one from the roof
of the prison, which edifice, clean, roomy, and in the day-time empty
because the convicts are sent out to labor on public works and roads, has
one of the finest situations in the town's limits, directly facing the
Nuanu Valley.

From the steamer you proceed to a surprisingly excellent hotel, which was
built at a cost of about $120,000, and is owned by the government.
You will find it a large building, affording all the conveniences of a
first-class hotel in any part of the world. It is built of a concrete
stone made on the spot, of which also the new Parliament House is
composed; and as it has roomy, well-shaded court-yards and deep, cool
piazzas, and breezy halls and good rooms, and baths and gas, and a
billiard-room, you might imagine yourself in San Francisco, were it not
that you drive in under the shade of cocoa-nut, tamarind, guava, and
algeroba trees, and find all the doors and windows open in midwinter; and
ladies and children in white sitting on the piazzas.

[Illustration: HAWAIIAN HOTEL, HONOLULU.]

It is told in Honolulu that the building of this hotel cost two of the
late king's cabinet, Mr. Harris and Dr. Smith, their places. The Hawaiian
people are economical, and not very enterprising; they dislike debt, and
a considerable part of the Hawaiian national debt was contracted to build
this hotel. You will feel sorry for Messrs. Harris and Smith, who were for
many years two of the ablest members of the Hawaiian cabinet, but you will
feel grateful for their enterprise also, when you hear that before this
hotel was completed--that is to say, until 1871--a stranger landing in
Honolulu had either to throw himself on the hospitality of the citizens,
take his lodgings in the Sailors' Home, or go back to his ship. It is not
often that cabinet ministers fall in so good a cause, or incur the public
displeasure for an act which adds so much to the comfort of mankind.

The mercury ranges between 68 deg. and 81 deg. in the winter months and
between 75 deg. and 86 deg. during the summer, in Honolulu. The mornings are
often a little overcast until about half-past nine, when it clears
away bright. The hottest part of the day is before noon. The
trade-wind usually blows, and when it does it is always cool; with a
south wind; it is sometimes sultry, though the heat is never nearly so
oppressive as in July and August in New York. In fact, a New Yorker
whom I met in the Islands in August congratulated him