Splendid Possibilities: Isabella Bird Visits Hawai'i in 1874

Ruth Levin

Written as a series of letters to her sister, her book paints a vivid portrait of the geology, biology and society of Hawai’i during this era. With the written word, she brings to life a fascinating landscape and culture which her sister and most of her readers would never experience directly. Isabella Bird’s role can be compared to that of a modern reporter or media correspondent.

High school and college students are invited to view 19th Century Hawai’i through the eyes of Isabella Bird. Her writing offers primary source material for understanding the cultural and natural resources of Hawai’i during that era. Her letters are a model for students to practice their skills in observation and communication. More advanced students interested in the history, geology and biology of Hawai’i can compare the observations in Bird’s book with current research.

Included are a brief biography of Isabella Bird, excerpts from Six Months in the Sandwich Islands, a handout on the evolution of the travel industry in Hawai’i, and maps of Kilauea Volcano’s summit. Photographs and illustrations offer background material.

The following activities allow students to gain a better understanding of one woman’s experience in the Victorian era and relate it to their own lives and the lives of others. Isabella Bird’s skill as a writer makes her experiences available to generations of readers. In addition, these activities provide an introduction to the cultural and natural history of the area which is now Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park.

Primary source materials, such as letters, photographs, maps and drawings, directly and indirectly provide information about the lives of people in the past. Invite students to examine closely the maps and illustrations. What may be learned about the women and men of this era by “reading” the photographs and drawing? Compare the painting of Hawaiian horsewomen (Pa’u Riders) with the 19th Century drawing of the rider with the umbrella. Study the photograph of European and American visitors to Halemaumau Crater. What are they doing? What are they wearing? What can be deduced from body language and facial expressions? Study the two maps looking for changes and similarities in the geology and the human-built environment of Kilauea’s summit over time.

Follow this by careful study of Bird’s writing for more information about this place at that time, including her own cultural biases. Assign students to write a narrative of Isabella Bird and Kilauea drawing from her writing, the maps and illustrations. Ask them to show what parts of the narrative they derived from which of the three sources. What aspects of life in Hawai’i during this era might be distorted or missing from these primary sources?

Roles for women were quite limited in Victorian England. Based on her writings and her biography, how did Isabella Bird’s visit to the Sandwich Islands affect her life? What were the expectations and limitations for women at that time compared to now? What factors can influence a person to develop a life that is different from the social norms of the time?

Isabella Bird’s life and work can serve as a model in studying social change in Western societies. One domain of change is travel. Ask students to read the selections from Bird’s book and the section“Travel to the Volcano...1874 and Today” on page 30.

On a world map, students trace her voyage around the world. On a map of the Hawaiian Islands, students then trace her travels within the islands and on Hawai‘i Island. Miles/kilometers of travel can be calculated. Discussion questions include: Which people in Isabella Bird’s time were financially able to undertake such a voyage, and what do you think were their motivations? What were the effects of Europeans and Americans who visited Pacific cultures in the 19th Century?

Students then plan a trip using the same route and stops, examining differences in accommodations, prices, modes of travel and communication available today with 1874 conditions. 

Using the maps provided, discuss in detail the changes and similarities at Kilauea’s summit from the 19th Century and the present, and possible causes for changes observed.

Isabella Bird conveyed both her emotional and her intellectual responses to her new experiences. Using a selection of her letters, ask students to differentiate which portions of her writings are reflective, narrative or expository. How do these observations differ? What are the strengths and weaknesses of each? Assign students to write short descriptions using the various modes of writing, and compare their effectiveness for specific purposes.

Isabella Bird’s letters provide powerful models of descriptive writing to convey images of a place the reader has never seen. First invite students to examine closely the maps and illustrations. Visual learners will find the readings more accessible with images in mind. Assign students to read the excerpts from Bird’s book and discuss their impressions of her experiences based on the letters. Ask students to consider how her experiences compare to their own or to the lives of others. Are they able to visualize the scenes she describes? Could they draw or paint pictures of Bird’s ride to the top of the mountain, her views of the summit area and/or the hotel where she stayed, using only her letters as source material?

