12 



Old Haivaiian Carvings. 



The late king Kalakaiia was especially anxious to, learn of such deposits, and 

 he once described his visit to a cave near Kealakeakua on Hawaii, where he had to 

 dive to a hole in the cliff above the bay and then come up throiigh a sort of well, and 

 when torches were lighted he saw huge wicker figures of gods, a canoe and other 

 things. He told me he would not enter that cave again for all the kingdoms of the 

 Earth. At another time he persuaded a very old man, the kahu of a puoa on Kahoo- 

 lawe, to show him the entrance. The old man knew that he should die as soon as he 



Fig. II. iNi,.\ii) ipu .\iNA. 



parted with the secret, but he was old and weary of life and proud to die for his king. 

 Kalakaua was verj' eager, but the kahu then told him that the man who opened it 

 would die too. Not being wear}' of life, the king came to me and begged me to go and 

 open the puoa for him. I asked if he was anxious to kill me : and he answered (in the 

 general belief of his people) that the predidled fate had power only over Hawaiians. 

 We went so far as to make an agreement as to the partition of the things that might 

 be found, but the king's departure for the coast of California, where he died, put an 

 end to the adventure, and the old kahu soon after died also. 



Although many of the objec^ls in the Bishop Museum came from such deposits, in 

 verj' few cases is the locality known. As an illustration of the care exercised b}' the 

 kahu over his hidden treasures, I may mention a cave in Kau discovered by accident. 

 Late one afternoon while the road from Kilauea to Punaluu was being broken out, a cart 



[174J 



