386 BUILDINGS IN HONOLULU, [1840. 



feet, which obtained its present name from the foreign resi- 

 dents, on account of the cavity at the top being shaped very 

 much like a bowl. On the west are the mountains of Wai- 

 anae, and on the east is Diamond Hill, considerably larger and 

 higher than Puahi, but of the same general character. On 

 Punch-bowl Hill there is an apology for a fortification, con- 

 sisting of a flagstaff, a rude stonewall, and a few natural em- 

 brasures in the lava rock, with a straw-built and mud-plas- 

 tered powder magazine ; and on the flank of Diamond Hill is 

 a battery, also in a state of dilapidation. These positions, 

 however, command the harbor and its entrance, and if prop- 

 erly fortified would afford ample defence to the town. 



There are three large churches in Honolulu, one of which 

 is a thatched building, two hundred feet long; another, 

 whose walls are made of plastered adobes, is one hundred 

 and twenty feet long and sixty feet wide ; and the third and 

 more recent structure, which is built of coral stone hewn out 

 in entire blocks, is two stories high, one hundred and forty- 

 four in length and seventy-eight in breadth, and adorned 

 with a tall tapering spire much like those of American 

 churches.* Honolulu likewise contains a number of pretty 

 sohool-houses with neat cupolas: it has a charity school and 

 an orphan school ; and, furthermore, it can boast of an Insti- 

 tute established for scientific investigation in Polynesia, which 

 has a museum of curiosities and speeimens of natural history, 

 and a library of several hundred volumes. Besides thcso 

 more important and useful structures and institutions, Hono- 

 lulu contains a great number of grog-shops, billiard rooms, 

 dancing halls, and sailors' boarding houses ; it has its hotels 

 and livery stables, and if reports be true, its cock-pits and 

 gambling saloons. 



Waikiki, five miles east of Honolulu, is a very pleasant 



* This edifice was erected mainly by the contributions of the natives, and it 

 would seem that they are as a general rule very willing to bestow their laboi 

 ;ind means on such objects. This is probably owing in soaie degree, to the 

 fact that in former times their heiaus or heathen temples were constructed in 

 a similar manner; each individual, from the highest to the lowest, being required 

 »o bring one or more stones for the erection of the contemplated building. 



