20 



HAWAII 



[LETTER II 



When we ascended above the scattered dwellings and had 

 passed the tasteful mausoleum, with two tall Kahilis,* or 

 feather plumes, at the door of the tomb in which the last of 

 the Kamehamehas received Christian burial, the glossy, re- 

 dundant, arborescent vegetation ceased. At that height a 

 shower of rain falls on nearly every day in the year, and the 



The Nuuanu Pali, or Precipice, near Honolulu. 



result is a green sward which England can hardly rival, a 

 perfect sea of verdure, darkened in the valley and more than 

 half way up the hill sides by the foliage of the yellow-blossomed 

 and almost impenetrable hibiscus, brightened here and there 

 by the pea-green candlenut. Streamlets leap from crags and 

 ripple along the roadside, every rock and stone is hidden by 



* The kahili is shaped like an enormous bottle brush. The finest are 

 sometimes twenty feet high, with handles twelve or fifteen feet long, 

 covered with tortoiseshell and whale tooth ivory. The upper part is 

 formed of a cylinder of wicker work about a foot in diameter, on which 

 red, black, and yellow feathers are fastened. These insignia are carried in 

 procession instead of banners, and used to be fixed in the ground near the 

 temporary residence of the king or chiefs. At the funeral of the late king 

 seventy-six large and small kahilis were carried by the retainers of chief 

 families. 



