1838: Sandwich Island Gazette

Fourth of July: Honolulu

Sandwich Island Gazette: Saturday, July 7, 1838

Since our last the gayety of Honolulu has been most prodigious! The anniversary of the Fourth of July has been celebrated by the community with most exhilarating enthusiasm. Although the Fourth is peculiarly an American day, yet the participation in the amusements of the occasion was so general, and so hearty, that no one could have had a cause to doubt that a great terrestrial jubilee had dawned. Even the kanakas, -(poor fellows, -they know little, by experience, of the sweets of liberty!) –even the kanakas frisked and capered with delight at the sounds of the merry-making.

There was no public demonstration or rejoicing in the shape of an oration or dinner, as is usual in America, but the Hawaiian ensign at the Fort, the British and American flags from the shipping, and the American flag hoisted by some jolly chaps at Reynold’s wharf, gave sufficient proof that the almanacks of “all bands” agreed in dates. At morning, noon, and evening, salutes were fired from four guns planted on the wharf. The dust of Honolulu’s half finished streets had no rest from morning till evening. Parties on horseback, and in carriages were rushing to and fro in all directions. Picnics in the vallies, and along the sea shore, seemed among the most popular amusements out of town, while the less locomotive epicurians were content with turtle soup and roast beef in town.

The long-tailed Chinese servants, the malo-be girded kanaka runners, and the prim sable visaged stewards, were seen darting about at an early hour with bottle baskets, trenchers, and wheel barrows, “seeking” not “whom,” but what, not themselves in their masters, “might devour.” Now a chinese with a dish of sandwiches, -(not Sandwich Islanders, for cannibalism is not fashionable at Oahu) –then a breathless native with a pole across his shoulder, trotting to the vibrations of a basket of champagne at one end, and a dozen of Hodson’s at the other. Now a turkey crackling for the spit secure in the grasp of the digits of some noted cook, whose other hand squeezed the knuckle of an inverted leg of mutton, then a bundle of taro-tops, garnished with an expired pigling and a defeathered turkey, approximating towards a heap of hot stones –i.e., a future state of luau-ism.

We went down to Waialai to bathe in the refreshing sea water, to devour the fin of a baked fish, with half-a-finger-full of that horrid poi! To sip a teaspoon or two of small beer, with the least imaginable drop of “anchor-brand.” Our printer, went, we don’t know where, but somewhere out of town to enjoy refreshing breezes, to forget the smell of ink, and, perchance, to discuss a bit of dry-toast and a tooth-pick. Our devil-yes! Our very devil went also, to assist in the consumption of forty fat watermelons, under a tamarind tree in the cheering society of five or six brother devils. The only living thing of whose disinclination to participate in the festivities of the day we have gained a knowledge, was a little half-weaned Newfoundland puppy, belonging to us, who seeming to prefer quiet to noise, was shut up in our straw hut in continuity with a quart of new milk and seven slices of cold corned beef. At sundown, retiring home, the bowl, and plate, were empty, and puppy whined a salute of twenty-five approving squeals. Dancing capped the day.