What do you think?
Rate this book
Six Months in Sandwich Isles
This classic of Hawaiian literature offers a charming glimpse at the splendid and fascinating world of preAmerican Hawaii.
Isabella Lucy Bird won fame in her own time as the most remarkable woman traveler of the nineteenth century, and Six Months in the Sandwich Isles , in which she describes her sojourn in Hawaii in 1873, is one of the gems of Pacific literature. It is safe to say that no other book about Hawaii surpasses it in fascination. Much of the charm of Isabella's writing is due to her use of personal letters for conveying her her experiences and her impressions. The thirtyone letters that compose the book were written to her beloved sister Henrietta, who dutifully stayed at home in Edinburgh to take care of the household while Isabella was away on her travels.
The book is an authentic record of daily life in Hawaii in the late nineteenth century. It describes a life style during the brief reign of King Lunalilo, not too may years before the sad reign of Queen Liliuokalani ended her dethronement by revolution. Isabella Bird met royalty, missionaries, cowboys, and ordinary, everyday Hawaiians. It is fortunate that she left such a vivid narrative of her Hawaiian Interlude.
Isabella Lucy Bird won fame in her own time as the most remarkable woman traveler of the nineteenth century, and Six Months in the Sandwich Isles , in which she describes her sojourn in Hawaii in 1873, is one of the gems of Pacific literature. It is safe to say that no other book about Hawaii surpasses it in fascination. Much of the charm of Isabella's writing is due to her use of personal letters for conveying her her experiences and her impressions. The thirtyone letters that compose the book were written to her beloved sister Henrietta, who dutifully stayed at home in Edinburgh to take care of the household while Isabella was away on her travels.
The book is an authentic record of daily life in Hawaii in the late nineteenth century. It describes a life style during the brief reign of King Lunalilo, not too may years before the sad reign of Queen Liliuokalani ended her dethronement by revolution. Isabella Bird met royalty, missionaries, cowboys, and ordinary, everyday Hawaiians. It is fortunate that she left such a vivid narrative of her Hawaiian Interlude.
352 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1875
126 people are currently reading
840 people want to read
About the author
Isabella Lucy Bird
123 books100 followersIsabella Lucy Bird Bishop (October 15, 1831 – October 7, 1904) was a nineteenth-century English traveller, writer, and a natural historian.
Works:
* The Englishwoman in America (1856)
* Pen and Pencil Sketches Among The Outer Hebrides (published in The Leisure Hour) (1866)
* The Hawaiian Archipelago (1875)
* The Two Atlantics (published in The Leisure Hour) (1876)
* Australia Felix: Impressions of Victoria and Melbourne (published in The Leisure Hour) (1877)
* A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains (1879)
* Unbeaten Tracks in Japan (1880)
* Sketches In The Malay Peninsula (published in The Leisure Hour) (1883)
* The Golden Chersonese and the way Thither (1883)
* A Pilgrimage To Sinai (published in The Leisure Hour) (1886)
* Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan (1891)
* Among the Tibetans (1894)
* Korea and her Neighbours (1898)
* The Yangtze Valley and Beyond (1899)
* Chinese Pictures (1900)
* Notes on Morocco (published in the Monthly Review) (1901)
Works:
* The Englishwoman in America (1856)
* Pen and Pencil Sketches Among The Outer Hebrides (published in The Leisure Hour) (1866)
* The Hawaiian Archipelago (1875)
* The Two Atlantics (published in The Leisure Hour) (1876)
* Australia Felix: Impressions of Victoria and Melbourne (published in The Leisure Hour) (1877)
* A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains (1879)
* Unbeaten Tracks in Japan (1880)
* Sketches In The Malay Peninsula (published in The Leisure Hour) (1883)
* The Golden Chersonese and the way Thither (1883)
* A Pilgrimage To Sinai (published in The Leisure Hour) (1886)
* Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan (1891)
* Among the Tibetans (1894)
* Korea and her Neighbours (1898)
* The Yangtze Valley and Beyond (1899)
* Chinese Pictures (1900)
* Notes on Morocco (published in the Monthly Review) (1901)
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 50 reviews
July 24, 2023
Available free at Librivox, read extremely well by Jane Bennett. Bennett's narration is as good as those on audiobooks you must buy! Search for the alternate title The Hawaiian Archipelago.
********************
So where are the Sandwich Islands and how did the name come to be?
“The Hawaiian Islands are an archipelago of eight major volcanic islets in the North Pacific, spanning 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) from the island of Hawaii in the south to the northernmost Kure Atoll. Formerly the group was known to Europeans and Americans as the Sandwich Islands, a name that James Cook chose in honor of the 4th Earl of Sandwich, the then First Lord of the Admiralty. Cook came across the islands by chance when crossing the Pacific Ocean on his third voyage in 1778 on board HMS Resolution. Cook was later killed on the islands on a return visit. The contemporary name of the islands, dating from the 1840s, is derived from the name of the largest island, Hawaii." (Source: Wiki)
I have enjoyed the book thoroughly, from start to finish! Exciting episodes, descriptive landscape scenes and interesting information is that which is delivered. We have here thirty-one letters the author sent to her sister while on her travels in the year 1873. The writing is articulate, descriptive and informative. Through these letters we see what Bird saw and experienced. The prose is not ordinary; it is extraordinarily expressive and clear. This is my favorite book by Isabella Lucy Bird (1831-1904)!
It is the writing that makes the book special. I have never seen a volcano erupting, but it feels as though I now have. She puts you where you’ve never been and shows you what you have not had the opportunity to experience. Some sights take your breath away. There are episodes that illustrate Bird’s indisputable courage and perserverance!
Bird adds two chapters at the end. They give additional historical, statistical and factual information. The book is in this way made both comprehensive and complete. It is well thought out. I toyed with the idea of giving the book five stars because it has left a lasting impression on me. The sights Bird saw are truly amazing. I have no complaints with the book. I like that she expresses her opinions. Right or wrong isn’t the point. The point is we know exactly where she stood.
Bird was quite some woman! She had such a great attitude toward how she would go about dealing with her illness, a only partially successful removal of a spinal tumor, depression and insomnia. Why she decided not to settle in Hawaii is interesting too! I recommend reading this book with others; there’s lots to discuss.
***********************
*Six Months in the Sandwich Islands: Among Hawaii's Palm Groves, Coral Reefs and Volcanoes 4 stars
*A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains 4 stars
*Unbeaten Tracks in Japan 3 stars
*The Englishwoman in America 3 stars
*Among the Tibetans TBR
********************
So where are the Sandwich Islands and how did the name come to be?
“The Hawaiian Islands are an archipelago of eight major volcanic islets in the North Pacific, spanning 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) from the island of Hawaii in the south to the northernmost Kure Atoll. Formerly the group was known to Europeans and Americans as the Sandwich Islands, a name that James Cook chose in honor of the 4th Earl of Sandwich, the then First Lord of the Admiralty. Cook came across the islands by chance when crossing the Pacific Ocean on his third voyage in 1778 on board HMS Resolution. Cook was later killed on the islands on a return visit. The contemporary name of the islands, dating from the 1840s, is derived from the name of the largest island, Hawaii." (Source: Wiki)
I have enjoyed the book thoroughly, from start to finish! Exciting episodes, descriptive landscape scenes and interesting information is that which is delivered. We have here thirty-one letters the author sent to her sister while on her travels in the year 1873. The writing is articulate, descriptive and informative. Through these letters we see what Bird saw and experienced. The prose is not ordinary; it is extraordinarily expressive and clear. This is my favorite book by Isabella Lucy Bird (1831-1904)!
It is the writing that makes the book special. I have never seen a volcano erupting, but it feels as though I now have. She puts you where you’ve never been and shows you what you have not had the opportunity to experience. Some sights take your breath away. There are episodes that illustrate Bird’s indisputable courage and perserverance!
Bird adds two chapters at the end. They give additional historical, statistical and factual information. The book is in this way made both comprehensive and complete. It is well thought out. I toyed with the idea of giving the book five stars because it has left a lasting impression on me. The sights Bird saw are truly amazing. I have no complaints with the book. I like that she expresses her opinions. Right or wrong isn’t the point. The point is we know exactly where she stood.
Bird was quite some woman! She had such a great attitude toward how she would go about dealing with her illness, a only partially successful removal of a spinal tumor, depression and insomnia. Why she decided not to settle in Hawaii is interesting too! I recommend reading this book with others; there’s lots to discuss.
