LETTER it] 



THE PALI. 



moist-looking ferns, as aerial and delicate as marabout feathers, 

 and when the windings of the valley and the projecting spurs 

 of mountains shut out all indications of Honolulu, in the cool, 

 green loneliness one could imagine oneself in the temperate 

 zones. The peculiarity of the scenery is, that the hills, which 

 rise to a height of about 4,000 feet, are wall-like ridges of 

 grey or coloured rock, rising precipitously out of the trees and 

 grass, and that these walls are broken up into pinnacles and 

 needles. At the Pali (wall-like precipice), the summit of the 

 ascent of 1,000 feet, we left our buggy, and passing through a 

 gash in the rock the celebrated view burst on us with over- 

 whelming effect. Immense masses of black and ferruginous 

 volcanic rock, hundreds of feet in nearly perpendicular height, 

 formed the pali on either side, and the ridge extended north- 

 wards for many miles, presenting a lofty, abrupt mass of grey 

 rock broken into fantastic pinnacles, which seemed to pierce 

 the sky. A broad, umbrageous mass of green clothed the 

 lower buttresses, and fringed itself away in clusters of coco 

 palms on a garden-like stretch below, green with grass and 

 sugar-cane, and dotted with white houses, each with its palm 

 and banana grove, and varied by eminences which looked like 

 long extinct tufa cones. Beyond this enchanted region 

 stretched the coral reef, with its white, wavy line of endless 

 surf, and the broad blue Pacific, ruffled by a breeze whose icy 

 freshness chilled us where we stood. Narrow streaks on the 

 landscape, every now and then disappearing behind inter- 

 vening hills, indicated bridle tracks connected with a frightfully 

 steep and rough zig-zag path cut out of the face of the cliff on 

 our right. I could not go down this on foot without a sense 

 of insecurity, but mounted natives driving loaded horses de- 

 scended with perfect impunity into the dreamland below. 



This pali is the scene of one of the historic tragedies of this 

 island. Kamehameha the Conqueror, who after fierce fighting 

 and much ruthless destruction of human life united the island 

 sovereignties in his own person, routed the forces of the King 

 of Oahu in the Nuuanu Valley, and drove them in hundreds 

 up the precipice, from which they leaped in despair and mad- 

 ness, and their bones lie bleaching 800 feet below. 



The drive back here was delightful, from the wintry height, 

 where I must confess that we shivered, to the slumbrous calm 

 of an endless summer, the glorious tropical trees, the distant view 

 of cool chasm-like valleys, with Honolulu sleeping in perpetual 

 shade, and the still, blue ocean, without a single sail to disturb 



