LETTER XI.]' 



A COSTLY MANTLE. 



107 



A man went out, cut off the head of a fowl, singed it in the 

 flame, cut it into pieces, put it into a pot to boil, and before 

 our feet were warm the bird was cooked, and we ate it out of 

 the pot with some baked kalo. D. took me out to see some 

 mango trees, and a pond filled with gold fish, which she said 

 had been hers when she was a child. She seemed very fond 

 of her relatives, among whom she looked like a fairy princess ; 

 and I think they admired her very much, and treated her with 

 some deference. The object of our visit was to procure a 

 le of birds' feathers which they had been making for her, and 

 for which I am sure 300 birds must have been sacrificed. It 

 Avas a veiy beautiful as well as costly ornament,* and most in- 

 geniously packed for travelling by being laid at full length 

 within a slender cylinder of bamboo. 



We rode on again, somewhat unwillingly on my part, for 

 though I thought my apprehensions might be cowardly and 

 ignorant, yet D. was but a child, and had the attractive wilful- 

 ness of childhood, and she was, I saw, determined to get back 

 to her husband, and the devotion and affection of the young 

 wife were so pleasant to see, that I had not the heart to offer 

 serious opposition to her wishes, especially as I knew that I 

 might be exaggerating the possible peril. I gathered, however, 

 from what she said, that her people wanted us to remain until 

 Monday, especially as none of them could go with us, their 

 horses being at some distance. I thought it a sign of diffi- 

 culties ahead, that on one of the most frequented tracks in 

 Hawaii, we had not met a single traveller, though it was 

 Saturday, a special travelling day. 



We crossed one gulch in which the water was strong, and up 

 to our horses' bodies, and came upon the incorrigible Kaluna, 

 who, instead of catching his horse, was recounting his ad- 

 ventures to a circle of natives, but promised to follow us soon. 

 D. then said that the next gulch was rather a bad one, and 

 that we must not wait for Kaluna, but ride fast, and try to get 



* A small bird, Melithreptes Pacifica, inhabits the mountainous regions 

 of Hawaii, and has under each wing a single feather, one. inch long, of a 

 bright canary yellow. The birds are caught by means of a viscid substance 

 smeared on poles. Formerly they were strictly tabu. It is of these 

 feathers that the mamo or war-cloak of Kamehameha L, now used on state 

 occasions by the Hawaiian kings, is composed. This priceless mantle is 

 four feet long, eleven and a half feet wide at the bottom, and its formation 

 occupied nine successive reigns. It is one of the costliest of royal orna- 

 ments, if the labour spent upon it is estimated, and the feathers of which it 

 is made have been valued at a dollar and a half for five. 