***********************
*Six Months in the Sandwich Islands: Among Hawaii's Palm Groves, Coral Reefs and Volcanoes 4 stars
*A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains 4 stars
*Unbeaten Tracks in Japan 3 stars
*The Englishwoman in America 3 stars
*Among the Tibetans TBR
February 20, 2015
Isabella, Isabella, who would have thought? You beat us hands down - in your long skirts and in your early 40's - what an intrepid traveler you were! So enthusiastic, especially about volcanoes (letting the soles of your shoes melt like that, really! and your early morning worship at the altar of lava - you would do anything, wouldn't you, to experience these thrills!). I loved this book. The trip on horseback from Hilo through the gorges to Waipio was incredible, and the description of entering the harbour at Hilo - what I would do to have seen that beauty! What a paradise! Isabella is lavish with her descriptions, and had obviously fallen in love with the generous hospitality of the Hawaiians - this is back when there was only one hotel in Honolulu, and none in Hilo (the locals would greet the boat from Oahu and take home it's passengers as guests!). Also the attitude of the people towards the lepers living among them was very striking. This book is well worth reading for several reasons - for her descriptions, for her grit and adventurousness, for the almost unbelievable Hawaiian way of life that she records. I am no ends curious about her other travels and will be reading more for sure.
June 13, 2022
Isabella L. Bird was one of those intrepid solo women explorers of the 19th century. Her Six Months in the Sandwich Islands: Among Hawaii's Palm Groves, Coral Reefs and Volcanoes was published in 1874. Bird spent most of her time on the islands of O'ahu and Hawai'i, making shorter visits to Maui and Kauai.
Reading her, I am reminded of Rudyard Kipling's poem "The Winners":
Bird is not a deeply philosophical traveler, and not particularly well read, but she is very good at describing her travels, many of which were frightfully difficult. It is evident that she loved Hawaii and the Hawai'ians. She felt completely at ease with them.
Her book is historically interesting, as it covers the transition from King Lunalillo to King Kalakaua, as well as the opening of the leper colony at Molokai.
Reading her, I am reminded of Rudyard Kipling's poem "The Winners":
Down to Gehenna or up to the Throne,On Hawai'i, she frequently traveled only with native guides, climbing Mauna Loa, Mauna Kea, and Kilauea. During a February rainstorm, she traveled up and down a number of flooded gorges trying to make her way back to Hilo, which she did in good condition.
He travels the fastest who travels alone.
Bird is not a deeply philosophical traveler, and not particularly well read, but she is very good at describing her travels, many of which were frightfully difficult. It is evident that she loved Hawaii and the Hawai'ians. She felt completely at ease with them.
Her book is historically interesting, as it covers the transition from King Lunalillo to King Kalakaua, as well as the opening of the leper colony at Molokai.
January 14, 2017
Works from the 19th century can be difficult to read due to dense, repetitive prose and the repulsive attitudes of the time. Bird is a woman of her period, yes, and her biases are pretty clear up front, but she is a complex, fascinating person who would be remarkable even in our time. This is a woman who, because of her "nervous condition," was advised to indulge in open air travel. Therefore, she traveled around the world by herself multiple times. Her six months in the Sandwich Island (aka Hawaii) immediately followed an adventure in New Zealand. I found her prose surprisingly easy to read and quite enjoyable. She is a white woman of privilege, yes, but her outlook on the "heathen natives" evolves substantially in her time on the islands. She falls in love with the place and the people, and trusts them absolutely. She shocks people wherever she goes. She's a white woman, traveling by herself most of the time, sitting astride on a Mexican saddle and riding through absolute wilderness of the Big Island in 1871. She seizes various opportunities--things I sure wouldn't do. A man she just met invites her to climb up Mauna Loa to see the eruption? Off she goes! She is not averse to sleeping on the ground with her saddle as her pillow. Bird learns passable Hawaiian and eats as the locals do, mastering two-finger poi and appreciating whatever her hosts will share (though she accepts the fleas grudgingly).
For my research purposes, her descriptions of Hilo and Kilauea are fabulous. She obviously loves plant life, and goes into detail about the plants around her, mentioning the Latin names if she can.
Bird's book is in public domain and available from various small publishers. I wish my copy had been typeset a bit differently, but it didn't strain my eyes and the binding is fine. I wouldn't mind reading more of Bird's books--she was quite a bestseller in the late 19th century--as she has really gained my respect.
For my research purposes, her descriptions of Hilo and Kilauea are fabulous. She obviously loves plant life, and goes into detail about the plants around her, mentioning the Latin names if she can.
Bird's book is in public domain and available from various small publishers. I wish my copy had been typeset a bit differently, but it didn't strain my eyes and the binding is fine. I wouldn't mind reading more of Bird's books--she was quite a bestseller in the late 19th century--as she has really gained my respect.
May 17, 2024
if you like this review i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com
110317: i surprised myself by so enjoying this series of descriptive letters home (with photos!), from a woman traveling for her health in 1872, from edinburgh to warmer climes. remarkable adventures, of its times, even now. if you can ignore her typical 'civilized', 'christian' prejudices, in everything from sugar plantations, missionaries, lack of clothes (!), 'sensuousness', 'heatheness', this is an interesting view of life in hawai'i about a hundred years after european contact from a privileged (white woman) visitor point of view...
this is old hawai'i, a brief monarchy, before annexation by the states, before it became world-famous and modernized. locals are often unnamed, often described as beautiful, as all having nice teeth. she travels into valleys by perilous cliffs, travels into active volcanoes and dead volcano craters, loves hilo, less honolulu, so travels mostly on the big island. when she visits kaua'i she does visit hanalei bay- but somehow manages not to see waimea canyon (!). generally gives a good idea of 'aloha' of hawai'ian life, of kindness, openness, generosity...
she was here only six months but saw and did a lot. she is able to see the bad as well as good effects of europeans on the islands, mostly sailors corrupting innocence, missionaries saving souls. i recognize many of the places, i recognize many of the attitudes, i am on vacation here in waimea and found this as one of mom's books. town library is small so i brought six books... but this was unplanned. beautiful remembrances. if you like long descriptive wanderings, if you like to know exactly what this and this and the other plant is...
110317: i surprised myself by so enjoying this series of descriptive letters home (with photos!), from a woman traveling for her health in 1872, from edinburgh to warmer climes. remarkable adventures, of its times, even now. if you can ignore her typical 'civilized', 'christian' prejudices, in everything from sugar plantations, missionaries, lack of clothes (!), 'sensuousness', 'heatheness', this is an interesting view of life in hawai'i about a hundred years after european contact from a privileged (white woman) visitor point of view...
this is old hawai'i, a brief monarchy, before annexation by the states, before it became world-famous and modernized. locals are often unnamed, often described as beautiful, as all having nice teeth. she travels into valleys by perilous cliffs, travels into active volcanoes and dead volcano craters, loves hilo, less honolulu, so travels mostly on the big island. when she visits kaua'i she does visit hanalei bay- but somehow manages not to see waimea canyon (!). generally gives a good idea of 'aloha' of hawai'ian life, of kindness, openness, generosity...
she was here only six months but saw and did a lot. she is able to see the bad as well as good effects of europeans on the islands, mostly sailors corrupting innocence, missionaries saving souls. i recognize many of the places, i recognize many of the attitudes, i am on vacation here in waimea and found this as one of mom's books. town library is small so i brought six books... but this was unplanned. beautiful remembrances. if you like long descriptive wanderings, if you like to know exactly what this and this and the other plant is...
March 18, 2022
2.5/5
There are certain writers that I give multiple chances to due to their singular combination of writing circumstances and unusually easy to acquire works rather than to any extraordinary degree of enjoyment on my part. Bird, with her (white) woman international traveling throughout the latter half of 19th c., is a prime example of such, if my ability to acquire her for reading classics by women purposes at local book sales is anything to go by. True, I had rather favorable memories of my time with her more well known A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains, and this earlier work of hers was put down by some rather culturally authentic sources as one of fifty works one should read concerning the subject of what are now known as the Hawaiian Isles. However, from what I picked up from Hawaii's Story by Hawaii's Queen and bits and pieces of testimonial that have no interest whatsoever in normalizing the chain of island's current settler state situation, I knew that plunging into this record without mustering up the will to deal with a great deal of obsequious slander and self-absorbed doublethink would lead to more misery than what the read was worth. As expected, while the text is purportedly one of travel into the bounty of natural wonders and awesome vistas offered by an isolated and fruitful archipelago, it's also incrimination, judgement, and punishment for a people whose communal social systems and cultural values are so at odds with rapacious European systems of enslavement and extraction that I have to wonder how much of Bird's egregious dehumanization of her native hosts was her natural reaction, and how much of it was saving face in front of her imperial peers. I did glean what I could of the more positive/interesting facts in spite of Bird's incessant racializations, but the couple of "nonfiction" tracts she included at the very end only put the stamp on her imperializing project, and I was very glad this didn't go on any longer than that.
