Here
and there Chinese women loafed about, wearing trousers of a kind of
black oilcloth, and leading Chinese babies dressed in more colors than
Joseph's coat--grass-green, black, azure, and rose. In the background
several army wagons were filled with officers in uniform and with
white-clad American women.
We schoolteachers lost no time when the boat was once tied up at the
dock, for it was given out that some trifling repairs were to be made
to the boat's engines and that we should sail the next day. We sailed,
in point of fact, just ten days later, for the engines had to be taken
down to be repaired. As the notice of departure within twenty-four
hours was pasted up every day afresh, it held our enthusiasm for
sight-seeing at a feverish pitch.
CHAPTER III
Our Ten Days' Sightseeing
The Fish Market--We Are Treated to Poi--We Visit the Stores--Hawaiian
Curiosities--The Southern Cross--Our Trip to the Dreadful Pali--The
Rescue--The Flowers and Trees of Honolulu--The Mango Tree and Its
Fruit.
My first impressions of Honolulu were disappointing. I had been, in my
childhood, a fascinated peruser of Mark Twain's "Roughing It," and his
picture of Honolulu--or rather my picture formed from his description
of it--demanded something novel in foliage and architecture, and
a great acreage of tropical vegetation. What we really found was
a modern American city with straight streets, close-clipped lawns,
and frame houses of various styles of architecture leaning chiefly
to the gingerbread, and with a business centre very much like that
of a Western town.
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