390 COMMERCIAL IMPORTANCE. [1840 



When these houses are first constructed, the smell of tho 

 sweet-scented grass is quite refreshing, but when they be- 

 come old, the rats and other vermin harbor in them, and the 

 thatching readily contracts dampness and mould. In the 

 better class of native habitations, there are window frames, 

 shutters, and partitions ; but the kanaka is content with a 

 single apartment, which is his kitchen, parlor and bed-chamber, 

 and often his hen-coop and pig-sty. The natives sleep prin- 

 cipally on mats of pandanus leaves, or tapa, neatly interwoven 

 with colored straw, piled up several thicknesses deep. Since 

 they have been able to procure iron tools and instruments, 

 their mechanics manufacture a great many articles of furni- 

 ture of the koa wood, such as tables, chairs, chests, and 

 bureaux ; and some or all of these are now frequently seen 

 in their houses. 



(8.) The supremacy of the law, at length permanently 

 established, as it is believed, in the Sandwich Islands, must 

 be of great benefit to them in a commercial point of view. 

 To the whalers frequenting the Pacific this is of great im- 

 portance, and it is to be hoped, for their sake, that the 

 attempt of the French government to compel the authorities 

 of this group to do away with the heavy duties on ardent 

 spirits, now (1849) being made, may prove wholly unsuccess- 

 ful. The position of the islands is favorable, not merely for 

 w r halers desiring to recruit or to obtain supplies, but for mer- 

 chant vessels, proceeding by the shortest route, according to 

 the principles of great circle sailing, from the American ports 

 on the Pacific to China and the East Indies, to stop at for 

 refreshments, or for steamers to obtain a new supply of coal 

 from depots established here.* The capacity of the country 



* About five hundred whaling vessels annually visit the Hawaiian Islands 

 for refreshment. The average time of a passage from California to the islands 

 is twenty days; from Astoria or Tahiti, twenty-five days; from China, sixty 

 days ; from Sydney, eighty-four days ; from New York, by way of Cape Horn, 

 one hundred and forty-six days; and froui London, one hundred and fifty-nine 

 days. Quite reeently. a commercial treaty lias been entered into, by commis- 

 sioners representing the respective governments of the United States and the 

 Hawaiian Group, under which a line of steamers to ply between San Francisco 

 and China are to touch at the islands. 