Writing this review a good century and a half after Bird recorded her experiences, I can say that much has changed on that chain of islands, but the fundamental inequity of her time has only passed into a self-proclaimed shine of legality after being a mere circling of corporations with their landowners and their warships. Such legal statues proclaim that, if I wanted to, I could board a plane as soon as one would willingly carry me and set myself down on Hawaii without any need for any sort of passport, for while the palace still stands, the monarchy that once united this set of islands has been safely neutralized for a good 80 years. Having never done so, I was much less responsive to Bird's glorying in the natural landscape, and thus was able to focus a great deal more on her observations of people, politics, and power, littered with such casual idiocies such as blaming Chinese immigrants for opium addiction and bemoaning native "laziness" whilst the population's prime native land is being sucked up by plantation monstrosities who can't pay pittances for dedicated labor when there is no real risk of the unemployed dying from starvation or exposure. It's not as if there weren't some truly engaging traveling narratives amidst all the sanctimonious snobbery, and Bird's explicit honesty has a habit of going against some of her more inane assumptions, especially with my added benefit of a century and a half of hindsight. However, all and all, it's a tale of nothing more than willfully inflicted disaster by one nation steamrolling another for the sake of gluttonous capital and WASP supremacy, and witnessing Bird have the gall to complain about Americans was rather hilarious amongst the tragedy. All in all, I'd still consider this a necessary read, but only if the reader is willing to bring in the appropriate critical thinking into play. Else, you'll be tempted to brainlessly extoll the sheer glorious of colonialism for the sake of your vacation "paradise" well into the 21st century, and one would hope most of us would be beyond that by now.
Bird has a number of other works whose infusion into the local market is probably well propagated by being assigned in various university courses of varying quality. Her second most rated work on this site concerns her travels to Japan, and while the text is a great temptation to someone with reformed Orientalist tastes such as myself, I can only imagine how insufferable her self-absorbed inanities must be in a place that may have incorporated some "Westernized" modus operandis in its daily existence, but is nowhere near as Eurocentrically cowed as Hawaii or the Rocky Mountains. Eight years separates my first Bird read from this second, and it may very well take that amount of years again before I muster up the will to engage with her unabashedly voyeuristic, for good or ill, style of travelogue. Until then, the 1870s portion of my current century of reading women challenge has been safely taken care of, and I can now pass this copy along to someone who will hopefully take its soulless facts and figures with a grain of salt. I'm sure that's not what someone who's picturing George Eliot and/or Charlotte Brontë and/or whoever their preferred 19th c. Anglo woman rider on horseback wants to hear, but all I have to say is, suck it up, buttercup. Your national parks were brought into being to displace the indigenous peoples and your coastline holidays symbolize the destruction of countless indigenous economies, so if you can afford to go anywhere in the world for your vacation, you'd be better off traversing amongst those who have enough of a world standing to not put up with any of your tourist/traveler bullshit.
There are certain writers that I give multiple chances to due to their singular combination of writing circumstances and unusually easy to acquire works rather than to any extraordinary degree of enjoyment on my part. Bird, with her (white) woman international traveling throughout the latter half of 19th c., is a prime example of such, if my ability to acquire her for reading classics by women purposes at local book sales is anything to go by. True, I had rather favorable memories of my time with her more well known A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains, and this earlier work of hers was put down by some rather culturally authentic sources as one of fifty works one should read concerning the subject of what are now known as the Hawaiian Isles. However, from what I picked up from Hawaii's Story by Hawaii's Queen and bits and pieces of testimonial that have no interest whatsoever in normalizing the chain of island's current settler state situation, I knew that plunging into this record without mustering up the will to deal with a great deal of obsequious slander and self-absorbed doublethink would lead to more misery than what the read was worth. As expected, while the text is purportedly one of travel into the bounty of natural wonders and awesome vistas offered by an isolated and fruitful archipelago, it's also incrimination, judgement, and punishment for a people whose communal social systems and cultural values are so at odds with rapacious European systems of enslavement and extraction that I have to wonder how much of Bird's egregious dehumanization of her native hosts was her natural reaction, and how much of it was saving face in front of her imperial peers. I did glean what I could of the more positive/interesting facts in spite of Bird's incessant racializations, but the couple of "nonfiction" tracts she included at the very end only put the stamp on her imperializing project, and I was very glad this didn't go on any longer than that.
Writing this review a good century and a half after Bird recorded her experiences, I can say that much has changed on that chain of islands, but the fundamental inequity of her time has only passed into a self-proclaimed shine of legality after being a mere circling of corporations with their landowners and their warships. Such legal statues proclaim that, if I wanted to, I could board a plane as soon as one would willingly carry me and set myself down on Hawaii without any need for any sort of passport, for while the palace still stands, the monarchy that once united this set of islands has been safely neutralized for a good 80 years. Having never done so, I was much less responsive to Bird's glorying in the natural landscape, and thus was able to focus a great deal more on her observations of people, politics, and power, littered with such casual idiocies such as blaming Chinese immigrants for opium addiction and bemoaning native "laziness" whilst the population's prime native land is being sucked up by plantation monstrosities who can't pay pittances for dedicated labor when there is no real risk of the unemployed dying from starvation or exposure. It's not as if there weren't some truly engaging traveling narratives amidst all the sanctimonious snobbery, and Bird's explicit honesty has a habit of going against some of her more inane assumptions, especially with my added benefit of a century and a half of hindsight. However, all and all, it's a tale of nothing more than willfully inflicted disaster by one nation steamrolling another for the sake of gluttonous capital and WASP supremacy, and witnessing Bird have the gall to complain about Americans was rather hilarious amongst the tragedy. All in all, I'd still consider this a necessary read, but only if the reader is willing to bring in the appropriate critical thinking into play. Else, you'll be tempted to brainlessly extoll the sheer glorious of colonialism for the sake of your vacation "paradise" well into the 21st century, and one would hope most of us would be beyond that by now.
Bird has a number of other works whose infusion into the local market is probably well propagated by being assigned in various university courses of varying quality. Her second most rated work on this site concerns her travels to Japan, and while the text is a great temptation to someone with reformed Orientalist tastes such as myself, I can only imagine how insufferable her self-absorbed inanities must be in a place that may have incorporated some "Westernized" modus operandis in its daily existence, but is nowhere near as Eurocentrically cowed as Hawaii or the Rocky Mountains. Eight years separates my first Bird read from this second, and it may very well take that amount of years again before I muster up the will to engage with her unabashedly voyeuristic, for good or ill, style of travelogue. Until then, the 1870s portion of my current century of reading women challenge has been safely taken care of, and I can now pass this copy along to someone who will hopefully take its soulless facts and figures with a grain of salt. I'm sure that's not what someone who's picturing George Eliot and/or Charlotte Brontë and/or whoever their preferred 19th c. Anglo woman rider on horseback wants to hear, but all I have to say is, suck it up, buttercup. Your national parks were brought into being to displace the indigenous peoples and your coastline holidays symbolize the destruction of countless indigenous economies, so if you can afford to go anywhere in the world for your vacation, you'd be better off traversing amongst those who have enough of a world standing to not put up with any of your tourist/traveler bullshit.
Every one can live abundantly, and without the "sweat of the brow," but few can make money[.]
October 24, 2013
This has been quite interesting so far. Isabella Bird was headed to California from New Zealand in 1873, when the leaky steamboat she and her fellow passengers had boarded nearly sank. When they stopped at Hawaii, then an independent country, most of them disembarked. She had stopped over to help a friend who's son had fallen ill on board ship. She ended up spending 6 months on the islands because she found the air and water so appealing. She was there from January through August. She was a Victorian lady born in 1831, who had a real zest for adventure abroad, but seemed to be quite prim and proper at home.
