SANDWICH ISLANDS. 187 



a picture, and the industry and happiness of man seems tc co- 

 operate with the beneficence of the soil and climate. In no 

 part of the United States have I seen more agricultural 

 neatness and industry. All the stone fences, dividing one 

 field from another, are kept in the highest order. As you ad- 

 vance you feel the air becoming more bracing, for the valley 

 rises with a gradual ascent from the sea to the Pali. The 

 bottom of the valley is more undulating, the hills grow higher 

 and steeper, and the vegetation more varied. After a ride 

 of about four miles through such country as has just been 

 described, you enter a grove of hibiscus and other tropical 

 trees. In a few minutes you come again into open space, and 

 after turning round a pile of rocks the Pali suddenly bursts 

 upon you^r view, filling you with wonder and astonishment. 

 On either hand immense masses of volcanic rock rise to the 

 perpendicular height of between six and seven hundred feet ; 

 while looking down beneath the fearful precipice, you behold 

 in one view plantations, trees, villages, meadows filled with 

 cattle grazing, the town of Honolulu, with its harbor and 

 shipping, and the blue bosom of the Pacific. Painters, poets, 

 and romance- writers would find here ample materials for con- 

 templation and study. My guide, who was an elderly man, 

 pointed out the place where two stone idols stood, before the 

 coming of the missionaries to the islands, to which, he said, 

 every native who intended to descend the precipice made an 

 offering of tapa and flowers, in order to render them propitious 

 to his descent. He also showed me the identical spot where 

 the last king of Oahoo and his warriors were driven down 

 headlong and dashed to pieces, by Tamahamaha I.,* and his 



* In viewing Tamahamaha I., says Mr. Turnbull, my imagination suggested to 

 me, that I beheld in its first progress one of those extraordinary natures which, un- 

 der other circumstances of fortune and situation, would have ripened into the future 



