32 



HAWAII. 



[letter III, 



This place is very beautiful from the sea, for beyond the blue 

 water and the foamy reef the eye rests gratefully on a picturesque 

 collection of low, one-storied, thatched houses, many of frame, 

 painted white ; others of grass, but all with deep, cool veran- 

 dahs, half hidden among palms, bananas, kukuis, breadfruit, 

 and mangoes, dark groves against gentle slopes behind, 

 covered with sugar-cane of a bright pea-green. It is but a 

 narrow strip of land between the ocean and the red, flaring, 

 almost inaccessible, Maui hills, which here rise abruptly to a 

 height of 6,000 feet, pinnacled, chasmed, buttressed, and 

 almost verdureless, except in a few deep clefts, green and cool 

 with ferns and candlenut trees, and moist with falling water, 

 Lahaina looked intensely tropical in the roseflush of the early 

 morning, a dream of some bright southern isle, too surely to 

 pass away. The sun blazed down on shore, ship, and sea, 

 glorifying all things through the winter day. It was again 

 ecstasy "to dream and dream '"'under the awning, fanned by 

 the light sea-breeze, with the murmur of an unknown musical 

 tongue in one's ears, and the rich colouring and graceful group- 

 ing of a tropical race around one. We called at Maaleia, a 

 neck of sandy, scorched, verdureless soil, and at Ulupalakua, 

 or rather at the furnace seven times heated, which is the land- 

 ing of the plantation of that name, on whose breezy slopes 

 cane refreshes the eye at a height of 2,000 feet above the sea. 

 We anchored at both places, and with what seemed to me a 

 needless amount of delay, discharged goods and natives, and 

 natives, mats, and calabashes were embarked. In addition to 

 the essential mat and calabash of fioi, every native carried some 

 pet, either dog or cat, which was caressed, sung to, and talked 

 to with extreme tenderness ; but there were hardly any children, 

 and I noticed that where there were any, the men took charge 

 of them. There were very few fine, manly dogs ; the pets in 

 greatest favour are obviously odious, weak-eyed, pink-nosed 

 Maltese terriers. 



The aspect of the sea was so completely lazy, that it was a 

 fresh surprise as each indolent undulation touched the shore 

 that it had latent vigour left to throw itself upwards into clouds 

 of spray. We looked through limpid water into cool depths 

 where strange bright fish darted through the submarine chap- 

 paral, but the coolness was imaginary, for the water was at 80° 

 The air above the great black lava flood, which in pre- 

 historic times had flowed into the sea, and had ever since 

 declined the kindly, draping offices of nature, vibrated in waves 