She is extremely intrepid at exploring new places - even going on her own - without even a guide. She visits the volcanos, the various islands, visits at the plantations and with the missionaries. She buys horses to ride at the different islands and rides astride like the native women do. She goes with a travelling scientist to visit Mauna Loa (?) which is flaring up ever brighter. She keeps telling those who say she can't go that she won't, but when she gets the chance, she jumps at it and goes, even wandering down as close as she can get to the fire pits.
She is extremely intrepid at exploring new places - even going on her own - without even a guide. She visits the volcanos, the various islands, visits at the plantations and with the missionaries. She buys horses to ride at the different islands and rides astride like the native women do. She goes with a travelling scientist to visit Mauna Loa (?) which is flaring up ever brighter. She keeps telling those who say she can't go that she won't, but when she gets the chance, she jumps at it and goes, even wandering down as close as she can get to the fire pits.
May 29, 2008
This author was an amazing independent traveler for her times. One of my favorite parts is her description of the surfers! She has a few other books, one that I also read about her time in the Rocky Mtns, especially interesting to anyone who lives/ed on front range of Colorado. Grad school prof. introduced me to her work for a non-fiction "outdoor/environmental" writing class.
January 26, 2019
Isabella Bird was an extraordinary woman and perhaps one of the best known British female solo travellers of the Victorian era. To explore and achieve all that she did during a time where it wasn't 'proper' for women to do such things, especially on their own, makes her experiences even more compelling to read. Plus, she was plagued by bouts of depression and a chronic spinal disease that made her travelling both physically and emotionally very demanding. Heck, I don't know many people who are as determined and fearless as Isabella in 2019!
On the recommendation of a friend, I plucked Six Months In The Sandwich Islands out of obscurity from the stock cupboard of my city library, and quickly engrossed myself in Isabella's world as she visits Hawaii and the Sandwich Islands for the first time via an unplanned trip that never should have happened. From the treacherous journey in an unfit boat that could have sent her to an early grave, when finally setting foot on land, Isabella fully immerses herself in the local culture and then sets off on her own, exploring remote areas of the islands that even the indigenous population had yet to reach.
The book is comprised of a series of letters that she sends back home to her sister in Edinburgh, and they are so in-depth and full of every kind of detail imaginable, that at times it's a little overwhelming to read, but utterly fascinating at the same time.
Isabella Bird is certainly an inspirational woman and one that should not be forgotten.
On the recommendation of a friend, I plucked Six Months In The Sandwich Islands out of obscurity from the stock cupboard of my city library, and quickly engrossed myself in Isabella's world as she visits Hawaii and the Sandwich Islands for the first time via an unplanned trip that never should have happened. From the treacherous journey in an unfit boat that could have sent her to an early grave, when finally setting foot on land, Isabella fully immerses herself in the local culture and then sets off on her own, exploring remote areas of the islands that even the indigenous population had yet to reach.
The book is comprised of a series of letters that she sends back home to her sister in Edinburgh, and they are so in-depth and full of every kind of detail imaginable, that at times it's a little overwhelming to read, but utterly fascinating at the same time.
Isabella Bird is certainly an inspirational woman and one that should not be forgotten.
July 8, 2025
3.5 stars
Read
October 31, 2022“The beach is formed of pure white broken coral; the sea is blue with the calm, pure blue of turquoise, but crystalline in its purity, and breaks for ever over the environing coral reef with a low deep music. Blue water stretched to the far horizon, the sky was blazing blue, the leafage was almost dazzling to the eye, the mountainous island of Molokai floated like a great blue morning glory on the yet bluer sea; a sweet, soft breeze rustled through the palms, lazy ripples plashed lightly on the sand; humanity basked, flower-clad, in sunny indolence; everything was redundant, fervid, beautiful. How can I make you realize the glorious, bountiful, sun-steeped tropics under our cold grey skies, and amidst our pale, monotonous, lustreless greens?”
For inexplicable reasons, Bird did not react to the natives of Hawaii as she did to the US indigenous peoples, so this was far less racist and judgmental of the people she met than her Rocky Mountain odyssey, but I suspect she was projecting English views of Americans there and not in Hawaii; her travels are truly mind boggling in the times she lived in, but they happened, and I am also amazed that it took so long for female solo to become more accepted since not only did they happen, but she was a bestseller in her time. She found Hawaii to be as powerful as the Rockies would be later, and really wrote beautifully of the landscape and people and language.
She wrote all of this, not typed, and I am so impressed by the length and that they were saved carefully by her sister. They didn’t get lost in the post over thousands of miles, countless steamers and ships and hurricanes. They didn’t get water stained, and there are few cross outs, written in uniform, neat handwriting with no breaks, a whole page of words, like a run on sentence. Really fascinating.
Her sister did realize how paradisaical Hawaii was, and it seems like she wanted to join Bird, who dissuaded her based on the age old belief that you lose the advantages of the intellect and reasoning if you dwell in paradise, that we need cold, harsh climates for progress and reason. I wonder what would have happened if her sister had joined her, that seems like a tale worth telling. She feels like my spiritual ancestor in solo travelling if nothing else, and I am glad these survived.
The days dawn in rose colour and die in gold, and through their long hours a sea of delicious blue shimmers beneath the sun, so soft, so blue, so dreamlike, an ocean worthy of its name, the enchanted region of perpetual calm, and an endless summer. Far off, for many an azure league, rims of rock, fringed with the graceful coco palm, girdle still lagoons, and are themselves encircled by coral reefs on which the ocean breaks all the year in broad drifts of foam. Myriads of flying fish and a few dolphins and Portuguese men-of-war flash or float through the scarcely undulating water. But we look in vain for the “sails of silk and ropes of sendal,” which are alone appropriate to this dream-world.
The Pacific in this region is an indolent blue expanse, pure and lonely, an almost untraversed sea. We revel in these tropic days of transcendent glory, in the balmy breath which just stirs the dreamy blue, in the brief, fierce crimson sunsets, in the soft splendour of the nights, when the moon and stars hang like lamps out of a lofty and distant vault, and in the pearly crystalline dawns, when the sun rising through a veil of rose and gold “rejoices as a giant to run his course,” and brightens by no “pale gradations” into the “perfect day.”
In the deep shade of this perennial greenery the people dwell. The foreign houses show a very various individuality. The peculiarity in which all seem to share is, that everything is decorated and festooned with flowering trailers. It is often difficult to tell what the architecture is, or what is house and what is vegetation; for all angles, and lattices, and balustrades, and verandahs are hidden by jessamine or passion-flowers, or the gorgeous flame-like Bougainvillea. Fences and walls are altogether buried by passion-flowers, the night-blowing Cereus, and the tropæolum, mixed with geraniums, fuchsia, and jessamine, which cluster and entangle over them in indescribable profusion. A soft air moves through the upper branches, and the drip of water from miniature fountains falls musically on the perfumed air. This is midwinter! The summer, they say, is thermometrically hotter, but practically cooler, because of the regular trades which set in in April, but now, with the shaded thermometer at 80° and the sky without clouds, the heat is not oppressive.
Everywhere, only pleasant objects meet the eye. One can sit all day on the back verandah, watching the play of light and colour on the mountains and the deep blue green of the Nuuanu Valley, where showers, sunshine, and rainbows make perpetual variety. The great dining-room is delicious. It has no curtains, and its decorations are cool and pale. Its windows look upon tropical trees in one direction, and up to the cool mountains in the other. Piles of bananas, guavas, limes, and oranges, decorate the tables at each meal, and strange vegetables, fish, and fruits vary the otherwise stereotyped American hotel fare.
The hotel seems the great public resort of Honolulu, the centre of stir--club-house, exchange and drawing-room in one. Its wide corridors and verandahs are lively with English and American naval uniforms, several planters’ families are here for the season; and with health seekers from California, resident boarders, whaling captains, tourists from the British Pacific Colonies, and a stream of townspeople always percolating through the corridors and verandahs, it seems as lively and free-and-easy as a place can be, pervaded by the kindliness and bonhomie which form an important item in my first impressions of the islands.
These are indeed the “isles of Eden,” the “sun lands,” musical with beauty. They seem to welcome us to their enchanted shores. Everything is new but nothing strange; for as I enjoyed the purple night, I remembered that I had seen such islands in dreams in the cold gray North. “How sweet,” I thought it would be, thus to hear far off, the low sweet murmur of the “sparkling brine,” to rest, and
“Ever to seem
Falling asleep in a half-dream.”