Isabella Bird used a rich variety of descriptive words and phrases to convey her impressions of Hawai’i. Students can develop a list of unfamiliar vocabulary words from her letters. In groups or as a class, students can list the definitions and develop exercises to practice their use.

Assign students to write a letter to a sibling or a friend, in which they describe a visit to a place the reader has never seen. Encourage students to use highly descriptive language. To make the assignment more authentic, two classes might collaborate in this activity, with each class visiting a different location and describing that place in a letter to an individual in the other class.

Descriptive letter writing can also be done across time. Students can be assigned to write letters to Isabella Bird (or another more familiar figure from the past who lived in the students’ location) in which they describe their current world. Or, the assignment can include students writing letters describing descriptions of their locale in 1874 to modern readers.

Isabella Bird recorded and communicated her observations through the written word. Students can discuss (and possibly use) forms of communication not available in Bird’s day, such as video cameras, tape recorders and computers, to convey sights, sounds and impressions across time and space. Can descriptive writing compete with virtual reality? Do modern forms of communication offer a more complete and accurate picture of Hawai’i than written descriptions alone?

In 1873, Isabella Bird departed England for a year-long journey to Australia and New Zealand, California, across America and back to the British Isles. Nearly 40 years of age, she had suffered for years from back pain and other ailments. Commonly prescribed for wealthy chronic invalids, a long sea voyage was thought to lift the spirits and invigorate the body.

On the trip across the Pacific towards California, Bird stopped in the Sandwich Islands (as the Hawaiian Islands were called at that time) to assist a family she had befriended on board ship. She remained half a year, traveling and describing her adventures in letters to her sister Henrietta back home.

As a young woman, Isabella Bird had traveled to Canada and the United States, also for her health. A careful observer and a skillful writer, she published small editions of books about her travels and donated the income towards charitable works. She found that she enjoyed visiting other lands, particularly areas far from the social constraints of Victorian England. She thrived on sea voyages and rough conditions, whereas a life of polite conversations over tea cups in stuffy drawing rooms resulted in illness and depression.

Prior to 1850, very few British women traveled except to emigrate or to accompany family abroad. During the late Victorian period, a small but growing number of adventuresome British and American women undertook journeys to remote and dangerous regions. Often they were of middle age and preferred to travel alone. Some traveled to improve their own health, some when freed from domestic responsibilities after the death of an elderly relative. Some went abroad as missionaries and others to collect botanical or scientific data. Isabella Bird, like many Victorian “Lady Travelers,” gathered information and wrote travel books describing exotic regions of the world to readers back home.

Isabella Bird’s world both supported and frustrated her. Born into a family with inherited wealth and position, she was intelligent and read widely from her father’s library, but could not attend English universities still closed to women. Upon her father ‘s death, Isabella, at the age of 26, assumed the role of head of the household. She, her mother and her younger sister Hennie moved to Edinburgh, Scotland, where they lived for nearly ten years. 

After the death of their mother, Isabella and Hennie faced the prospect of relying on the kindness of family members to support them. Instead, Isabella proposed that they live frugally on their inheritance with Hennie managing the household and Isabella free to write. This domestic arrangement worked quite smoothly, but, after a time, Isabella became restless and ill. She wrote her publisher, John Murray, “I long for some more serious and engrossing literary occupation... and if you can suggest anything to me I shall be very glad.” He urged her to travel abroad. Upon the advice of a doctor, her publisher and her concerned sister Hennie, she departed on a year-long sea voyage that resulted in her book Six Months in the Sandwich Islands.

Bird began her trip as a near-invalid, but her spirits lifted when she arrived in the Hawaiian Islands. The vigorous Hawaiian horsewomen she saw in Honolulu impressed her greatly, and within a week she abandoned the style of riding side-saddle (which caused her back pain) to travel astride horseback to the active volcanic eruption at the summit of Kilauea Volcano. Her travels through the lush tropical forests and breathtaking volcanic landscapes resulted in dramatic improvement in her health and mood.

