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HAWAII. 



[LETTER XI. 



shot through me at the idea of this small fragile being bearing 

 up my weight among the breakers. I attempted to shift my 

 saddle-bags upon her powerful horse, but being full of water 

 and under water, the attempt failed, and as we spoke both our 

 horses were carried off their vantage ground into deep water. 



With wilder fury the river rushed by, its waters whirled 

 dizzily, and, in spite of spurring and lifting with the rein, the 

 horses were swept seawards. I saw Deborah's horse spin 

 round, and thought woefully of the possible fate of the bright 

 young wife, almost a bride ; only the horses' heads and our 

 own heads and shoulders were above water; the surf was 

 thundering on our left, and we were drifting towards it " broad- 

 side on." When I saw the young girl's face of horror I felt 

 increased presence of mind, and raising my voice to a shriek, 

 and telling her to do as I did, I lifted and turned my mare 

 with the rein, so that her chest and not her side should receive 

 the force of the river, and the brave animal, as if seeing what she 

 should do, struck out desperately. It was a horrible suspense. 

 Were we stemming the torrent, or was it sweeping us back that 

 very short distance which lay between us and the mountainous 

 breakers ? I constantly spurred my mare, guiding her slightly 

 to the left, the side grew nearer, and after exhausting struggles, 

 Deborah's horse touched ground, and her voice came faintly 

 towards me like a voice in a dream, still calling f Spur, spur." 

 My mare touched ground twice, and was carried off again 

 before she fairly got to land some yards nearer the sea than 

 the bridle track. 



I then put our saddle-bags on Deborah's horse. It was one 

 of the worst and steepest of the <palis that we had to ascend ; 

 but I can't remember anything about the road except that we 

 had to leap some place which we could not cross otherwise. 

 Deborah, then thoroughly alive to a sense of risk, said that 

 there was only one more bad gulch to cross before we reached 

 Onomea, but it was the most dangerous of all, and we could 

 not get across, she feared, but we might go and look at it. 

 I only remember the extreme solitude of the region, and 

 scrambling and sliding down a most precipitous _pali, hearing a 

 roar like cataract upon cataract, and coming suddenly down 

 upon a sublime and picturesque scene, with only standing 

 room, and that knee-deep in water, between a savage torrent 

 and the cliff. This gulch, called the Scotchman's gulch, I am 

 told, because a Scotchman was drowned there, must be at its 

 crossing three-quarters of a mile inland, and three hundred feet 