Above the cliffs there were grassy uplands with park-like clumps of the screw-pine, and candle-nut, and glades and dells of dazzling green, bright with cataracts, opened up among the dark dense forests which for some thousands of feet girdle Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, two vast volcanic mountains, whose snowcapped summits gleamed here and there above the clouds, at an altitude of nearly 14,000 feet. Creation surely cannot exhibit a more brilliant green than that which clothes windward Hawaii with perpetual spring. I have never seen such verdure.
This is the paradise of Hawaii. What Honolulu attempts to be, Hilo is without effort. Its crescent-shaped bay, said to be the most beautiful in the Pacific, is a semi-circle of about two miles, with its farther extremity formed by Cocoanut Island, a black lava islet on which this palm attains great perfection, and beyond it again a fringe of cocoanuts marks the deep indentations of the shore. From this island to the north point of the bay, there is a band of golden sand on which the roar of the surf sounded thunderous and drowsy as it mingled with the music of living waters, the Waiakea and the Wailuku, which after lashing the sides of the mountains which give them birth, glide deep and fern-fringed into the ocean.
Woods and waters, hill and valley are all there, and from the region of an endless summer the eye takes in the domain of an endless winter, where almost perpetual snow crowns the summits of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. Mauna Kea from Hilo has a shapely aspect, for its top is broken into peaks, said to be the craters of extinct volcanoes, but my eyes seek the dome-like curve of Mauna Loa with far deeper interest, for it is as yet an unfinished mountain. It has a huge crater on its summit 800 feet in depth, and a pit of unresting fire on its side; it throbs and rumbles, and palpitates; it has sent forth floods of fire over all this part of Hawaii, and at any moment it may be crowned with a lonely light, showing that its tremendous forces are again in activity. My imagination is already inflamed by hearing of marvels, and I am beginning to think tropically.
One does not forget the first sight of a palm. I think the banana comes next, and I see them in perfection here for the first time, as those in Honolulu grow in “yards,” and are tattered by the winds. It transports me into the tropics in feeling, as I am already in them in fact, and satisfies all my cravings for something which shall represent and epitomize their luxuriance, as well as for simplicity and grace in vegetable form. And here it is everywhere with its shining shade, its smooth fat green stem, its crown of huge curving leaves from four to ten feet long, and its heavy cluster of a whorl of green or golden fruit, with a pendant purple cone of undeveloped blossom below. It is of the tropics, tropical; a thing of beauty, and gladness, and sunshine.
Suddenly, just above, and in front of us, gory drops were tossed in air, and springing forwards we stood on the brink of Hale-mau-mau, which was about 35 feet below us. I think we all screamed, I know we all wept, but we were speechless, for a new glory and terror had been added to the earth. It is the most unutterable of wonderful things. The words of common speech are quite useless. It is unimaginable, indescribable, a sight to remember for ever, a sight which at once took possession of every faculty of sense and soul, removing one altogether out of the range of ordinary life.
The word aloha, in foreign use, has taken the place of every English equivalent. It is a greeting, a farewell, thanks, love, goodwill. Aloha looks at you from tidies and illuminations, it meets you on the roads and at house-doors, it is conveyed to you in letters, the air is full of it. “My alohato you,” “he sends you his aloha,” “they desire their aloha.” It already represents to me all of kindness and goodwill that language can express, and the convenience of it as compared with other phrases is, that it means exactly what the receiver understands it to mean.
The great art seems to be to mount the roller precisely at the right time, and to keep exactly on its curl just before it breaks. Two or three athletes, who stood erect on their boards as they swept exultingly shorewards, were received with ringing cheers by the crowd. Many of the less expert failed to throw themselves on the crest, and slid back into smooth water, or were caught in the combers which were fully ten feet high, and after being rolled over and over, ignominiously disappeared amidst roars of laughter, and shouts from the shore. At first I held my breath in terror, thinking the creatures were smothered or dashed to pieces, and then in a few seconds I saw the dark heads of the objects of my anxiety bobbing about behind the rollers waiting for another chance. The shore was thronged with spectators, and the presence of the elite of Hilo stimulated the swimmers to wonderful exploits.
These people are truly amphibious. Both sexes seem to swim by nature, and the children riot in the waves from their infancy. They dive apparently by a mere effort of the will.
I do not care for any waterfall but Niagara, nor do I care in itself for this one, for though its first leap is 200 feet and its second 1,600, it is so frittered away and dissipated in spray, owing to the very magnitude of its descent, that there is no volume of water within sight to create mass or sound. But no words can paint the majesty of the surroundings, the caverned, precipitous walls of rock coming down in one black plunge from the blue sky above to the dark abyss of water below, the sullen shuddering sound with which pieces of rock came hurtling down among the trees, the thin tinkle of the water as it falls, the full rush of the river, the feathery growth of ferns, gigantic below, but so diminished by the height above, as only to show their presence by the green tinge upon the rocks, while in addition to the gloom produced by the stupendous height of the cliffs, there is a cool, green darkness of dense forest, and mighty trees of strange tropical forms glass themselves in the black mirror of the basin. For one moment a ray of sunshine turned the upper part of the spray into a rainbow, and never to my eyes had the bow of promise looked so heavenly as when it spanned the black, solemn, tree-shadowed abyss, whose deep, still waters only catch a sunbeam on five days of the year.
I am quite interested with a native lady here, the first I have met with who has been able to express her ideas in English. She is extremely shrewd and intelligent, very satirical, and a great mimic. She very cleverly burlesques the way in which white people express their admiration of scenery, and, in fact, ridicules admiration of scenery for itself. She evidently thinks us a sour, morose, worrying, forlorn race. “We,” she said, “are always happy; we never grieve long about anything; when any one dies we break our hearts for some days, and then we are happy again. We are happy all day long, not like white people, happy one moment, gloomy another: we’ve no cares, the days are too short. What are haoles always unhappy about?” Perhaps she expresses the general feeling of her careless, pleasure-loving, mirth-loving people, who, whatever commands they disobey, fulfil the one, “Take no thought for the morrow.” The fabrication of the beautiful quilts I before wrote of is a favourite occupation of native women, and they make all their own and their husbands’ clothes; but making leis, going into the woods to collect materials for them, talking, riding, bathing, visiting, and otherwise amusing themselves, take up the greater part of their time. Perhaps if we white women always wore holukus of one shape, we should have fewer gloomy moments!
From this point it was one perfect, rapturous, intoxicating, supreme vision of beauty, and I felt, as I now believe, that at last I had reached a scene on which foreign eyes had never looked. The glories of the tropical forest closed us in with their depth, colour, and redundancy. Here the operations of nature are rapid and decisive. A rainfall of eleven feet in a year and a hothouse temperature force every plant into ceaseless activity, and make short work of decay. Leafage, blossom, fruitage, are simultaneous and perennial.
The river, about as broad as the Cam at Cambridge, leaped along, clear like amber, pausing to rest awhile in deep bright pools, where fish were sporting above the golden sand, a laughing, sparkling, rushing, terrorless stream, “without mysteries or agonies,” broken by rocks, green with mosses and fragile ferns, and in whose unchilled waters, not more than three feet deep, wading was both safe and pleasant. It was not possible to creep along its margin, the forest was so dense and tangled, so we waded the whole way, and wherever the water ran fiercely my unshod guide helped me. One varied, glorious maze of vegetation came down to it, and every green thing leant lovingly towards it, or stooped to touch it, and over its whole magic length was arched and interlaced the magnificent large-leaved ohia, whose millions of spikes of rose-crimson blossoms lit up the whole arcade, and the light of the afternoon sun slanted and trickled through them, dancing in the mirthful water, turning its far-down sands to gold, and brightening the many-shaded greens of candlenut and breadfruit. It shone on majestic fern-trees, on the fragile Polypodium tamariscinum, which clung tremblingly to the branches of the ohia, on the beautiful lygodium, which adorned the uncouth trunk of the breadfruit; on shining banana leaves and glossy trailing yams; on gigantic lianas, which, climbing to the tops of the largest trees, descended in vast festoons, passing from tree to tree, and interlacing the forest with a living network; and on lycopodiums of every kind, from those which wrapped the rocks in feathery green to others hardly distinguishable from ferns.
