Page:Twenty years before the mast - Charles Erskine, 1896.djvu/233

 Seaman’s Friends’ Society, taken down and shipped to this port in 1826 or 1828. It was in this bethel that Father Damon preached so many years.

The third day we were on shore anybody would have known to be Sunday, because it was so quiet. It was impossible to get a native to play a game, neither could  any of them be hired to do anything. In the forenoon, about a hundred of us went to the Seaman’s Bethel to  hear the pastor, Rev. Mr. Diell, preach. In the afternoon we listened to a missionary by the name of Bingham, who preached to the natives in their own language.

We passed our time on shore very pleasantly, in the sailors’ boarding-houses kept by "Yankee Jim" and "Old  Smith," and in visiting the distant villages, Diamond Hill,  the Punch Bowl, the Plains of Waikiki, and the Valley of  Nuuanu. It was rare sport for us to frolic in the surf with the natives, join with them in their dances, slide  down hill with them on the holna (a kind of sled), sing  songs, play cards, and games, such as hide-and-seek, tag,  and see-saw, and last, but not least, paying forfeits. We had a jolly time together.

Our holidays came to a close at last, and all hands returned to our respective ships, minus dollars and somewhat under the weather from our frolic. To give Jack before the mast his due, I will add that not one of us  was put in the fort or even complained of during our  two weeks’ liberty on shore.

After we returned on board ship a court-martial was held for the trial of two marines for refusing duty (they  asserting that their time was up), and an Englishman, by  the name of Peter Sweeney, who shipped at New