August i, 1906.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



861 



HAWAII AND RUBBER CULTURE. 



Ry the Ed i lor of • The India Rubber World." 



WE crossed tlie Pacific from Yokohama to Honolulu 

 in the China, and as passengers were few I had a 

 roomy, high-studded cabin to myself. Against the 

 advice of the steward I kept the port open, prefer- 

 ring to take a chance on drowning to one on asphyxiation. 

 Much water came in, but it didn't touch me as I slept in the 

 upper bunk, reached by a ladder, and mj' chance proved well 

 taken. When we crossed meridian 180 we had the some- 

 what unusual experience of having a day 48 hours long. 

 We were given two sunrises, two sunsets, and six square 

 meals, all on Friday, and all on the fifth of the month. Had 

 it been Thursday or Saturday I should not have cared, but I 

 hate fish, and that was certainly a long day. 



Our first sight of the Hawaiian grt)up came at evening 

 from the "heat lightning " playing over one of the outljing 

 islands, and at daybreak the next morning we were at Hon- 

 olulu (pronounced Honolulu by the inhabitants). I say at 

 the place, but not in it, for one of our steerage crowd of 

 Koreans, after troubling the ship's doctor by developing 

 granulated eyelids, and threatening smallpox, came down 

 with a huge abscess in the arm pit that the quarantine 

 officials diagnosed as bubonic. So we waited while they 

 took a section of him ashore, only to return after hours with 

 the glad news that it was simply a respectable but angry 

 boil. 



After this comforting assurance we went ashore and had 

 tiffin at the elegant Alexander Young Hotel, went out to 

 Wakaki Beach tor surf riding, bought curios, took trolley 

 and carriage rides, and in fact settled down to real hard 

 work as sightseers. I am, however, going to put off the 

 story of my own adventures and get right down to the story 

 of Hawaii as it is and as it will be when it gets to be a rub- 

 ber producer. 



To go back a little, the Sandwich islands were discovered 

 in 1778 by Captain Cook, whom the natives believed to be 

 edible, and whom they at one proceeded to get away with. 

 Some time in the present century they were re-discovered 

 by William J. fiorhani of the Gorham Rubber Co., of San 

 Francisco. The natives did not cherish the illusions regard- 

 ing him that they did toward the former discoverer and he 

 got awaj' with them. When I met him in Honolulu he had 

 just subjugated every trader in the group, and was planning 

 to sell to a syndicate, enough of his wonderful steam hose 

 to run a pipe line from the volcano of Kilauea to Honolulu, 

 to furnish steam for industrial purposes. 



The islands comprising the territory of Hawaii are seven 

 large ones and quite a number of little ones. They are 

 Hawaii, Maui. Oabu, Kauai, Molokai, Lanai, and Niihau. 

 According to the census of 1900 they had 154,001 inhab- 

 itants. Of these islands, the most densely populated is that 