But there were twilight depths too, where no sunlight penetrated the leafy gloom, damp and cool: dreamy shades, in which the music of the water was all too sweet, and the loveliness too entrancing, creating that sadness, hardly “akin to pain,” which is latent in all intense enjoyment. Here and there a tree had fallen across the river, from which grew upwards and trailed downwards, fairy-like, semi-transparent mosses and ferns, all glittering with moisture and sunshine, and now and then a scarlet tropic bird heightened the effect by the flash of his plumage.
For inexplicable reasons, Bird did not react to the natives of Hawaii as she did to the US indigenous peoples, so this was far less racist and judgmental of the people she met than her Rocky Mountain odyssey, but I suspect she was projecting English views of Americans there and not in Hawaii; her travels are truly mind boggling in the times she lived in, but they happened, and I am also amazed that it took so long for female solo to become more accepted since not only did they happen, but she was a bestseller in her time. She found Hawaii to be as powerful as the Rockies would be later, and really wrote beautifully of the landscape and people and language.
She wrote all of this, not typed, and I am so impressed by the length and that they were saved carefully by her sister. They didn’t get lost in the post over thousands of miles, countless steamers and ships and hurricanes. They didn’t get water stained, and there are few cross outs, written in uniform, neat handwriting with no breaks, a whole page of words, like a run on sentence. Really fascinating.
Her sister did realize how paradisaical Hawaii was, and it seems like she wanted to join Bird, who dissuaded her based on the age old belief that you lose the advantages of the intellect and reasoning if you dwell in paradise, that we need cold, harsh climates for progress and reason. I wonder what would have happened if her sister had joined her, that seems like a tale worth telling. She feels like my spiritual ancestor in solo travelling if nothing else, and I am glad these survived.
The days dawn in rose colour and die in gold, and through their long hours a sea of delicious blue shimmers beneath the sun, so soft, so blue, so dreamlike, an ocean worthy of its name, the enchanted region of perpetual calm, and an endless summer. Far off, for many an azure league, rims of rock, fringed with the graceful coco palm, girdle still lagoons, and are themselves encircled by coral reefs on which the ocean breaks all the year in broad drifts of foam. Myriads of flying fish and a few dolphins and Portuguese men-of-war flash or float through the scarcely undulating water. But we look in vain for the “sails of silk and ropes of sendal,” which are alone appropriate to this dream-world.
The Pacific in this region is an indolent blue expanse, pure and lonely, an almost untraversed sea. We revel in these tropic days of transcendent glory, in the balmy breath which just stirs the dreamy blue, in the brief, fierce crimson sunsets, in the soft splendour of the nights, when the moon and stars hang like lamps out of a lofty and distant vault, and in the pearly crystalline dawns, when the sun rising through a veil of rose and gold “rejoices as a giant to run his course,” and brightens by no “pale gradations” into the “perfect day.”
In the deep shade of this perennial greenery the people dwell. The foreign houses show a very various individuality. The peculiarity in which all seem to share is, that everything is decorated and festooned with flowering trailers. It is often difficult to tell what the architecture is, or what is house and what is vegetation; for all angles, and lattices, and balustrades, and verandahs are hidden by jessamine or passion-flowers, or the gorgeous flame-like Bougainvillea. Fences and walls are altogether buried by passion-flowers, the night-blowing Cereus, and the tropæolum, mixed with geraniums, fuchsia, and jessamine, which cluster and entangle over them in indescribable profusion. A soft air moves through the upper branches, and the drip of water from miniature fountains falls musically on the perfumed air. This is midwinter! The summer, they say, is thermometrically hotter, but practically cooler, because of the regular trades which set in in April, but now, with the shaded thermometer at 80° and the sky without clouds, the heat is not oppressive.
Everywhere, only pleasant objects meet the eye. One can sit all day on the back verandah, watching the play of light and colour on the mountains and the deep blue green of the Nuuanu Valley, where showers, sunshine, and rainbows make perpetual variety. The great dining-room is delicious. It has no curtains, and its decorations are cool and pale. Its windows look upon tropical trees in one direction, and up to the cool mountains in the other. Piles of bananas, guavas, limes, and oranges, decorate the tables at each meal, and strange vegetables, fish, and fruits vary the otherwise stereotyped American hotel fare.
The hotel seems the great public resort of Honolulu, the centre of stir--club-house, exchange and drawing-room in one. Its wide corridors and verandahs are lively with English and American naval uniforms, several planters’ families are here for the season; and with health seekers from California, resident boarders, whaling captains, tourists from the British Pacific Colonies, and a stream of townspeople always percolating through the corridors and verandahs, it seems as lively and free-and-easy as a place can be, pervaded by the kindliness and bonhomie which form an important item in my first impressions of the islands.
These are indeed the “isles of Eden,” the “sun lands,” musical with beauty. They seem to welcome us to their enchanted shores. Everything is new but nothing strange; for as I enjoyed the purple night, I remembered that I had seen such islands in dreams in the cold gray North. “How sweet,” I thought it would be, thus to hear far off, the low sweet murmur of the “sparkling brine,” to rest, and
“Ever to seem
Falling asleep in a half-dream.”
Above the cliffs there were grassy uplands with park-like clumps of the screw-pine, and candle-nut, and glades and dells of dazzling green, bright with cataracts, opened up among the dark dense forests which for some thousands of feet girdle Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, two vast volcanic mountains, whose snowcapped summits gleamed here and there above the clouds, at an altitude of nearly 14,000 feet. Creation surely cannot exhibit a more brilliant green than that which clothes windward Hawaii with perpetual spring. I have never seen such verdure.
This is the paradise of Hawaii. What Honolulu attempts to be, Hilo is without effort. Its crescent-shaped bay, said to be the most beautiful in the Pacific, is a semi-circle of about two miles, with its farther extremity formed by Cocoanut Island, a black lava islet on which this palm attains great perfection, and beyond it again a fringe of cocoanuts marks the deep indentations of the shore. From this island to the north point of the bay, there is a band of golden sand on which the roar of the surf sounded thunderous and drowsy as it mingled with the music of living waters, the Waiakea and the Wailuku, which after lashing the sides of the mountains which give them birth, glide deep and fern-fringed into the ocean.
Woods and waters, hill and valley are all there, and from the region of an endless summer the eye takes in the domain of an endless winter, where almost perpetual snow crowns the summits of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. Mauna Kea from Hilo has a shapely aspect, for its top is broken into peaks, said to be the craters of extinct volcanoes, but my eyes seek the dome-like curve of Mauna Loa with far deeper interest, for it is as yet an unfinished mountain. It has a huge crater on its summit 800 feet in depth, and a pit of unresting fire on its side; it throbs and rumbles, and palpitates; it has sent forth floods of fire over all this part of Hawaii, and at any moment it may be crowned with a lonely light, showing that its tremendous forces are again in activity. My imagination is already inflamed by hearing of marvels, and I am beginning to think tropically.
One does not forget the first sight of a palm. I think the banana comes next, and I see them in perfection here for the first time, as those in Honolulu grow in “yards,” and are tattered by the winds. It transports me into the tropics in feeling, as I am already in them in fact, and satisfies all my cravings for something which shall represent and epitomize their luxuriance, as well as for simplicity and grace in vegetable form. And here it is everywhere with its shining shade, its smooth fat green stem, its crown of huge curving leaves from four to ten feet long, and its heavy cluster of a whorl of green or golden fruit, with a pendant purple cone of undeveloped blossom below. It is of the tropics, tropical; a thing of beauty, and gladness, and sunshine.
Suddenly, just above, and in front of us, gory drops were tossed in air, and springing forwards we stood on the brink of Hale-mau-mau, which was about 35 feet below us. I think we all screamed, I know we all wept, but we were speechless, for a new glory and terror had been added to the earth. It is the most unutterable of wonderful things. The words of common speech are quite useless. It is unimaginable, indescribable, a sight to remember for ever, a sight which at once took possession of every faculty of sense and soul, removing one altogether out of the range of ordinary life.
The word aloha, in foreign use, has taken the place of every English equivalent. It is a greeting, a farewell, thanks, love, goodwill. Aloha looks at you from tidies and illuminations, it meets you on the roads and at house-doors, it is conveyed to you in letters, the air is full of it. “My alohato you,” “he sends you his aloha,” “they desire their aloha.” It already represents to me all of kindness and goodwill that language can express, and the convenience of it as compared with other phrases is, that it means exactly what the receiver understands it to mean.
