sent him under the command of Captain Ripaud de Montaudevert, captain of an imperial flute who had taken refuge at Mahébourg in the Grand-Port.

      On the night of August 14-15, 1810, the enemy frigates having surprised the few soldiers who garrisoned on the island La Passe, seized the fort and became masters of the vast bay which he defended the entrance. One of the frigates came to anchor within and safe from the fortress. Once possessors of the entry, the English sent every day a hundred armed men to worry our settlements, defenseless in this part of the island; the sailors of the flute were armed and joined by detachments of the frigates anchored at the port Napoleon, to which some inhabitants had gathered. Duhautcilly had occasion to distinguish himself in several meetings.

      The division of Major Duperré forced the pass and cast anchor before Mahebourg. Duhautcilly the aspirant received several missions from General Decaen, who came to establish his headquarters in the presence of the field of battle; he always acquitted himself with intelligence and bravery.

      Captain Ripaud de Montaudevert having been obliged to sink his flute, the staff and the crew were distributed, after the memorable battle of the Grand-Port, on the buildings of the division. Duhautcilly embarked on the conquered frigate Nereide, commanded by the second of the Minerva, M. Roussin.

      The victorious frigates and their catch had returned to the port Napoleon, working to repair their damage, when the first days of December the English naval army and a formidable convoy were reported: a line was formed embossing French frigates, and the Officers and sailors not employed on board, formed landing companies to oppose the 28,000 men the English sent against the colony.

      General Decaen capitulated and our aspirant embarked on December 11, 1810, on the parliamentarian Lord Castlereagh, who brought back the division chief Duperré and one of his brothers, officer of the commander.

      In 1812, on November 2nd, he was embarked on the frigate YAréthuse, Captain Pierre Bouvet; this officer had the frigate Rubis, Captain Ollivier, under his command. The small division sailed from the mouths of the Loire, on November 26, for a cruise in the ocean. She released to the Delos Islands, on the African coast, to refuel. After making a few catches, the frigates were attacked by a terrible gale of wind, which caused the rupture of their cables and pushed them on the reefs whose coast is dotted. The Rubis was lost. Thanks to the skill of Captain Bouvet's maneuver, the Arethusa was left to have her rudder disassembled and the frigate was able to return to the open sea.

      The English frigate Amelia, captain of Herby, was wet in the ground of a group of islands which hid her from the French division; all the time that the two frigates remained in the vicinity, she was careful not to show herself. But as soon as she heard of the event that happened to our frigates, she sailed to take over the crews of the frigates. As she was leaving her retreat, Arethusa was finishing up her rudder. The brave Captain Bouvet, far from waiting for him, sailed to join her and to engage in a murderous combat, because the crew of this frigate was reinforced by the crew of a brig of war of 20 guns which the Aréthuse had forced to run aground and get burned.

      Bouvet was victorious, and Herby took advantage of the superiority of his frigate to escape Arethusa. Mr. Duhautcilly gave a brilliant description of this fight in the newspaper La Vigie of 1839.

      Returning to Saint-Malo, the frigate l'Aréthuse passed under the command of the division head Le Bozec, and, meeting the frigate Illirienne, Captain Dubuisson, undertook a new cruise, during which they learned the peace treaty. So, they made their return to Brest. Here finishes the military career of the 1st class candidate Auguste Duhautcilly. He learned with regret that, presented by his former chief to obtain the cross of the Legion of Honor, Minister Decres had not wanted to reward the value deployed by the aspirants of the Arethuse.

      Withdrew by his own desire for service, he ordered successively several commercial buildings and went to all parts of the world to show the flag of France. Finally, in 1826, he commanded the Hero, intended for a circonvallation navigation. During this perilous voyage, Captain Duhautcilly took rank among the famous navigators who made the tour of the world. He described his discoveries in a two-volume work that was very popular and is often quoted by our scholars.

      His health having suffered considerably, he quit the maritime career altogether and returned to civilian life.

      He settled at Saint-Servan, where the esteem of his fellow citizens soon led him to take part in the municipal administration. His great experience of business, his aptitude for work and a zeal supported by an unlimited devotion to the interests of his adopted city, made him accept the functions of mayor of this city, which he was indebted to a crowd of improvements that earned him the esteem of his constituents. However, yielding to very honorable susceptibilities, after several years of his duties as chief magistrate, he thought it his duty to resign them, preserving the position of municipal councilor until his death. Finally, regretted and honored by his fellow citizens, he gave the last sigh on October 26, 1849.

      In 1830 the July government repaired the injustice done to him by Minister Decres: M. Duhautcilly received the cross which he had so well deserved.

Duhaut-cilly, Auguste Barnard.
      Voyage Autour du Monde, principalement A la Californie et aux Iles Sandwich, pendant les années 1826, 1827, 1828, et 1829;
Par A. Duhaut-Cilly, Capitaine au Long-Cours, Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur, Membre de l'Académie d'Industrie Manufacturière, Agricole et Commerciale de Paris.
Tome Second.
Paris, Chez Arthus Bertrand, Libraire, rue Hautefeuille, 25;
Saint-Servan, Chez D. Lemarchand, Libraire.
1835.
pp. 241-325.

      These chapters from Volume 2 are found in the volume available at the Internet Archive, and Google Books.

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