By Bob Krauss
Advertiser Columnist

Sometimes it's best just to count your blessings. I know there's a concrete strike. Gas prices are probably going up. Every time I fly to a Neighbor Island I cringe at the airfare.

At least I've learned to sit down and undo my shoelaces before getting into the line at the gate. It's easier than bending over to take off my shoes in line.

However, some research at the Mission Children's Society Library made me feel better. I stumbled across the diary of Chester Lyman, no relation to the missionary family. He was a chemistry professor at Yale who visited Hawai'i in 1846.

Lyman also traveled to the Neighbor Islands. In Our Honolulu, to prepare for the trip, he bought a pair of tough, cowhide boots for walking over lava and borrowed three calabashes, one for clothes and "miscellanies" and another for water.

He and his fellow passengers waited two hours on the landing for the small schooner Amelia. It had a tiny cabin aft with four bunks. The passengers bound for Maui were a Mr. Clark, wife and children, and a Miss Ogden. Big Island passengers were our hero from Yale, the missionary Coan and the missionary Lyman with one son. There were also about 20 to 30 Hawaiians aboard.

The Amelia sped past Waikiki on a spanking breeze. After that, it was all downhill. The passengers got seasick. Lyman slept the night in a blanket on deck, getting up to vomit several times. Ladies were lying in every direction or leaning over the taffrail in distress.

Our hero woke up to a dead calm off Lana'i. It was insufferably hot. He spent the day holding an umbrella, not stirring from his blanket.

On the third day, they were exactly where they had been the previous morning. Lyman forced down some rice gruel with a bit of bread and water. Another miserable night. No progress, hotter than before. Toward evening, a breeze sprang up.

The passengers came ashore at Lahaina at 3 a.m. in a leaky whaleboat and had to pay for the privilege. Lyman and his missionary friends rested at the Baldwin house, then bought three watermelons before boarding the Amelia for the Big Island.

This time the breeze held. They landed at Kawaihae the next day at 2 p.m.; a few houses on the beach, desolate, barren country all around. Lyman and party ate a watermelon before starting on foot for Waimea 14 miles up the Kohala slopes.

Three miles later they ate another melon. After another three miles, they ate the third. They shivered in cold blasts in the rain. At 7 p.m. they reached the home of Lorenzo Lyons, the local missionary.

After resting up for a few days, they sent their luggage ahead on horseback courtesy of a friendly cowboy and set off on foot for Hilo. Here's where the tough, cowhide boots came in handy. No highway bridges over the Hamakua Coast gorges.

The travelers went down the gorges and climbed back up on packhorse trails.

Oh, yes, Lyman wrote that they got to ride the last half-mile in an ox cart.