The great art seems to be to mount the roller precisely at the right time, and to keep exactly on its curl just before it breaks. Two or three athletes, who stood erect on their boards as they swept exultingly shorewards, were received with ringing cheers by the crowd. Many of the less expert failed to throw themselves on the crest, and slid back into smooth water, or were caught in the combers which were fully ten feet high, and after being rolled over and over, ignominiously disappeared amidst roars of laughter, and shouts from the shore. At first I held my breath in terror, thinking the creatures were smothered or dashed to pieces, and then in a few seconds I saw the dark heads of the objects of my anxiety bobbing about behind the rollers waiting for another chance. The shore was thronged with spectators, and the presence of the elite of Hilo stimulated the swimmers to wonderful exploits.
These people are truly amphibious. Both sexes seem to swim by nature, and the children riot in the waves from their infancy. They dive apparently by a mere effort of the will.
I do not care for any waterfall but Niagara, nor do I care in itself for this one, for though its first leap is 200 feet and its second 1,600, it is so frittered away and dissipated in spray, owing to the very magnitude of its descent, that there is no volume of water within sight to create mass or sound. But no words can paint the majesty of the surroundings, the caverned, precipitous walls of rock coming down in one black plunge from the blue sky above to the dark abyss of water below, the sullen shuddering sound with which pieces of rock came hurtling down among the trees, the thin tinkle of the water as it falls, the full rush of the river, the feathery growth of ferns, gigantic below, but so diminished by the height above, as only to show their presence by the green tinge upon the rocks, while in addition to the gloom produced by the stupendous height of the cliffs, there is a cool, green darkness of dense forest, and mighty trees of strange tropical forms glass themselves in the black mirror of the basin. For one moment a ray of sunshine turned the upper part of the spray into a rainbow, and never to my eyes had the bow of promise looked so heavenly as when it spanned the black, solemn, tree-shadowed abyss, whose deep, still waters only catch a sunbeam on five days of the year.
I am quite interested with a native lady here, the first I have met with who has been able to express her ideas in English. She is extremely shrewd and intelligent, very satirical, and a great mimic. She very cleverly burlesques the way in which white people express their admiration of scenery, and, in fact, ridicules admiration of scenery for itself. She evidently thinks us a sour, morose, worrying, forlorn race. “We,” she said, “are always happy; we never grieve long about anything; when any one dies we break our hearts for some days, and then we are happy again. We are happy all day long, not like white people, happy one moment, gloomy another: we’ve no cares, the days are too short. What are haoles always unhappy about?” Perhaps she expresses the general feeling of her careless, pleasure-loving, mirth-loving people, who, whatever commands they disobey, fulfil the one, “Take no thought for the morrow.” The fabrication of the beautiful quilts I before wrote of is a favourite occupation of native women, and they make all their own and their husbands’ clothes; but making leis, going into the woods to collect materials for them, talking, riding, bathing, visiting, and otherwise amusing themselves, take up the greater part of their time. Perhaps if we white women always wore holukus of one shape, we should have fewer gloomy moments!
From this point it was one perfect, rapturous, intoxicating, supreme vision of beauty, and I felt, as I now believe, that at last I had reached a scene on which foreign eyes had never looked. The glories of the tropical forest closed us in with their depth, colour, and redundancy. Here the operations of nature are rapid and decisive. A rainfall of eleven feet in a year and a hothouse temperature force every plant into ceaseless activity, and make short work of decay. Leafage, blossom, fruitage, are simultaneous and perennial.
The river, about as broad as the Cam at Cambridge, leaped along, clear like amber, pausing to rest awhile in deep bright pools, where fish were sporting above the golden sand, a laughing, sparkling, rushing, terrorless stream, “without mysteries or agonies,” broken by rocks, green with mosses and fragile ferns, and in whose unchilled waters, not more than three feet deep, wading was both safe and pleasant. It was not possible to creep along its margin, the forest was so dense and tangled, so we waded the whole way, and wherever the water ran fiercely my unshod guide helped me. One varied, glorious maze of vegetation came down to it, and every green thing leant lovingly towards it, or stooped to touch it, and over its whole magic length was arched and interlaced the magnificent large-leaved ohia, whose millions of spikes of rose-crimson blossoms lit up the whole arcade, and the light of the afternoon sun slanted and trickled through them, dancing in the mirthful water, turning its far-down sands to gold, and brightening the many-shaded greens of candlenut and breadfruit. It shone on majestic fern-trees, on the fragile Polypodium tamariscinum, which clung tremblingly to the branches of the ohia, on the beautiful lygodium, which adorned the uncouth trunk of the breadfruit; on shining banana leaves and glossy trailing yams; on gigantic lianas, which, climbing to the tops of the largest trees, descended in vast festoons, passing from tree to tree, and interlacing the forest with a living network; and on lycopodiums of every kind, from those which wrapped the rocks in feathery green to others hardly distinguishable from ferns.
But there were twilight depths too, where no sunlight penetrated the leafy gloom, damp and cool: dreamy shades, in which the music of the water was all too sweet, and the loveliness too entrancing, creating that sadness, hardly “akin to pain,” which is latent in all intense enjoyment. Here and there a tree had fallen across the river, from which grew upwards and trailed downwards, fairy-like, semi-transparent mosses and ferns, all glittering with moisture and sunshine, and now and then a scarlet tropic bird heightened the effect by the flash of his plumage.
June 9, 2017
This early Hawaiian travelogue is unique for several reasons. It’s a first edition, published in 1875, and the first book by an author who became a well-known travel writer. Ms. Bird (later Bishop), unlike most British women in her day, chose to travel alone and to mix freely with people of different cultures. She adopted some foriegn habits considered shocking by her own society, for example riding horses astride like native Hawaiian women rather than sidesaddle like a proper British woman. Many of her adventures, particularly those involving volcanoes, seem like “extreme sports” by modern standards. In fact, even the typical travel by ship that she describes, sharing bunk areas with strangers and various vermin, frequently inundated by rain and seawater, make modern travel inconveniences pale in comparison.
Ms. Bird writes in a delightfully candid and humorous way. The book is actually a collection of letters sent to her sister while in residence in Hawaii, so it has an informal and personal tone. She’s an educated woman and writes of botanical and geological excursions: alone, with native guides, and with European male contemporaries. Through her letters, we see she is a hardy, intelligent, and companionable asset to these expeditions. Her extensive descriptions of lava pools and flows at the top of various volcanoes are educational and fascinating. She approaches close enough to burn shoes and gloves, and in some cases eyebrows and eyelashes, and at times can barely breathe. Even her descriptions of the less dangerous forays contain insightful details about landscape, horsemanship, vegetation, and Hawaiian culture. And if you’ve visited towns on the Big Island, Maui, or Kauai, her descriptions of them in 1875 are fun to ponder. She also includes a helpful fold-out map to help us locate the areas that she describes.
The era in which Ms. Bird writes is post-missionary, and before the US subjugation of Hawaii. Native Hawaiians, now Christians, still ruled Hawaii. However, the stage is set, with many Americans, British, and other Europeans living in Hawaii and native populations dropping off drastically during the past two generations (the author gives these figures in a chart at the end of the book). Like most Brits, Ms. Bird advocates self-rule by Hawaiians, but sees hints of the inevitability of the American takeover. She makes many candid political comments throughout the book. Her willingness to state her opinion on such matters adds an editorial dimension to the book.
Anyone who has visited Hawaii and is interested in its history or geology will enjoy this book. Women who often travel alone will enjoy it too.
Ms. Bird writes in a delightfully candid and humorous way. The book is actually a collection of letters sent to her sister while in residence in Hawaii, so it has an informal and personal tone. She’s an educated woman and writes of botanical and geological excursions: alone, with native guides, and with European male contemporaries. Through her letters, we see she is a hardy, intelligent, and companionable asset to these expeditions. Her extensive descriptions of lava pools and flows at the top of various volcanoes are educational and fascinating. She approaches close enough to burn shoes and gloves, and in some cases eyebrows and eyelashes, and at times can barely breathe. Even her descriptions of the less dangerous forays contain insightful details about landscape, horsemanship, vegetation, and Hawaiian culture. And if you’ve visited towns on the Big Island, Maui, or Kauai, her descriptions of them in 1875 are fun to ponder. She also includes a helpful fold-out map to help us locate the areas that she describes.
