« 
TRAVELS IN THE CALIFORNIAS. 45 
understood, may lead to some valuable changes in the mode 
of operating elsewhere. It will be learned that while the 
physical wants and the mode of supplying them, are op¬ 
posed to the ordained condition, it is vain to expect the 
Christianized state. 
We may, meanwhile, rejoice at this single result. It is one 
of the great events of the age. T wenty thousand Hawaiians 
are members of Christian churches. Seventy thousand read 
and write. The whole people are better taught, more in¬ 
telligent, and farther advanced in civilization than are the 
citizens of the Mexican Republic. Their Government is 
more paternal, and administered more kindly than any other 
known to civilized man. But I must hasten homeward. 
The hospitality of countrymen during my tarry in these 
islands, the kindness of countrymen, bestowed on me, a 
stranger, fleeing from my grave, and sad—away from those 
on whose hearts I had a right to lean—how can I ever for¬ 
get them ! While those beautiful islands have a place in 
my memory, they will be associated with some of the most 
grateful recollections of my life. It is painful to think that 
I may never again grasp the hands of some noble spirits, 
whom I saw and loved in the kingdom of Hawaii! 
To the sea! on board the bark Don Quixote, Paty, master, 
bound for Upper California! We left the harbor of Honolulu, 
under a sweet land breeze from the forests crowning the vol¬ 
canic hills in the rear of the city, and bore away to the west¬ 
ward along the coast. The mountains of decomposing lava 
rose from the water side in sharp curving ridges, which, ele¬ 
vating themselves as they swept inland, lay in the interior 
piled above the clouds. Some of them were covered with the 
dense green foliage of the tropics ; and others were as desti¬ 
tute of vegetation as when they were poured, a liquid burning- 
mass, from the cauldron of the volcanoes. Many valleys dpt- 
ted with the hay-thatched huts of the natives, their fields of 
taro, and orchards of bread-fruit, cocoa and plantain, lay 
along the shore. The lower hills were covered with frolick- 
8 
