October 29, 2012

  • Hawaii

    The book I read to research this post was The Berlitz Travel Guide to Hawaii which is an excellent book which I bought from a secondhand bookshop. When the first settlers arrived on Hawaii the only mammals were bats and monk seals and pineapples were introduced much later. There are 8 islands but you can only visit 6. One is reserved for naval use and one is owned by a wealthy scottish family called the Robinsons and only natives can use it. Ouhu is the capital and has the big city Honolulu but the biggest island is Hawaii although the locals call it the big island. Captain Cook is probably the first westerner to visit but he temporarily kidnapped so some of the tribesmen killed him and ate him. They gave the crew back a few of his bones for them to bury. One of the chiefs some how did a trade for a ship complete with cannons and invaded the other islands. He had 2 englishmen who captained the ship. He was a bit of a tyrant but tried to model his monarchy on what he heard about the english government and monarchy. He even had a governor for each island. Another chief visited England and tried to visit the king but died of disease en route. Missionaries came to Hawaii and although they set up schools which were attended mostly by adults they tried to impose a kind of puritanism on the islands. The tribal chiefs wife became a devout christian and was an ally to them but after she died they had to become more liberal. Hawaii was rife with prostitution. The islands got annexed by the USA but only became a state much later in 1959 making it the 50th state.

    They do flights which allow you to see all the islands. They also have the worlds largest pineapple plantation. There are several active volcanoes and the islands are volcano in origin. Some of the higher mountains actually get snow. Honolulu is the headquarters for the US pacific fleet and contains a deep channel that can house over a 100 vessels. Of course this is pearl harbour the site of the biggest military loss in a single event in US history which happened in World War 2.

oldscratbag

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