SEVEN HOURS IN HAWAII

...She sails for Japan this afternoon at five, and I sail with her...

...Here biting cold and blighting heat ne'er come...

...There are not so many of us, about 200,000 in all the islands, and about 45,000 of these in Honolulu...

...That a total of $1,700,000 went into the Federal Treasury from Hawaii...

...I gave a squawk...

...I know these islands from Kauai to Hawaii...

...Of course, these figures don't include the expenditures for fortifications and naval station at Pearl Harbor, which, while important for Hawaii, are also of vital importance to the whole United States...

...The islands' shores are bathed in warm and limpid seas of emerald, turquoise and chalcedony hues, the while their mountains' brows are cooled with soft and soothing snows...

...Furthermore, do you know" (here he caught me by both wings and backed me up under a royal palm) "we bought nearly $16,000,000 worth of merchandise from the mainland last year...

...I ducked under his wing and went clucking on my way:—those eggs are getting cold...

...When twelve years ago come next July the United States reached out and picked us for her own, as one would pick a ripe and juicy piece of fruit, without a drop of bloodshed—just looked at us and said 'you're ours'—she didn't pick a lemon...

...The first fellow I clucked up to looked like a poet, and I guess he was alright...

...Say, you're in luck in striking me...

...Compared with my gentle poet he was a kind of sordid sort...

...but today my sympathies lie with the hen...

...Only seven hours to spread myself here...

...no snake or wild, ferocious beast...

...Not much—however you may feel back there in the States about some of the other fruit on Uncle Sam's outhanging branches...

...All the available appropriations you have given us for new light houses and harbor improvements, which are of international rather than of local importance, amount to a little over $1,000,000...

...For I must cover the business end of this trip for myself and the literary end of it for La Follette's...

...He loosed his grip...

...I butted in right there to ask: "Did they do it nights and Sundays so the hired man could rest...

...Over half our population are Orientals...

...I've got data enough for any "literary feller" to make good with if he could only get it out of his system, as the natives poured it into me...

...nor poisoned herb, nor plant, nor vine have ever taken root, and the natives of these isles are gentle, kind and hospitable to a fault...

...Meets a Talkative Gent THE next to fall afoul my path was a different stamp of man...

...Want your information right off the bat, at first hand...

...I learn that my poet friend wasn't joshing but telling me the truth...

...We're not so big in territory—about the size of the state of New Jersey, but do you know that for the fiscal year of 1908 the Honolulu Custom House collected over $1,500,000...

...There is another appropriation of $850,000 for a Federal Building for Honolulu, but all the appropriations yet made or provided for by Congress are more than equalled by two years' revenue from the Territory...

...And now, like the old hen, it is up to me to spread myself...

...Shouldn't wonder if he dealt in real estate...

...Say...

...Some spread, eh...

...Of the balance, about two-fifths are Europeans, two-fifths Hawaiians, full blood and half caste, and one-fifth American, but we export from these islands $42,000,000 of merchandise per annum, mostly sugar, but we are climbing up on fruits, coffee, hides, wool and lumber...

...Or he may have been a politician...

...my friend," he said, as he caught me by a wing so I couldn't get away, "these islands are the only place on earth in which to live if you really want to know...

...From the States, eh...

...Not what you read in books...

...No deadly serpents here, in all these favored isles...

...I buttonholed everyone I met who looked intelligent, for information about these Islands...

...He had long hair and dreamy eyes, and as near as I can call his words to mind he said: "When the world was in the making, the Creator kissed these fair isles and flung them into the shimmering sea, the very Eden spot of earth...

...What the Poet Said I WAS the first man down the gang plank this morning and went ranging through Honolulu...

...Jiminy...

...Eternal summer zephyrs fan their meadows, dales and hills, while o'er them all in moods of bursting love the heavens weep in sweet refreshing showers...

...And that the revenue from our Post Office was over $75,000...

...I could have listened to his talk all day, but with forty-seven eggs a-cooling I had to cluck along...

...The next will come from Japan..—Editor's Mote...

...I have been seventeen days closing the gap between Clinton, N. Y., and this town...

...The following article is the first of the series George Hoyt Allen will write for La Foli.ttte's on his 'round-the-world trip...

...No old hen with forty-seven eggs to cover, temporarily off her nest to fill her crop, was ever busier than myself...

...The farmer's boy who gave the set-ting hen forty-seven eggs to cover just to see the old fool spread herself may have been funny...

...My ship tied up at the dock at ten this morning...

...If I don't smash some of the eggs—either the business kind, or the literary kind, or both—before I get back it won't be because I'm used to covering such a nest-full, but because they are all sound enough to withstand some knocking about...

...Here I am (this seventeenth day of May) in Honolulu, Hawaii...

...It sounded good to me, and I'm sun-dazed if the islands don't look the part...

...Here noxious insects are unknown...

...And now, adieu, I'll sing nor sin no more, but put in the four hours that are left to me on the other side of my lay-out—my sordid soul yearns for a little share of that $16,000,000...

...That all we cost the government for that period was $380,000...