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Page 302
Chapter XX
On the tenth of November, before the sun had fairly driven the idlers from the coverts of the frigate, we had made the land, and the ship was beautifully coming to the outside of the coral reef, which bound the segment of water called Honolulu harbour.
Before us, where
the village stood, an alluvial plain stretched eastward, along the reefs,
about five miles, to the far-jutting volcanic peak of Diamondpoint.
It was bounded
closely in the rear, by bold volcanic bluffs or ridges — including Punch
Bowl surmounted with guns — and lashed in front, by the rolling, roaring,
tumbling surf, that scarcely admitted a vessel's passage to the little
inlocked bay.
The village, extending about a mile in length, and half a mile deep, appeared in general like a field of hay-stacks under a grove of cocoa palms excepting the little cluster near the kind's fort where the foreigners had placed a seamen's chapel, with a steeple, and a few whitewashed stores ...
Page 303
(Honolulu, November)
... and houses.
The fort in front,
was the most conspicuous object, and appeared by the reports from its saluting
guns, to be about three miles from the outer reef, where we were.
Between us and
the fort lay twenty or thirty vessels, which were mostly American whalers,
and a pretty barque mounting fourteen guns, which belonged to the king.
The John Adams came to anchor near us, before noon of the very day that we anchored; and the next morning she was towed beautifully through the narrow channel between the breakers, by twenty or thirty native canoes; while we in the bigger ship, were obliged to rest content with our distant berth.
The natives came
out to us in swarms — some in rags, some in bags, and some in no dress
at all — paddling swiftly their light canoes, which were constructed with
outriggers like those of the Singalese and Malays.
We were not a
little surprised to see no women in the boats that came, nor any swimming
about the ship as in former days; but, many of the blooming miads of the
island were seen in Nature's unconstrained beauty, afar out among the breakers,
joyously sporting upon their surf boards.
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Around the world: a narrative of a voyage in the East India Squadron under Commodore George C. Read Volume 2 Charles S. Francis, 252 Broadway, New York. Joseph H. Francis, 128 Washington, Street Boston, 1840 |
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