She was somewhat reticent to leave her aging mother behind, but since the second brother was sensible and now was about to get married, she could entrust her mother's care to her new sister-in-law. She had her own life to live. She knew full well the kind of life a spinster might expect for her future, especially in such reduced circumstances as hers were. So after many nights wherein mother and daughter wept together, the day arrived when she was to start the first lap of her long journey to her husband.
CHAPTER 11
A Bride Comes to the Plantation
THUS IN THE YEAR 1899, WE FIND CHIZU united with Torao in the Immigration Station and subsequently at the Yamashiro Hotel in Honolulu. They struck up an acquaintance with the Arata family of Kauai during their sojourn in Honolulu. From the Inter-Island wharf, Pier 13, they boarded the SS Mauna Kea. The men had come to see them off and as they stood on the wharf waiting for the side door to the steerage quarters to open they looked around with interest on the bustling scene that characterized the waterfront on a steamer day. There was a pungent odor of gunny sacks that were piled high at one corner awaiting loading. Boxes and crates of merchandise were pyramided high with ports of export printed on the sides--Hongkong, Yokohama, Kobe, Calcutta, New York, New Orleans, etc., and consigned to the big wholesale houses of Davies, Hackfield, etc. The excited mass of humanity on the scene was equally varied regarding their place of origin: Polynesians, Malayans, Orientals, and Caucasians.
As in all parting scenes at wharves, different from hurried farewells at railroad stations, there was a festive air mixed with a touch of sadness. There was a group talking in monotones; there was another group hilarious and back-slapping. There were numerous bows among the Orientals and much kissing among the whites and Hawaiians. To Chizu and no less to Torao, these sights were novel and exotic. Most queer and in a way beautiful were the garlands of flowers that friends hung about the necks of friends and travelers.
The most impressive of all was a scene enacted by two aged Hawaiians. They both must have been over sixty. One was traveling for he was bedecked with "leis" around his neck and on his hat. He was clad in a faded blue shirt, white linen pants, and wore no shoes. He only had a single friend to see him off--a friend similarly clad. Nobody paid any attention to this pair, for there was no distinguishing mark about them to set them apart from the ordinary natives on the streets and on the pier. But soon they began an old native singsong, undulating chant. There was an immediate hush and people crowded around this pair. The lei bedecked native was standing with bowed head and hat in hand raised to his breast. With the steamer as his background, his friend stood in front of him about seven feet away rendering this ancient chant to his friend who was on the brink of crossing an ocean infested with many sharks. Evidently such a chant was offered in ancient days to the maritime gods to propitiate any wrath and ensure a safe voyage in the days when the largest seagoing vessel was a double outrigger canoe.
Torao did not understand the language. Yet the chant almost half-wailing and half-beseeching possessed a deep element of the mysterious which was so akin to the utai of ancient Japan that he was spellbound and watched intently this scene which bespoke so much of male friendship. There were tears in the eyes of the two old men, and as the song ended the two approached each other and went into a tight embrace. Torao thought he saw nothing more moving than the friendship between these two of the old order of Hawaiian natives who were oblivious to surroundings and expressed their innermost feelings so beautifully and nobly.
The door to the steerage quarters was opened and each passenger carried his luggage into the hold. The Murayama's found a suitable nook where there would be no passing sailors stepping on the extended feet of reclining figures. Soon a Chinese man peddling mats came around and Torao procured two. The stench was overpowering. Chizu was a very poor sailor but luckily her husband was a very good one. She kept orange peelings in front of her nose to modify the odoriferous unpleasantness which assailed her and brought her repeatedly to the verge of vomiting.
The SS Mauna Kea began to roll and dip as soon as she got out of the harbor. Off Diamond Head the rolling became so pronounced that even Torao had to lie down for the moment. In the Molokai Channel the swells were larger and the motion of the ship became more regular and not so hard on the passengers. Toward evening the Chinese came around and took orders for evening meals. Twenty-five cents for a plate of stew or curried rice on a tin plate plus ten cents for a cup of coffee. Torao ordered the meal for himself only, for to his wife even the mere mention of food was nauseating.
It was a restless night. The steamer made many stops; Kaunakakai, Lahaina, Malae, Mahukona, and Kawaihae were touched before they got to Laupahoehoe, where they were to land.
The next day dawned when they came to the region off the wild coast between Kohala and Waipio. The green rugged countryside was broken into many sections of isolated, uninhabited woodland by deep ravines at the bottom of which many swift streams that came thundering to their terminus and entered the ocean from a height of five hundred feet or more. These beautiful waterfalls were arranged like ribbons of white against the green panorama.
After they sighted the village of Waipio where the pattern of rice fields cultivated by Chinese could be easily discerned even from the distance, they could see the sugar plantations of Kukuihaele and Honokaa and Torao was queerly moved when his eyes roved over the sugar cane fields toward the wooded section at the upper part of the plantation. There lay the site where he was captured in his ill-fated escape three years previously. What would have happened had he succeeded in his flight? It surely could not have been any better than now. It was a grueling three years that followed, no doubt, but he was rewarded for his silent uncomplaining acquiescence to the dictates of fate. He was now married, a status every respectable and honest woman or man covets.
Off Paauhau Plantation there was loading of sugar going on at the landing. A cargo ship was anchored off shore and a large boat approached the platform built on the rocks at the base of the precipitous cliff. A cable car went up and down the cliffs bearing sacks of sugar and carrying supplies for the plantation. On the platform stood a stationary derrick which hoisted the bundles of sugar sacks and deposited them in the boats and unloaded the vessels of their sacks of fertilizer and lumber and merchandise crates. This landing was unique along the Hilo-Hamakua coast. Most plantations had a wire cable connecting the landing on top of the cliff with the cargo vessel's deck and the cargo was sent down or hauled up on this wire rope, the motive power being furnished by the cable hoist in the landing house on the land.
The sight of the Hamakua coast from the sea in the early hours of the morning, especially for those who know the country was always an exciting and picturesque scenery--the imposing massive mountain chain in the center, sometimes snowcapped and reflecting the morning rays of the sun--fringed around the base by a green forest belt that gave way to the greener acreage that constituted the cultivated portion of sugar cane. Here and there were areas of young sugar cane. At other places, yellow dried leaves of recently harvested fields altered the generally uniform green pattern of the plantations. Everything was green and refreshing. Even the deep gulches were not bare. The steep sides were forested with groves of yellowish-green kukui trees. The sea was always rough, especially off the Ookala coast, and the waves battering against the rocky shore broke up into fine sprays of white that glistened in the morning sun.
The port of Laupahoehoe was reached at about eleven o'clock in the morning and the S.S. Mauna Kea stopped her engines. She just drifted while a whaleboat was lowered to accommodate passengers and freight. Down the ladder went the passengers to board the boat. The little craft rose and fell with each of the waves that passed underneath. A huge native sailor held on to the ladder to keep the boat from drifting away from the mother ship while another sailor helped each passenger as he stepped from the ladder into the boat. Thus boarding was accomplished trickily when the boat rode on the crest of the wave and the distance between the two ships became opportune for the novice to step down. It was a precarious step to take for any landsman, and the sailor was there just for the purpose of lending a helping hand. This whaleboat was then rowed to the shore by four stalwart native seamen and there again was the precarious leap one had to make to jump onto the land when the boat rose with the incoming surf to the highest point. The landing place was situated in a little