LETTER VIII. 



Windward Hawaii — "Gulches" — The Mexican Saddle— Onomea — A 

 Sugar Plantation — Sugar making — The ruling interest. 



Onomea, Hawaii. 



Judge Austin's. 



Mrs. A. has been ill for some time, and Mrs. S. her sister, 

 and another friend " plotted " in a very " clandestine " manner 

 that I should come here for a few days in order to give her " a 

 little change of society," but I am quite sure that under this 

 they only veil a kind wish that I should see something of 

 plantation life. There is a plan, too, that I should take a five 

 days' trip to a remarkable valley called Waipio, but this is only 

 a " castle in the air." 



Mr. A. sent in for me a capital little lean rat of a horse which 

 by dint of spirit and activity managed to keep within sight of 

 two large horses, ridden by Mr. Thompson, and a very hand- 

 some young lady riding " cavalier fashion," who convoyed me 

 out. Borrowed saddle-bags, and a couple of shingles for carry- 

 ing ferns formed my outfit, and were carried behind my saddle. 

 It is a magnificent ride here. The track crosses the deep, still, 

 Wailuku River on a wooden bridge, and then, after winding up 

 a steep hill, among native houses fantastically situated, hangs 

 on the verge of the lofty precipices which descend perpen- 

 dicularly to the sea, dips into tremendous gulches, loses itself 

 in the bright fern-fringed torrents which have cleft their way 

 down from the mountains, and at last emerges on the delicious 

 height on which this house is built. 



This coast looked beautiful from the deck of the Kilauea, 

 but I am now convinced that I have never seen anything so 

 perfectly lovely as it is when one is actually among its details. 

 Onomea is 600 feet high, and every yard of the ascent from 

 Hilo brings one into a fresher and purer air. One looks up 

 the wooded, broken slopes to a wild volcanic wilderness and 



