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HAWAII. 



[LETTER XVI. 



After an hour of wading we emerged into broad sunny day- 

 light at the home of the five cascades, which fall from a semi- 

 circular precipice into three basins. It is not, however, 

 possible to pass from one to the other. This great gulf is a 

 grand sight, with its dark deep basin from which it seemed so 

 far to look up to the heavenly blue, and the water falling 

 calmly and unhurriedly, amidst innumerable rainbows, from a 

 height of 3000 feet. The sides were draped with ferns 

 flourishing under the spray, and at the base the rock was very 

 deeply caverned. I enjoyed a delicious bath, relying on sun 

 and wind to dry my clothes, and then reluctantly waded down 

 the river. At its confluence with another stream, still arched 

 by ohias, a man and two women appeared rising out of the 

 water, like a vision of the elder world in the days of Fauns, 

 and Naiads, and Hamadryads. The water was up to their 

 waists, and his of ohia blossoms and ferns, and masses of 

 unbound hair fantastically wreathed with moss, fell over their 

 faultless forms, and their rich brown skin gleamed in the 

 slant sunshine. They were catching shrimps with trumpet- 

 shaped baskets, perhaps rather a prosaic occupation. They 

 joined us, and we waded down together to the place where they 

 had left their horses. The women slipped into their holokus, 

 and the man insisted on my riding his barebacked horse to the 

 place where we had left our own, and then we all galloped over 

 the soft grass. 



Waimanu had turned out to meet us about thirty people on 

 horseback, all of whom shook hands with me, and some of 

 them threw over me garlands of ohia, pandanus, and hibiscus. 

 Where our cavalcade entered the river, a number of children 

 and dogs and three canoes awaited us, and thus escorted I 

 returned triumphantly to the house. The procession on the 

 river of paddling canoes, swimming children and dogs, and 

 more than thirty riders, with their feet tucked up round their 

 horses' necks, all escorting a " pale face," was grotesque and 

 enchanting, and I revelled in this lapse into savagery, and en- 

 joyed heartily the kindliness and goodwill of this unsophisticated 

 people. 



When darkness spread over the valley, clear voices ascended 

 in a weird recitative, the room filled up with people, pipes 

 circulated freely, poi was again produced, and calabashes of 

 cocoa-nut milk. The melees were long, and I crept within my 

 curtain and lay down, but the drowsiness which legitimately 

 came over me after riding thirty miles and wading two, was 



