214 ALEXANDER AGASSIZ 



marine world of the place. This is a most charming con- 

 trast to Florida where time hangs so heavy on your 

 hands. Here there is something new to see and to do 

 the whole time. I had the good luck to make the pass- 

 age with the great California sugar king, Mr. S , 



a smart, self-made German, who really controls every- 

 thing here ; he has given me letters to his agents on the 

 two islands I visit, and I shall be well taken care of. I 

 find that all my letters from General Armstrong are to 

 the missionary crowd, so that I shall wait to deliver 



them till my return. That crowd hates S and I 



can't throw him overboard now — at any rate I don't 

 propose to, he is too sensible a cuss and very entertain- 

 ing. I have had an audience with his Majesty Kala- 

 kaua ! He appears a most inoffensive and good-natured 

 animal. But it is a pity to see the natives — they are 

 withering before the whites, and soon the islands will of 

 their own weight fall into the hands of the Americans." 



After three days spent in examining the volcano of 

 Kilauea, he writes from the little village of Hilo on the 

 Island of Hawaii : " I was greatly disappointed at the 

 coral reef here, which amounts to nothing ; and at 

 the amount of sea life ; there is more in a square inch at 

 Nahant than on the whole beach of the Bay. I am very 

 well and enjoying every minute of my time. Hope all is 

 going on well at Museum." 



An amusing little incident, during his wanderings 

 about the islands, shows how unexpectedly a bit of ab- 

 stract science may be of the greatest practical value. 

 One day as Agassiz was sitting with his host on the 

 porch of the house of a great sugar planter, he noticed 

 a schooner discharging a cargo of lime in the roadstead. 