Following this trip, Isabella Bird launched a career as a world traveler and writer. She traveled next to Japan, the Malay Peninsula and the Sinai Desert. Her books were immensely successful. Tragedy struck when she was about fifty. Her beloved sister Henrietta died of typhoid fever. John Bishop, physician and family friend, offered devoted support during this time. With the understanding that she would continue to write and travel, Bird agreed to marry him after Henrietta’s death. Their marriage ended with his death five years later.

During the next 20 years, Bird traveled to remote regions of Kashmir, Korea, China, Morocco, Persia, and Tibet. Between trips, she wrote and addressed government committees, church groups and scientific associations. She became quite well known and served as a role model of an independent, successful explorer and writer. When the Royal Geographic Society admitted her in 1892 as the first female member, there was considerable opposition. By a second vote in 1893, women were denied membership once again. “The proposed action is a dastardly injustice to women,” she commented. “I don’t care to take any steps in the matter as I never took any regarding admission. Fellowship as it stands at present is not a distinction, and not a recognition of work, and not really worth taking any trouble about.”

Weak with heart disease but still hoping for a return visit to China, Bird died in Edinburgh in 1904 at the age of 72. Fortunately, she has left a legacy of books and letters recording her life and her travels. Bird’s adventures have fulfilled the dreams of many armchair travelers and her independence and courage have served as an inspiring example to this day.

Tourism is Hawai’i’ Island’s biggest industry. Nearly two million tourists per year visit Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park to view the summit area, following Isabella Bird’s 1874 route. Instead of arriving on horseback, they travel in tour buses or rental cars. A bus tour or rental car costs $40 to $45 per day. Most visitors stay in large hotels on the leeward side of Hawai’i Island. Some visitors stay at the modern Volcano House on the rim of Kilauea’s caldera where room rates are $87 to $144 per night. Meals are not included. For comparison, a dollar in 1874 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $14.40 today.

The plane trip from the U. S. Mainland, Europe or Japan takes hours rather than the weeks at sea required in Isabella Bird’s day. The flight from the city of Honolulu to Hilo takes less than an hour and costs about $80 one-way. Most visitors bring cameras or video cameras to record their experiences. They can instantly describe their impressions to family back home by telephone, computer or FAX. Like Isabella Bird, they all hope to see active lava flows.

Kilauea’s current eruption began in 1983 and continues to date. Lava is erupting from a remote vent on the east flank of the volcano. The summit caldera, where Isabella Bird saw spurting lava in Halema’uma’u Crater, has been quiet since 1982. Mauna Loa’s last eruption was in 1984. As Bird noted, frequent eruptions constantly change the landscapes of these active volcanoes. Kilauea has erupted 54 times and Mauna Loa 23 times since Isabella Bird saw the “fire which is not quenched” in 1874.

The Hawaiian monarchy was overthrown by American businessmen in 1893; Hawaii became the 50th state in 1959. Sizable populations of immigrants from Japan, the Phillipines and other areas have settled here since 1874, adding to the multicultural and multiracial society of modern Hawai’i . Many of the plants Isabella Bird so faithfully recorded still thrive, but Hawai’i leads the U. S. in endangered species. The bibliography lists resources with information on the current society, biology and geology of Hawai‘i.

Summary

The day after their arrival, they visited a local attraction called Anuenue [Rainbow] Falls. Bird suffered greatly from back pain after this short trip. On the suggestion of her host, she agreed to ride a horse astride, rather than the sidesaddle style considered proper for English ladies at that time. On 30 January, Isabella Bird traveled by horseback the rugged thirty miles from Hilo to the summit of Kilauea Volcano. She was exhausted but exhilarated by the amazing sights, smells and sounds of the active volcanic eruption occurring in the summit crater Halemaumau. Her accounts of the forests as well as the volcano offer a wealth of descriptive details. The Crater House, now called the Volcano House Hotel, provided lodging at the rim of the summit caldera. There Bird met with other travellers including native Hawaiians.

In subsequent letters, Bird describes her improving health and spirits. She enjoyed traveling alone and visited many remote parts of the island chain (although these travels have not been excerpted here). On 6 August 1874, Bird left Honolulu on the Pacific Mail Steamer Costa Rica for the port of San Francisco.

