and he probably loses six months’ interest, reckoning from the time his sugar leaves the plantation.  This arrangement, several planters told me, was profitable to them; but it was discontinued—­it was not to the advantage of the agents; its discontinuance was no doubt a blunder for the planters.  Moreover, the Australian market has been too long neglected; but the advantage of possessing two markets instead of one is too obvious to require statement.

It is a reasonable conclusion, from all the facts in the case, that sugar planting can be carried on at a fair and satisfactory profit in the Hawaiian Islands, wherever skill and careful personal attention are given, and due economy enforced by a planter who has at the same time sufficient capital to carry on the business.  The example of Captain Makee and Mr. A.H.  Spencer on Maui, of Mr. Isenberg on Kauai and others sufficiently prove this.

If I seem to have given more space to this sugar question than it appears to deserve at the hands of a passing traveler, it is because sugar enters largely into the politics of the Islands.  It is the sugar interest which urges the offer of Pearl River to the United States in exchange for a treaty of reciprocity; and it is when sugar is low-priced at San Francisco that the small company of annexationists raises its voice, and sometimes threatens to raise its flag.

There is room on the different islands for about seventy-five or eighty more plantations on the scale now common; and there are, I think, still excellent opportunities for making plantations.  The sugar lands unoccupied are not high-priced; and men skilled in this industry, and with sufficient capital, can do well there, and live in a delightful climate and among pleasant society, in a country where, as I have before said, life and property are more absolutely secure than anywhere else in the world.  But I strongly advise every one to avoid debt.  It has been the curse of the planters, even of those who have kept out of debt, for it has prevented such unity of action among them as must have before this enabled them to effect important improvements.  For instance, were they out of debt there is no reason that I can see why they should not succeed in making their market in Honolulu, and drawing purchasers thither instead of sending their sugar to far-off markets at their own risk and expense.  If ships can afford to sail in ballast to more distant islands for guano, calling at Honolulu on the way, it is reasonable to suppose they could afford to come thither for the more valuable sugar cargoes.

[Illustration:  WAILUKU, ISLAND OF MAUI.]