HA WAIL 



[letter XVI. 



then as if about to fall over backwards. My horse went up 

 wisely and nobly, but slipping, jumping, scrambling, and send- 

 ing stones over the ledge, now and then hanging for a second 

 by his fore feet. The higher we went the narrower and worse 

 it grew. The girth was loose, so as not to impede the horse's 

 respiration, the broad cinch which usually passes under the 

 body having been fastened round his chest, and yet it was once 

 or twice necessary to run the risk of losing my balance by 

 taking my left foot out of the stirrup to press it against the 

 horse's neck to prevent it from being crushed, while my right 

 hung over the precipice. We came to a place where the path 

 had been carried away, leaving a declivity of loose sand and 

 gravel. You can hardly realize how difficult it was to dis- 

 mount, when there was no margin outside the horse. I some- 

 how slid under him, being careful not to turn the saddle, and 

 getting hold of his hind leg, screwed myself round carefully 

 behind him. It was alarming to see these sure-footed creatures 

 struggle and slide in the deep gravel as though they must go 

 over, and not less so to find myself sliding, though I was grasp- 

 ing my horse's tail. 



Between the summit and Waimanu, a distance of ten miles, 

 there are nine gulches, two of them about 900 feet deep, all 

 very beautiful, owing to the broken ground, the luxuriant vege- 

 tation, and the bright streams, but the kona, or south wind, was 

 blowing, bringing up the hot breath of the equatorial belt, and 

 the sun was perfectly unclouded, so that the heat of the gorges 

 was intense. They succeed each other occasionally with very 

 great rapidity. Between two of the deepest and steepest there 

 is a ridge not more than fifty yards wide. 



Soon after noon we simultaneously stopped our horses. The 

 Waimanu Valley lay 2500 feet (it is said) below us, and the 

 trail struck off into space. It was a scene of loneliness to 

 Avhich Waipio seems the world. In a second the eye took in 

 the twenty grass lodges of its inhabitants, the five cascades 

 which dive into the dense forests of its upper end, its river like 

 a silver ribbon, and its meadows of living green. In ten seconds 

 a bird could have spanned the ravine and feasted on its loveli- 

 ness, but we could only tip over the dizzy ridge that overhangs 

 the valley, and laboriously descend into its heat and silence. 

 The track is as steep and broken as that which goes up from 

 hence, but not nearly so narrow, and without its elements of 

 terror, for kukuis, lauhalas, ohias, and ti trees, with a lavish 

 growth of ferns and trailers, grow luxuriantly in every damp 