Letter II, Hawaiian Hotel, 
Honolulu, 26 January 1874

We looked down from the towering deck on a crowd of two or three thousand people—whites, Kanakas, Chinamen—and hundreds of them at once made their way on board, and streamed over the ship, talking, laughing, and remarking upon us in a language which seemed without backbone. Such rich brown men and women they were, with wavy, shining black hair, large, brown, lustrous eyes, and rows of perfect teeth like ivory. Everyone was smiling.

Saturday afternoon is a gala-day here. and the broad road was so thronged with brilliant equestrians, that I thought we should be ridden over by the reckless laughing rout. There were hundreds of native horsemen and horsewomen....The women seemed perfectly at home in their gay, brass-bossed, high peaked saddles, flying along astride, barefooted, with their orange and scarlet riding dresses streaming on each side beyond their horses’ tails, a bright kaleidoscopic flash of bright eyes, white teeth, shining hair, garlands of flowers and many-colored dresses.

Letter III, Steamer Kilauea, 29 January 1874

The Kilauea is a propeller [steamer] of 400 tons, most unprepossessing in appearance, slow, but sure, and capable of bearing an infinite amount of battering....She is the only sure mode of reaching the windward islands in less than a week....The Kilauea is not a fast propeller, and as she lurched very much in crossing the channel most of the passengers were seasick.

When the sun arose amidst showers and rainbows (for this is the showery season), I could hardly believe my eyes....Creation surely cannot exhibit a more brilliant green than that which clothes windward Hawaii with perpetual spring. I have never seen such verdure....Above Hilo, broad land sweeping up cloudwards, with their sugar cane, kalo, melons, pine-apples, and banana groves suggest the boundless liberality of Nature. Woods and waters, hill and valley are all there, and from the region of an endless summer the eye takes in the domain of an endless winter, where almost perpetual snow crowns the summits of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa.... My imagination is already inflamed by hearing of the marvels, and I am beginning to think tropically.

There is no hotel in Hilo. Their residents receive strangers, and Miss Karpe and I were soon installed in a large buff frame-house, with two deep verandas, the residence of Mr. Severance, Sheriff of Hawaii....There are no conveyances, and outside the village these narrow roads dwindle into bridle-paths, with just room for one horse to pass another.

Letter IV, Hilo

When we returned, Mr. Severance suggested that it would be much better for me to follow the Hawaiian fashion and ride astride, and put his saddle on the horse. It was only my strong desire to see the volcano which made me consent to a mode of riding against which I have so strong a prejudice, but the result of the experiment is that I shall visit Kilauea thus or not at all....We are preparing for to-morrow, having engaged a native named Upa, who boasts a little English, as our guide. He provides three horses and himself for three days for the sum of thirty dollars.

Letter V, Volcano of Kilauea, 31 January 1874

By eight yesterday morning our preparations were finished....Hilo fringes off with pretty native houses, kalo patches and mullet ponds, and in about four miles the track, then formed of rough, hard lava, and not more than 24 inches wide, enters a forest of the densest description, a burst of true tropical jungle. I could not have imagined anything so perfectly beautiful, nature seemed to riot in the production of wonderful forms as if the moist, hot-house air encouraged her in lavish excesses. Such endless variety, such depths of green, such an impassable and altogether inextricable maze of forest trees, ferns and lianas.

From this grove we traveled...in single file over an immense expanse of lava of the kind called pahoehoe, or satin rock, to distinguish it from the a-a, or jagged, rugged, impassable rock....The pahoehoe extends in the Hilo direction from hence about twenty-three miles. It is the cooled and arrested torrent of lava which in past ages has flowed towards Hilo from Kilauea. It lies in hummocks, in coils, in rippled waves, in rivers, in huge convolutions, in pools smooth and still, and in caverns which are really bubbles. Hundreds of square miles of the island are made up of this and nothing more...

The track, on the whole, is a perpetual upward scramble; for, though the ascent is so gradual, that it is only by the increasing coolness of the atmosphere that the increasing elevation is denoted, it is really nearly 4000 feet in thirty miles. Only strong, sure-footed, well-shod horses can undertake this journey.

