19003 Japanese Intelligence and Courtesy 



could not be a bad religion that saved the trees" ! He 

 moreover assured me that Japan was a civilized 

 country; that in any village we should find the people 

 possessed of an intelligent knowledge of what we 

 were trying to do, and willing and eager to help us. 

 This statement was literally true. As I have said, 

 we visited many villages where foreigners were vir- 

 tually unknown, and yet everywhere we met not 

 only courtesy but entire understanding. All towns 

 of 10,000 people or more had a natural history 

 museum, and usually an art gallery as well. The 

 museums turned over their fishes to us without hesi- 

 tation, for "they would be able to get more and we 

 might not." 



Going out, we reached Honolulu the very day 

 (June 14) on which Hawaii, already nominally an- 

 nexed 1 to the United States, was organized as a 

 territory an occasion remarkable for the enthusi- 

 asm displayed by the foreign residents, especially the 

 sugar planters, and the futile though temporary 

 lamentation of the natives. 



During our short stop-over we drove up to the The 

 Nuuanu Pali, the almost vertical rim of an ancient 

 and gigantic crater half of which has been torn away 

 by the sea. From there the westward view down 

 over vivid green sugar-cane fields 2 and dusky jungles 

 of guava to the blue ocean some miles away is one 

 of the fairest in all my range of travel. Nevertheless, 

 one can hardly fail to recall the fact that a bloody 

 catastrophe was once staged on the Pali, when Kame- 



1 Annexation released great numbers of Japanese from serfdom to the sugar 

 corporations, bringing many of them to Honolulu. There they soon monopo- 

 lized certain trades, ultimately the fisheries as well; and some thousands came 

 at once to California, where their presence has created both political and social 

 complications not yet resolved. 



2 Now (1920) mostly replaced by gray-green plantations of pineapple. 



ns 3 



