9 • 



HAWAII. 



[letter X. 



of the same viands as the night before for breakfast, and, as 

 before, the women lay with their chins on their pillows and 

 stared at us. 



The rain ceased almost as soon as we started, and though it 

 has not been a bright day, it has been very pleasant. There 

 are no large gulches on to-day's journey. The track is mostly 

 through long grass, over undulating uplands, with park-like 

 clumps of trees, and thickets of guava and the exotic sumach. 

 Different ferns, flowers, and vegetation, with much less 

 luxuriance and little water, denoted a drier climate and a 

 different soil. 



We moved on in single file at a jog-trot wherever the road 

 admitted of it, meeting mounted natives now and then, which 

 led to a delay for the exchange of nuhou ; and twice we had to 

 turn into the thicket to avoid what here seems to be considered 

 a danger. There are many large herds of semi-wild bullocks 

 on the mountains, branded cattle, as distinguished from the 

 wild or unbranded, and when they are wanted for food, a number 

 of experienced vaccheros on strong, shod horses go up, and 

 drive forty or fifty of them down. We met such a drove bound 

 for Hilo, with one or two men in front and others at the sides 

 and behind, uttering loud shouts. The bullocks are nearly 

 mad with being hunted and driven, and at times rush like a 

 living tornado, tearing up the earth with their horns. As soon 

 as the galloping riders are seen and the crooked-horned 

 beasts, you retire behind a screen. There must be some tra- 

 dition of some one having been knocked down and hurt, for 

 reckless as the natives are said to be, they are careful about 

 this, and we were warned several times by travellers whom we 

 met, that there were " bullocks ahead." The law provides that 

 the vaccheros shall station one of their number at the head of a 

 gulch to give notice when cattle are to pass through. 



We jogged on again till \ve met a native who told us that we 

 were quite close to our destination ; but there were no signs of 

 it, for we were still on the lofty uplands, and the only prominent 

 objects were huge headlands confronting the sea. I got off to 

 walk, as my mule seemed footsore, but had not gone many 

 yards when we came suddenly to the verge of a fiali, about 

 1,000 feet deep, with a narrow, fertile valley, and a yet higher 

 pali on the other side, both abutting perpendicularly on the 

 sea. I should think the valley is not more than three miles 

 long, and it is walled in by high, inaccessible mountains. It is 

 in fact, a gulch on a greatly enlarged scale. The prospect below 



