Mark Twain

Over a hundred years before there were blogs Mark Twain wrote a series of letters for the Sacramento Union of his adventure to Hawaii in 1866. He aptly describes Hawaii as "the loveliest fleet of islands that lies anchored in any ocean."

The writing is wonderful although dated in some respects and very informative about the old days when it was a sovereign republic. Twain never did visit Kauai, but spend most of his time in Honolulu with a visit to the big island.

His writings include quite a bit of detailed economics statistics, for example, the booming sugar production.

• 1864: 10.4 million pounds, 
• 1865: 15.3 million pounds, 
• 1866 (through September): 27 million pounds.

Apparently the series was an early prominent success in his writing - sold a lot of papers - and upon his return he lectured on his Hawaiian travels thereby starting those performances for which he later became renowned.

His irreverent perspective certainly puts missionaries and western officials of the Hawaiian government in their place. While he shows due respect to Hawaiian royalty and parts of the culture, he comes off a little too superior to the common native and pokes somewhat ignorant fun at their "savage" ways.