The era in which Ms. Bird writes is post-missionary, and before the US subjugation of Hawaii. Native Hawaiians, now Christians, still ruled Hawaii. However, the stage is set, with many Americans, British, and other Europeans living in Hawaii and native populations dropping off drastically during the past two generations (the author gives these figures in a chart at the end of the book). Like most Brits, Ms. Bird advocates self-rule by Hawaiians, but sees hints of the inevitability of the American takeover. She makes many candid political comments throughout the book. Her willingness to state her opinion on such matters adds an editorial dimension to the book.
Anyone who has visited Hawaii and is interested in its history or geology will enjoy this book. Women who often travel alone will enjoy it too.
January 4, 2011
I was lucky enough to spend a week on Hawai'i recently and encountered several quotes from Isabella Bird, an English travel writer who spent 6 months on the Hawai'ian islands (Sandwich Islands to the Brits at the time) back in 1873. I had never heard of her before, but picked up the book in a state park gift shop. I'm glad i did. She was a fascinating and incredibly adventurous person, and brave, and wonderfully meticulous in her observations. Sometimes a bit too much so - I don't need to know the name of every plant in every valley. But usually it pays off. There is, perhaps unavoidably, a certain amount of looking down on the darker skin tones and primitive culture, but less then one might expect given the time. I imagine Ms. Bird was quite progressive for the era, and she does have an abundance of respect and admiration for many aspects of Hawai'ian culture. And for volcano fans - she climbed Kilauea when Hale-mau-mau crater was a bubbling, raging lake of lava and she spends glorious pages describing it in great detail. Definitely a good read for anyone who loves Hawai'i.
January 28, 2011
Recommended in Book Lust To Go: Recommended Reading for Travelers, Vagabonds, and Dreamersfor Hawaii. The author, a single 40-something English woman, arrived in Hawaii in 1873 on a ship that barely made it from New Zealand. She was on her way to the US, but was way-laid by the beauty and friendliness of the islands and stayed for almost seven months. She was very adventurous-quickly accepting the local custom of women riding horses astride as practical. She visited all the major islands and her lively descriptions of her travels, give a snapshot of Hawaii at this time. This includes customs of the native Hawaiians--from the court in Honolulu to those tucked away in remote valleys who rarely see haoles (and have to scramble to put on clothes when she appears). She is much more knowledgeable about tropical flora than I am and I had a tendency to skim her paragraphs of description of the local plants.
December 13, 2010
This was one of Ms. Bird's earliest traveling adventures--and she is truly amazing. She travels because she claims to be in poor health, but honestly, she tackles adventures no invalid would dare. Even many "healthy" folk would find her itinerary daunting. She fords nearly impossible raging rivers on horse-back, tackles the heights of Mauna Loa (without getting "mountain fever"), sleeps in bitter cold huts, endures sweltering heat, all while writing lovely Victorian prose about the beauties about her, including botanical names for all she sees. Her descriptions of Kiluea and the other volcanoes she visits are amazing. This book does get a bit tedious at times with all the description, and it does go on and on, but it is a fascinating look at the Hawaiian Islands in the late 1800's. I had no idea people rode horses so much there, nor did I realize that the ancient Hawaiians practiced human sacrifice.
March 14, 2015
This is a real insight into the Hawaiian Islands and what they were like before real modernisation, globalization and tourism hit them. It displays and describe the different customs and traditions with eloquence and without mockery (as many of the travels in this time period do). It shows the authors genuine interest in the islands and its inhabitants - both native and immigrant. It was interesting to read about how the different islands and how they compared in their levels of development in relation to the amounts of investment and the landscape.
Single female travellers were not so common during the Victorian Era so it was interesting to she Isabella Bird viewpoint on this. She doesn't shy away from hiding things either and the book goes through both her positives and negatives - bad weather, illness, almost having her horse drown. It is an excellent comparison to looking at the modern day Hawaiian Islands.
Single female travellers were not so common during the Victorian Era so it was interesting to she Isabella Bird viewpoint on this. She doesn't shy away from hiding things either and the book goes through both her positives and negatives - bad weather, illness, almost having her horse drown. It is an excellent comparison to looking at the modern day Hawaiian Islands.
June 18, 2012
I read the first several chapters and decided that this is not the time for me to finish "Six months," if at all. I was much more interested in other writings by Isabella Bird. And other books of Hawaii were much more engaging, especially "Moloka'i" (a novel by Alan Brennert) and other books that I read prior to an Elderhostel (former name) visiting five islands to learn geology, biology, and culture. Any other 19c book on the Sandwich Islands that I read will need to show sense of humor, such as Mark Twain's "Mark Twain in Hawaii: Roughing It in the Sandwich Islands, Hawaii in the 1860's."
March 5, 2010
I read Isabella Bird's book, A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains, several years ago. Now that I'm spending a lot of time in Hawaii, I was very interested in hearing her impressions of the islands in the 1860's. While her view of most of the "natives" is far from enlightened, the descriptions of her travel on horseback around the islands are fascinating. She was intrepid by today's standards, not just by the standards of her day.
February 22, 2013
This is a fascinating look at the islands from the perspective of a woman traveling alone in the 1870s and who was absolutely fearless! What great adventures she experienced and all these years later her words are so very full of wonderful descriptions of the islands in all their majesty, which are thankfully still mostly intact. The occasional biases of the generation are easily forgiven and her daring adventures would rival any even by todays's standards.
April 15, 2011
Amusing and insightful accounts of a quite independent adventure seeking women in the 19th century. She traveled to and throughout the Hawaiian islands experiencing situations which might challenge us modern travelers. The book is a collection of letters and is filled with lengthy prose written with a subtle but wonderful sense of sarcasm describing her experiences.
August 4, 2011
Here descriptions of volcanic activity are so vivid I can picture Mauna Loa erupting. I very much enjoyed reading about her adventures riding through the wilds of 19th century Hawaii. The chapters at the end on the economy and history of Hawaii were a little disappointing after all the exciting chapters about her adventures. Overall a great read though.
January 7, 2016
After living on the big island for 11 years, I finally picked up my copy of Ms. Bird's book. Amazed does not adequately describe my feelings. Love this book, sending copies to my family so all will appreciate the beauty of my island and why I choose to live in the remote place in the world? Just love this book. With aloha from the Big Island.
August 2, 2011
The dauntless Isabella Bird is always a hoot to read! This was especially good reading during a trip to Europe during which not everything went according to plan. At least we weren't camped out on the edge of an erupting volcano!
February 4, 2013
Non-fiction Victorian travel book written in 1875, two years after the author made her long trip from England to the Hawaiian islands. Much of what she found wonderful about Hawaii then is what we still find wonderful today.
Currently reading
January 23, 2011I'm loving this book so far. We visited an exhibit on her travels where a Japanese photographer re-shot all of her pics and it inspired me to read this book.
March 18, 2012
Really a fascinating first-hand account by a hard-core woman in the 1870s. A must read if you travel to Hawaii, esp the big island.
July 9, 2012
I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/11260141
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/11260141
March 7, 2021
I might not be able to physically go to Hawaii because of covid, though I did enjoy reading about Isabella Bird visit to Hawaii. Her descriptions of the wildlife and people of Hawaii were very detailed and you can tell that she really liked her trip. It also had a lot of cool fun facts about the history, culture, and current events (at the time) of Hawaii. For example, if we don't account for inflation, the entire yearly education budget for Hawaii, $40,000 was around the same price of a year of college for one student in current times. I don't know how I feel about that information but I do know that I liked this book. It was an easy read and I liked imagining being in Hawaii while reading it.
June 18, 2022
Isabella Bird is a delightful person in her letters, a true Christian lady, a daring adventuress, and an entertaining wordsmith. I didn't read every word of this book as it was anti-insomnia listening at night and I slept through various portions and went back at a guess later, but it was fascinating - the volcano visits, the odd hospitality experiences, the religious history, the gorgeous scenery and overall unbelievable hair-raising experiences made it a delightful escape. You can hardly believe this lady of tea- and comfort-loving sensibilities would be burning the soles of her shoes off on volcano summits and fording flooded rivers on a pony, but she does and she writes about it with zest.
January 1, 2025
I understand the historical importance of this book. And I admire the author greatly and would love to find a biography of her. However, the repetitive descriptions of the lava fields and the many island forests treks didn’t make for an enjoyable read for me. I did enjoy the cultural & sociological insights, even though the author can be quite racist (as one expects from literature of this period). I’d like to rate the book higher but I ended up skimming so much of it thanks to landscape descriptions that I just can’t add a 3rd star in good conscience. Sorry Isabella…
Displaying 1 - 30 of 50 reviews