"All right! I'll see about it." The railroad superintendent climbed aboard and took Mr. Zerk aft, out of earshot, where they got things settled. Then the superintendent went back on the dock, the gang foreman got an earful of second hand apologies, explanations and promises. Important details of same were passed on to independent Kanaka citizens by their boss, and the steam winch started as the shirts again were slipped off of the silky brown backs of the workers. We are off. The first sling of sugar bags shot over the bulwark and landed on the platform abreast the hatch and four Kanakas started sending it down the chutes like lightning. Bing! Another sling dripped on the platform, and down it went. The action became automatic, the brown bodies swayed rapidly, surely, and on the wharf we heard them shouting as the Jap coolies inched along another car with their crow bars. I was stationed at a point where two chutes met at an angle, and the yellow bags passed me in rapid succession, slapping the chute with a smart patter as they jumped the corner. Soon the whole thing became a matter of easy routine. This was living! What an easy job! The dusky gang below, working in the half light of the hold, and assisted by the crew, were placing a bottom layer of sugar bags and forward stacking and stepping back the tiers, "boulking" it, as sailors say, for the ends of the hold to be kept clear. The Hawaiian sugar is only partly refined, and of a dull golden color when the sun strikes it. It is largely granular, the particles being almost the size of a small pea. The sacks, made of gunny, are stamped with the names of the various plantations; Ewa, Laie, Halawa, Holua Loa, Kilauea, Makee, Wailuku, and a dozen others, all of them the mystic symbols spelling wealth to their fortunate owners. They weigh in the neighborhood of one hundred and fifty pounds of the limpest, deadest, weight in the world and without decent "ears" at the end of the sack to afford a hold. Frequently a sack would break, and we would help ourselves to the sugar. The taste is pleasant at first, and we were remarkably liberal in our indulgence, perhaps no more so than a crew of girls would be if they were loading a cargo of chocolate creams. The sugar as it comes from the island refineries is about twice as sweet as the white granulated article. To a crowd accustomed to black jack molasses as a sweetener for their coffee, the sugar was a wonderful delicacy, for a time. Soon we became cloyed with the taste, and for weeks after my first gorging of sweets, I took my coffee and tea without it, though we always had a small keg of the stuff on hand forward during the remainder of the voyage. The sweet overpowering smell of the sugar soon permeated the ship, and in the heat of midday, became nauseating to us who were not used to it.