Letters to Elizabeth Cone

c/o Dr. Jordan June 20, 1901

My dear Miss Cone:

I ought to have written you before, but I was so busy on fish business that I could not find time to write a line to anybody.

Well, I got sea sick first time in my life the first day out of San Francisco; and so am now able to say what that famous sickness is. I should perhaps be thankful. After arriving here all the members of the Fish Comission - eight, all told - put up in the best hotel in Honolulu. The fare is

good and room is nice. So far so good, but the weather! It is a made-to-order kind of weather which you cannot find at any other place on earth. It seldom registers above 80, yet it is more than hot, it is the kind of heat which always attacks you from your back instead of coming through thermometer, and squeezes all the strength out of you everytime you try to move. Were it not for the glorious bathing on the most beautiful beach it would be utterly impossible to live here

more than a week.

I have often heard about the grandeur of Hawaiian sceneries, but actual observation proved beyond my most sanguine expectations. The rugged mountains built entirely on different plan to those of the continent; the beautiful shores which fringe their abrupt edges, on the soft sugar cane fields which lie between tham, said to have [baffled?] the pen of great poets. However that might have been, they have certainly bewildered my head and left me powerless to

say anything about them. I feel that it will be a great pity if any one tried to spoil them by mortal descriptions, for they are above mortal. I will send you some photographs when I get them and let you do the sentimentality-ing about them.

My dairy business is to go down to fish market and pick up different fishes, which Doctor Jordan and his colleague will identify. So far we collected about 170 different species, about 30 of which are new to science. We are making

names here. Dr. Jordan and I are going to Hawaii Island, largest island of the Sandwich group, next week. Doctor will take one route and I another, each collecting on the way, and finally will meet at the world famed craters of Kilauea. I joyfully expect a great time.

The day before yesterday Doctor and I went to a place called [Waidua?], 50 miles from Honolulu by train, and [seined?] a creek and got 100 fishes. The trip was fine and sport was good. The sceneries along the road [were?]