Hawaii is a queer place. Everything socially is what I may call
topsy-turvy. Not but what things are correct. They are almost too
much so. But still things are sort of upside down. The most ultra-
exclusive set there is the "Missionary Crowd." It comes with rather
a shock to learn that in Hawaii the obscure martyrdom-seeking
missionary sits at the head of the table of the moneyed aristocracy.
But it is true. The humble New Englanders who came out in the third
decade of the nineteenth century, came for the lofty purpose of
teaching the kanakas the true religion, the worship of the one only
genuine and undeniable God. So well did they succeed in this, and
also in civilizing the kanaka, that by the second or third
generation he was practically extinct. This being the fruit of the
seed of the Gospel, the fruit of the seed of the missionaries (the
sons and the grandsons) was the possession of the islands
themselves,--of the land, the ports, the town sites, and the sugar
plantations: The missionary who came to give the bread of life
remained to gobble up the whole heathen feast.

But that is not the Hawaiian queerness I started out to tell. Only
one cannot speak of things Hawaiian without mentioning the
missionaries. There is Jack Kersdale, the man I wanted to tell
about; he came of missionary stock. That is, on his grandmother's
side. His grandfather was old Benjamin Kersdale, a Yankee trader,
who got his start for a million in the old days by selling cheap
whiskey and square-face gin. There's another queer thing. The old
missionaries and old traders were mortal enemies. You see, their
interests conflicted. But their children made it up by