A Fight with Distances Volume 1, No. 253; The States, the Hawaiian Islands, Canada, British Columbia, Cuba, the Bahamas

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1888 Excerpt: ...cathedral. It looked so like an example of "This man began to build, and was not able to finish." Nothing, after all, is more mistaken in building than the adopting the style of a great structure for a small one. But the desolate appearance of this fragment seemed to me to suggest the question, "What do they want out here with a cathedral?" And this question might possibly seem to suggest another. Waikiki, under the brow of Cape Diamond, was a spot to be visited, and an agreeable opportunity for doing this occurred to my bishop and myself in receiving an invitation from Mr. Hall to dine with his wife and family one evening. The spot is charming, and some strange growths of cocoanut trees, leaning and bending about as if they might with ease be broken, amused me much. The house we found most romantically built. We dined in a large verandah, and indeed room, embracing under its roof a number of huge trees, producing a most novel, romantic effect. And one arrangement was a striking example of what recourses necessity will enforce. In the middle was a structure which I can compare with nothing else than a gigantic meat-safe, planted on the floor. "What on earth is that?" "Get inside; it is a large cage to protect us from the mosquitos, and here we often sit." I may here say, in passing, that I was not particularly troubled with this irritating insect during my sojourn in the islands. But seasons differ. It is not often that you call on a friend to do something for you because you have dined with him, but it did happen to me to behave in this fashion towards my friend, Mr. Berger. For while tasting some excellent coffee after dinner, at his picturesque Honolulu dwelling, where he lives happily, the consort of an Hawaiian l...