LETTER XX. 



The "Trades" — An Inter-Island Passage — A Missionary Family — 

 Physical Features of Kauai— Liquor Laws— A Plant of Renown— 

 A Domestic School. 



Koloa, Kauai, March 23rd. 



I am spending a few days on some quaint old mission pre- 

 mises, and the " guest house/' where I am lodged, is an adobe 

 house, with walls two feet thick, and a very thick grass roof 

 comes down six feet all round to shade the windows. It is 

 itself shaded by date palms and algarobas, and is surrounded 

 by hibiscus, oleanders, and the datura arborea(?), which at 

 night fill the air with sweetness. I am the only guest, and the 

 solitude of the guest house in which I am writing is most 

 refreshing to tired nerves. There is not a sound but the rust- 

 ling of trees. 



The first event to record is that the trade winds have set in, 

 and though they may yet yield once or twice to the kona, they 

 will soon be firmly established for nine months. They are not 

 soft airs as I supposed, but riotous, rollicking breezes, which 

 keep up a constant clamour, blowing the trees about, slamming 

 doors, taking liberties with papers, making themselves heard 

 and felt everywhere, flecking the blue Pacific with foam, lower- 

 ing the mercury three degrees, bringing new health and vigour 

 with them, — wholesome, cheery, frolicsome north-easters. They 

 brought me here from Oahu in eighteen hours, for which I 

 thank them heartily. 



You will think me a Sybarite for howling about those 

 eighteen hours of running to leeward, when the residents of 

 Kauai, if they have to go to Honolulu in the intervals between 

 the quarterly trips of the Xtlauea, have to spend from three to 

 nine days in beating to windward. These inter-island voyages 

 of extreme detention, rolling on a lazy swell in tropical heat, or 

 beating for days against the strong trades without shelter from 

 the sun, and without anything that could be called accommoda- 

 tion, were among the inevitable hardships to which the mission- 



