Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as Fiction. Every emotion, thought, or action embodied into literature has been human experience at some time. We can imagine nothing within the laws of nature, but what has had or may have an actual existence. A novel, therefore, but personifies the Truth. In giving a local interest to its actors, it introduces them to the reader through the medium of sympathies and passions, common to his own heart, of reason intelligible to his own mind, or of moral sentiments that find an echo in his own soul. Its success depends upon the skill and feeling with which the author works out his characters into a consistent whole—creating a simple and effective unity out of his plot, locality, and motive. Still every reader likes to feel that the persons whose fates warm his interest in the pages of a romance, actually lived and were as tangibly human as himself, and his degree of interest is apt to be in ratio to his belief that they were real personages. I am glad, therefore, to be able to assure my readers of the following facts. In my youth I spent several years in different parts of the Pacific Ocean, but chiefly at the Sandwich or Hawaiian[6] Islands. While engaged in procuring materials for their history,—first published in 1843,—I was much struck with a tradition relating to their history by Europeans, two and a half centuries before Cook so accidentally stumbled upon them. Briefly it was this—
Eighteen generations of kings previous to Kamehameha I., during the reign of Kahoukapa, or Kiana, there arrived at Hawaii, a white priest, bringing with him an idol, which, by his persuasion, was enrolled in the calendar of the Hawaiian gods, and a temple erected for its service. The stranger priest acquired great influence, and left a reputation for goodness that was green in the memories of the people of Hawaii three centuries later. Another statement adds that a vessel was wrecked on the island, and the captain and his sister reached the shore, where they were kindly received and adopted into the families of the chiefs.
Without enlarging here upon the tradition, and the light my subsequent researches threw upon it, I will simply state that I became convinced that a Spanish priest, woman, and several men were rescued from a wreck, landed and lived in Hawaii, and acquired power and consideration from their superior knowledge, and for a while were even regarded as gods. Some of them intermarried with the aborigines, and their blood still exists (or did recently) among certain families, who pride themselves greatly upon their foreign origin.
Other traces of their existence are perceptible in the customs, ideas, and even the language of the natives,[7] which last has a number of words strikingly analogous to the Spanish of the same meaning. Captain Cook found among them a remnant of a sword-blade and another bit of iron. They were not strangers to this metal, and as no ores exist in their soil, they could have derived their knowledge solely from foreign intercourse.
Soon after the conquest of Mexico, Cortez sent three vessels upon an exploring expedition to California. After sailing as far as 29° north, one was sent back to report progress. The other two held on and were never heard from. Why may not one of these be the vessel that was wrecked on Hawaii? The winds would naturally drive her in that direction, and the date of the expedition agrees, so far as can be made out from Hawaiian chronology, with the time of the first arrival of white men on that island. Indeed, at that period of maritime discovery, white men could come from no other quarter. For my part, I believe that a port of Mexico was the starting point of the wrecked party; a conjecture which derives some plausibility from the fact, that, when the natives offered the whites bananas and other tropical fruits, they were familiar with them, which would be the case, if they came from Tehuantepec, from whence Cortez fitted out his vessel.
To absolutely identify the white strangers of Hawaii with the missing ships of Cortez, is not now possible. But the interest in them, left thus isolated from civilization amid savages, upon an island in the centre of the then unknown ocean, is peculiar. Especially have I[8] always been curious to trace the fate of the solitary white woman,—a waif of refinement cast thus on a barbarous shore,—and of the priest too,—to learn how far their joint influence tempered the heathenism into which they were thrown, or whether they were finally overcome by paganism.
Twelve years ago, while amid the scenery described in this volume, and the customs and traditions of the natives were fresh in my mind, I began to pen their history; but other objects prevented my going on, until the past winter, when leisure and the advice of friends, pleased with the subject, prompted its completion. The descriptions of the natural features of this remarkable island, of the religion, customs, government, and conditions of its aborigines, as well as the events in general, are as faithful transcripts, in words, of the actual, to my personal knowledge, as it is in my power to give.
In saying thus much for the facts, I am in duty bound to add a word for the ideas. Prefaces, some say, are never read. It may be so. But for myself, I like the good old custom, by which as author, or reader, I can talk or be talked directly to. It is the only way of familiar intercourse between two parties so essential to each other. I shall therefore speak on.
Every tale is based upon certain ideas, which are its life-blood. Of late, fiction has become the channel by which the topics most in the thought of the age, or which bear directly upon its welfare, reach most readily the popular mind. But few authors, however, can count[9] upon many readers, and I am not one of them. Still what a man has to say to the public, should be his earnest thought frankly told. No one has a monopoly of wisdom. The most gifted author cannot fill the measure of the understanding. The humblest may give utterance to ideas, that, however plain to most thinkers, may through him be the means of first reaching some minds, or at least suggesting thoughts that shall leave them wiser and happier. If what he say, has in it no substance of truth, it will speedily come to naught. But on the contrary, if it contain simply the seeds of truth, they will be sure to find a ripening soil somewhere in human hearts, and bud and blossom into peace and progress. With this motive I have spoken freely such views as have been prompted by my experience and reflections. They are not much to read, nor much to skip. Whichever the reader does, he carries with him my warmest wishes for his welfare, and the hope that if he find in the Story nothing to instruct, it may still be not without the power “to amuse.”
Casa Dauphiné,
Piazza Maria Antonia,
Florence, 1857.