A VULGAR FRACTION

Sometimes when, like Mirza, I retire to my little Hill of Bagdad for
meditation, there comes before me the bright picture of Hawaii with its
coral-bulwarked islands and the memory of an idle sojourn on their
shores. I remember the rainbow-coloured harbour of Honolulu Hilo, the
simply joyous Arcadie at the foot of Mauna Loa, and Mauna Kea which
lifted violet shoulders to the morning, the groves of cocoa-palms and
tamarinds, the waterfalls dropping over sheer precipices a thousand feet
into the ocean, the green embrasures where the mango, the guava, and the
lovi lovi grow, and where the hibiscus lifts red hands to the light.
I call to mind the luau where Kalakua, the King, presided over the
dispensation of stewed puppy, lifted to one's lips by brown but fair
fingers, of live shrimps, of poi and taro and balls of boiled sea-weed
stuffed with Heaven knows what; and to crown all, or to drown all, the
insinuating liquor kava, followed when the festival was done by the
sensuous but fascinating hula hula, danced by maidens of varying
loveliness. Of these Van Blaricom, the American, said, "they'd capture
Chicago in a week with that racket," and he showed Blithelygo his
calculations as to profits.

The moments that we enjoyed the most, however, were those that came when
feast and serenade were over, when Hawaii Ponoi, the National Anthem, was
sung, and we lay upon the sands and watched the long white coverlet of
foam folding towards the shore, and saw visions and dreamed dreams. But
at times we also breathed a prayer--a prayer that somebody or something
would come and carry off Van Blaricom, whose satire, born and nurtured in
Chicago, was ever turned against Hawaii and all that therein was.

There are times when I think I had a taste of Paradise in Hawaii--but a