Pocahontas Times

Diving for Fire Wood.

Upon the shores of Hawaii fire-wood is a scarce and precious commodity. The present forests do not grow near the sea, and the labor of bringing wood from the distant timber is great, especially as roads are few. Practically all the fire-wood of the natives, and much that is used by the Europeans in the towns, is drift that is brought down periodically from the uplands by freshets that follow heavy rains. There is nothing strange in all this, but what is strange is the way the natives gather the wood. Pick it up on the beach? Not at all; at least, very little is obtained in that commonplace manner.

Much of the island timber is very heavy, and instead of floating in orthodox fashion, as wood should do, it promptly sinks to the bottom. As the freshet gathers headway, down come the heavy tree trunks and branches, dashing fiercely against the rough lava sides of the stream and bumping against the bottom till all semblance of their original shape is lost and they are bruised into shapeless blocks or split into kindling. The current carries them well into the ocean, where they settle in the sand. The first stage of their journey is over; now for the second. In a day or two the ocean rises in its might and sends in huge breakers upon the shore, which catch the logs and splinters and roll them over and over, still on the bottom, towards the beach. Here is the native's chance. He has been waiting for just such an opportunity. Down to the shore come the Kanakas in troops. Men, women and children are all on the beach, having an eye both to business and pleasure.

The women are clad in old loose holakus, a garment I may best describe by likening it to the original "Mother Hubbard." The men doff their garments and don the economical waist cloth. The children follow suit, so far as doffing goes, and don—well, to tell the truth, most of them don nothing: and if they are satisfied, you and I need not complain. And now for it.

The men dash into the breakers, diving under the big combers and rising on the crest of the smaller ones till they are out shoulder-high; then they feel around with their feet till they find a piece of wood—it may be only a splinter, or it may be a log so large as to require the aid of a rope to pull it in; but large or small, no matter. Down dives the Kanaka head foremost to seize the prize.

The women and children wade in a little distance to catch the smaller pieces that get past the men, and soon the piles on the shore grow from nothing to cords. A hardy native will stay in the water, wading and diving, a couple of hours, and then come out, pretty thoroughly chilled, to sun himself on the beach in readiness for another bout with the waves, meantime solacing himself with inevitable pipe or cigarette.

Hard work is this wood gathering by diving, what between the buffetings of the waves, the cold, and the labor of tugging the logs ashore! But for all that, shouts and laughter fill the air, and one might suppose the occasion was a summer picnic.

Whatever his faults, the Kanaka has not added to the gloom and discontent of the world. He endures disappointments and misfortunes with equanimity, and when the clouds pass and the sun shines, he is ready to laugh and be glad.—H. W. Henshaw, in The Youth's Companion.