As it was getting dark we passed through a forest strip, where tree-ferns from twelve to eighteen feet in height, and with fronds from five to seven feet long, were the most attractive novelties....I was so dead from fatigue and want of food, that I would willingly have lain down in the bush in the rain....I could only keep on my saddle by leaning on the horn, and my clothes were soaked with the heavy rain.

“Is that possibly a pool of blood?” I thought in horror, as a rain puddle glowed crimson on the track. Not that indeed! A glare brighter and redder that from any furnace suddenly lighted up the whole sky, and from that moment brightened our path.....We felt the pungency of sulphurous fumes in the still night air. A sound as of the sea broke on our ears, rising and falling as if breaking on the shore, but the ocean was thirty miles away. The heavens became redder and brighter, and when we reached the crater-house [Crater House] at eight, clouds of red vapour mixed with flame were curling ceaselessly out of a huge invisible pit of blackness, and Kilauea was in all its fiery glory. We had reached the largest active volcano in the world, the “place of everlasting burnings.”

Rarely was a light more welcome than that which twinkled from under the verandah of the lonely crater-house into the rainy night. The hospitable landlord of this unique dwelling lifted me from my horse, and carried me into a pleasant room thoroughly warmed by a large wood fire, and I hastily retired to bed to spend much of the bitterly cold night in watching the fiery vapours rolling up out of the infinite darkness, and in dreading the descent into the crater.

This morning was wet and murky as many mornings are here...when the mist rolled away and revealed...the mighty crater whose vast terminal wall is only a few yards from this house....We think of a volcano as a cone. This is a different thing. The abyss...has the appearance of a great pit on a rolling plain. But such a pit! It is nine miles in circumference, and its lowest area, which not long ago fell about 300 feet, just as ice on a pond falls when the water below it is withdrawn, covers six square miles. 

When I have learned more about the Hawaiian volcanoes, I shall tell you more of their phenomena, but tonight I shall only write to you my first impressions of what we actually saw on this January 31st. My highest expectations have been infinitely exceeded, and I can hardly write soberly after such a spectacle.

After more than an hour of very difficult climbing we reached the lowest level of the crater, pretty nearly a mile across, presenting from above the appearance of a sea at rest, but on crossing it we found it to be an expanse of waves and convolutions of ashy-coloured lava, with huge cracks filled up with black iridescent rolls of lava, only two weeks old....It took us a full hour to cross this deep depression, and as long to master a steep, hot ascent of about 400 feet, formed by a recent lava-flow from Halemaumau into the basin.

Suddenly, just above, and in front of us, gory drops were tossed in air, and springing forwards we stood on the brink of Halemaumau....It was the most unutterable of wonderful things....But what can I write! Such words as jets, fountains, waves, spray, convey some idea of order and regularity, but here was none. The inner lake, while we stood there, formed a sort of crater within itself, the whole lava sea rose about three feet, a blowing cone about eight feet high was formed, it was never the same two minutes together. What we saw had no existence a month age, and probably will be changed in every essential feature a month hence.

What we did see was one irregularly-shaped lake, possible 500 feet wide at its narrowest part and nearly half a mile at its broadest, almost divided into two by a low bank of lava....The prominent object was fire in motion, but the surface of the double lake was continually skinning over for a second or two with a cooled crust of lustrous grey-white, like frosted silver, broken by jagged cracks of a bright rose-colour....On our arrival eleven fire fountains were playing joyously round the lake....It was all confusion, commotion, force, terror, glory, majesty, and even beauty. And the colour! “Eye hath not seen” it! Molten metal has not that crimson gleam, nor blood that living light.

The heat was excessive. We were obliged to stand the whole time, and the soles of our boots were burned, and my ear and one side of my face were blistered.

