Page:Narrative of a Voyage around the World - 1843.djvu/111

 1837.] Our object in coming hither was to embark bullocks, which, we were assured, were better and cheaper than at Oahu; and we were fully repaid for the trouble; we obtained noble animals, and meat as fine as in England.

During our detention, the survey of the bay was completed. At four, on the 27th, we took our departure for the north, taking leave of civilized society for some months. Hanalae, besides beef and vegetables of the finest quality, furnishes fruits, poultry, turkeys, &c., cheap and in abundance. Water can be filled in the boats, by sending them into the river.

I shall now return to Oahu, and compare it with what we left it in 1827, just ten years before. On the first glance I thought it had retrograded.

The appearance of the natives was miserable and dirty; their features apparently coarser, and that brightness of eye and independence of carriage which freedom alone can exhibit, were decidedly wanting. The habit of frequent bathing, which constituted half their original existence, is entirely exploded, and not one good trait or feature by which former navigators have described them can be traced!

The substitution of the mud brick, or adobe of the continent, for their former neat wooden paling, gives the town a most gloomy aspect, and adds a dirty cast, independent of the actual nuisance arising from the clouds of dust which dry weather and strong sea breezes bring to your house, resulting from the constant destruction of the adobes.