Letter xv.] AN INHOSPITABLE INTERROGATION. 147 



\ Hitherto, I have only travelled over the green coast which 

 [faces the trade winds, where clouds gather and shed their 

 ;rains, and this desert, which occupies a great part of leeward 

 [Hawaii, displeases me. It lies burning in the fierce splendours 



of a zone, which, until now, I had forgotten was the torrid 

 [zone, unwatered and unfruitful, red and desolate under the 



sun. The island is here only twenty-two miles wide, and 

 I strong winds sweep across it, whirling up its surface in great 

 [-brown clouds, so that the uplands in part appear a smoking 

 I plain, backed by naked volcanic cones. No water, no grass, 

 [no ferns. Some thornless thistles, a little brush of sapless- 

 [looking indigo, and some species of composite struggle for a 

 [doleful existence. There is nothing tropical about it but the 

 [intense heat. The red soil becomes suffused with a green 

 hinge ten miles from the beach, and at the summit of the as- 

 Icent the desert blends with this beautiful Waimea plain, one 

 I of the most marked features of Hawaii. The air became damp 

 land cool ; miles of fine, smooth, green grass stretched out 

 [before us j high hills, broken, pinnacled, wooded, and cleft 

 I with deep ravines, rose on our left j we heard the dash and 

 [music of falling water : to the north it was like the Munster 

 I Thai, to the south altogether volcanic. The tropics had 

 I vanished. There were frame houses sheltered from the winds 

 [by artificial screens of mulberry trees, and from the incursions 

 [of cattle by rough walls of lava stones five feet high ; a mission 

 land court house, a native church, much too large for the 

 •shrunken population, and other indications of an inhabited 



region. Except for the woods which clothe the hills, the 

 ■characteristic of the scenery is baldness. 



I On clambering over the wall which surrounds my host's 

 ■kraal of dwellings, I heard in the dusk strange, sweet voices 

 ■crying rudely and emphatically, " Who are you ? What do you 

 ■want ? " and was relieved to find that the somewhat inhospit- 

 lable interrogation only proceeded from two Australian rriag- 



Ipies. Mr. S is a Tasmanian, married to a young half-white 



Blady : and her native mother and seven or eight dark girls are 

 ■here, besides a number of natives and Chinese, and half 

 (•Chinese, who are employed about the place. Sheep are the 

 Isource of my host's wealth. He has 25,000 at three stations 

 Ion Mauna Kea, and, at an altitude of 6000 feet they 

 ■flourish, and are free from some of the maladies to which 

 ■they are liable elsewhere. Though there are only three or four 

 jj sheep owners on the islands, they exported 288,526 lbs. of 



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