STATISTICS OF LAHAINA WHALE-SHIPS. 63 whale-ships and cargoes entered at Lahaina and Honolulu, between 1844 and 1845, was $17,733,411; of disbursements there, $150,000. The supplies furnished by the natives are goats, hogs, poultry, fruit, and vegetables, especially Irish potatoes, for which they get money and cloth, or other articles of exchange. Fresh beef, also, is supplied by foreignOther supplies, as of salt provisions, bread, cordage, and ship-chandlery in general, are furnished almost exclusively by one American house, that take bills drawn upon ship-owners in America and Europe, at a rate of twenty per cent. for exchange. ers. The concurrence here of such large whaling fleets makes Lahaina a most desirable place of labor for a seamen's chaplain. Estimating twenty-five seamen only to a ship, the port will be visited by ten thousand annually: not, indeed, ten thousand different seamen, but that number in two different times. From the first year, 1823, in which this was made a missionary station, to the present time, more or less of a chaplain's work has been done for them by the resident missionaries. Until he left, in 1825, it was Mr. Stewart's special department; in whose time were perpetrated the atrocious outrages upon government and the mission by disappointed sailors and their infamous captains. Rev. Mr. Spalding, the lamented associate of Mr. Richards, labored some years after among them with great acceptableness. On his failure, the work fell upon Mr. Baldwin, who had at the same time the pastoral care of the church in the absence of Mr. Richards, and the medical department for Maui. A building has been erected, and an upper room finished for a chapel, by the contributions of shipmasters and foreigners at Lahaina. During one year, the Rev. Lorrin Andrews, for some years a missionary of the American Board, now in the employ of government, was engaged by the residents here to supply the desk. Two hundred and forty dollars were contributed by shipmasters and residents for his support. He labored, however, only on the Sabbath, and preached once the same day in a school-house to a little congregation of natives, in a remote part of Lahaina. A man was needed to labor daily among the residents and seamen, who might come into personal rencontre, and employ what Dr. Beecher used to call the short-sword and dagger of personal conversation and Tract-giving. Through the providence of the American Seamen's Friend Society, such a laborer is now supplied in the person of Rev. Mr. Taylor, who has been stationed here since the year 1848 as the local seamen's chaplain. It will be in his power, through God's blessing, to preclude much sin and suf fering on the part of those otherwise unfriended seamen, who, having no man to care for their souls, are likely to care little for themselves, except how they may secure the pleasures of sin for a season. It was painful to go out among them here about sundown, when their liberty expires, and, drunk or sober, HUMILIATING SCENES AT LAHAINA. 65 they must be off to their ships, or into the fort. Liquor and lust had by that time done their best to inflame many of them, and your ears would be shocked by ribald oaths, and the language of lewdness, caught up and repeated by native boys; and you would see some reeling to and fro at their wit's end, and hustled along by some less drunken comrade; and others without shame, caressed and hung upon by native girls, who flock here in the ship season, from other parts, to get the ready wages of sin. The populace of both sexes were out to see what was a-going, and to catch the contagion and cant of vice. It was a scene of vileness, disgust, and abomination, which no virtuous man, if possible, would see but once. You seemed to behold busy devils scouting about one of the breathing-holes of hell, running into the drunken herd, and chuckling with Satanic glee over the human victims which they were making ten-fold more the children of hell than themselves. It was a sight to make a missionary weep, and any foreigner in whom virtue and shame have not become extinct, To blush, And hang his head to think himself a man; a countryman, perhaps, of those who were making themselves and the recent heathen so vile. It ought to be added to this picture now, that, just after my visit at Lahaina, the sale of ardent spirits was prevented, and a great deal of mischief and vice stopped. The only license for its sale (which government deemed itself under the humiliating obligation to grant in consideration of the forced French treaty) was bid off at auction to a temperance man, with the tacit understanding that he should not be a loser, for the sum of $1500. In a riot just before, and a fight of the seamen with the native constables, the rioters for a time. held the town, and it was found absolutely necessary for the safety of life and limb, and to preclude similar or worse scenes of riot and noise, that the one great mischief-breeder should be bound and rendered impotent. This port and Hilo are now probably the only two places in all the Pacific Ocean frequented by ships, where a sailor cannot get drunk. May the honorable difference never be lost through any fault of theirs! It is highly amusing to a stranger to go out into the south part of this town, some day when the sea is rolling in heavily over the reef, and to observe there the ev olutions and rapid career of a company of surf-players. The sport is so attractive and full of wild excitement to Hawaiians, and withal so healthful, that I cannot but hope it will be many years before civilization shall look it out of countenance, or make it disreputable to indulge in this manly, though it be dangerous, exercise. Many a man from abroad who has witnessed this exhilarating play, has no doubt inly wished that he were free and able to share in it himself. For my |