Notice of Hawaii, (Owyhee,) and its Volcanic Regions, ^c. 243 



days before, and at noon arrived at the residence of Kinai, the petty 

 chieftain of Ora, and found his establishment tenfold more welcome 

 than before. We were all drenched with rain, and in a state greatly 

 to relish the luxury of a large fire, and a change of clothes, which 

 our portmanteaus still fortunately afforded ; and thus sheltered and 

 refreshed, we were exhilirated by the storm, when screened from its 

 power. 



We marched again in the morning ; and after a walk, rendered 

 very fatiguing by the wetness, and excessively bad state of the road 

 through the wood, we found a boat in waiting for us — so that we were 

 safely on board the Vincennes in time for dinner. 



Miscellaneous facts relating to Scenery, Manners, &fc. 



It will be remembered, that the mountains of Hawaii are very 

 lofty, some of them far surpassing Mont Blanc, and even emulating 

 the higher Andes. Water falls are, therefore, to be expected in 

 countries which abound so much with rain. Some of these were 

 visited by Mr. Stewart, and his party. On the river Wairukee, the 

 natives amused the spectators by leaping from the precipitous banks, 

 thirty, forty, and fifty feet high, into the basins below, and gliding 

 down the falls, with the greatest apparent hazard. One of the cas- 

 cades resembles much the most admired sections of the Trenton falls 

 on the Canada creek. In the state of New York, and similar casual- 

 ities have signalized both places.* 



Another cascade, one hundred and ten feet in height, pitches over 

 a natural bridge, or rather a projecting arch, which rests upon abut- 

 ments of basaltic rock forming precipices one hundred and fifty feet 

 or more in height ; in form and regularity of arrangement, they are 

 precisely like the Giants' causeway, which, in a country where every 

 thing appears to have been produced by fire, Is a fact of great Im- 

 portance as to the origin of the trap rocks. This cascade falls Into 

 a basin of some hundreds of yards in circumference, which is as 

 placid as a lake, except where the stream plunges Into It from above, 

 and the silvery mass appears to be poured from the blue bosom of 

 the skyf into the depths below. 



* A young native female reaching after flowers, which grew over the jjrecipice, 

 and trusting to a branch of the tree on which they grew, was, by its breaking, 

 thrown into the whirling eddies of tlic gulf helow, and instantly lost. 



t This appearance, so well described by Mr. Stewart, is presented in a most re- 

 markable manner on the American side of the Niagara falls; when the observes- 