This inn is a unique and interesting place.... The surrounding country steams and smokes from cracks and pits, and a smell of sulphur fills the air. They cook their kalo in a steam apparatus of nature’s own work just behind the house, and every drop of water is from a distillery similarly provided. The inn is a grass and bamboo house, very beautifully constructed without nails.... The charge is five dollars a day, but everything except the potatoes and ohelos has to be brought twenty or thirty miles on mules’ backs.... It is altogether a most magical building in the heart of a formidable volcanic wilderness.... A party of native travellers rainbound are here, and the native women are sitting on the floor stringing flowers and berries for leis..... My inkstand, pen, and small handwriting amuse them very much.

Letter VI
Hilo, Hawaii, 3 February

A number of Hilo folk came during the evening to inquire how we had sped, and for news of the volcano....It is most interesting to be in a region of such splendid possibilities.

Letter VII
Hilo, Hawaii

I am gaining health daily, and almost live in the open air. I have hired the native policeman’s horse and saddle, and with a...riding costume, which my kind friends have made for me, and a pair of jingling Mexican spurs am quite Hawaiianized. I ride alone once or twice a day exploring the neighbourhood, finding some new fern or flower daily, and abandon myself wholly to the fascination of this new existence.

Letter XXVI
“My camp,” Hawaiian slopes, 21 May 

My goal is the volcano of Kilauea, with various diverging expeditions, involving a ride of about 350 miles; but my health has so wonderfully improved, that it is easier to me now to ride forty miles in a day than ten some months ago.

Letter XXXI
Hawaiian Hotel, Honolulu, 6 August

Bevins, Darcy, ed. On the Rim of Kilauea: Excerpts from the Volcano House Register. Hawaii Natural History Association, 1992.

Bird, Isabella L. Six Months in the Sandwich Islands. London: John Murray, 1875. New York: G. P. Putnam, 1894. University of Hawaii Press, 1964. Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle Company, Rutland, 1974.

———A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains. London: John Murray, 1875. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1882. Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1960. London: Virago Press, 1982.

——— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan. London: John Murray, 1880. New York: G. P. Putnam, 1900. London/Boston: Virago Press/Beacon Press, 1987.

———The Golden Cheronese and The Way Thither. London: John Murray, 1883. London: Century Publishing, 1983.

—— Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan. London: John Murray, 1891. London: Virago Press, 1988.

——— Among the Tibetans. London: Religious Tract Society, 1894. New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1894.

——— Korea and Her Neighbors. London: John Murray, 1898. Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle Company, Rutland, 1986.

——— The Yangtze Valley and Beyond. London: John Murray, 1899. London/Boston: Virago Press/Beacon Press, 1987.

Cuddahy, L.W. and C. P. Stone. Alteration of Native Hawaiian Vegetation: Effects of Humans, Their Activities and Introductions. University of Hawaii Press: Honolulu, HI, 1990 [reprinted 1991, 1993].

Decker, Robert and Barbara Decker. Volcano Watching. Hawaii Natural History Association, Hawaii National Park, HI, 1980 [revised 1986 and 1996].

Hamalian, Leo. Ladies on the Loose: Women Travelers of the 18th and 19th Centuries. Dodd, Mead & Co., New York, NY, 1981.

Kaye, Evelyn. Amazing Traveler—Isabella Bird: The Biography of a Victorian Adventurer. Blue Penguin Publications, Boulder, CO, 1994.

Lamoureux, Charles H. Trailside Plants of Hawai’i’s National Parks. Hawaii Natural History Assoc., Hawaii National Park, HI, 1976 [revised 1996].

Macdonald, Gordon A. and Douglass H. Hubbard. Volcanoes of the National Parks in Hawaii. Hawaii Natural History Association, Hawaii National Park, HI, 1989 [revised and reprinted 1993].

Ruth Levin is a park ranger at Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park. HVNP was established on August 1, 1916 as the nation’s twelfth national park. The Hawai’ian Volcano Observatory, a U.S. Geological Survey facility, is located within the park. Over a quarter of a million acres in size, the park extends from sea level to nearly 14,000 feet and includes the summits of two active volcanoes, Kilauea and Mauna Loa. Unique ecosystems of native plants and animals, many threatened with extinction, are protected. Within Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park are significant archaeological sites including petroglyph fields and other sacred areas of the Hawai’ian culture. Contact the park at 808-985-6000 to receive more information about materials available from the park to support this lesson plan.