LETTER IX. 



Ephy Austin — A Hawaiian Menage — Diet and Dress— Fern -hunting— A 

 Primeval Forest. 



Onomea, Hawaii. 



This is such a pleasant house and household, Mrs. A. is as 

 bright as though she were not an invalid, and her room, except 

 at meals, is the gathering-place of the family. The four boys 

 are bright, intelligent beings, out of doors barefooted, all day, 

 and with a passion for horses, of which their father possesses 

 about thirty. The youngest, Ephy, is the brightest child for 

 three years old that I ever saw, but absolutely crazy about 

 horses and mules. He talks of little else, and is constantly 

 asking me to draw horses on his slate. He is a merry, audacious 

 little creature, but came in this evening quite subdued. The 

 sun was setting gloriously behind the forest-covered slopes, 

 flooding the violet distances with a haze of gold, and, in a low 

 voice, he said, " I've seen God." 



There is the usual Chinese cook, who cooks and waits and 

 looks good-natured, and of course has his own horse, and his 

 wife, a most minute Chinese woman, comes in and attends to 

 the rooms and to Mrs. A., and sews and mends. She wears 

 her native dress — a large, stiff, flat cane hat, like a tray, fastened 

 firmly on or to her head ; a scanty, loose frock of blue denim 

 down to her knees, wide trousers of the same down to her 

 ankles, and slippers. Her hair is knotted up ; she always wears 

 silver armlets, and would not be seen without the hat for any- 

 thing. There is not a bell in this or any house on the islands, 

 and the bother of servants is hardly known, for the Chinamen 

 do their work like automatons, and disappear at sunset. In a 

 land where there are no carpets, no fires, no dust, no hot water 

 needed, no windows to open and shut — for they are always 

 open — no further service is really required. It is a simple 

 arcadian life, and people live more happily than any that I 



