LETTER XXVII. 



Puna, the Home of the Coco-palm— A Magical Spring— A Leper ExoduS' 

 — " Bill Ragsdale "—Self-sacrifice of Father Damiens. 



Hilo, June i. 



Mr. and Mrs. Severance and I have just returned from a 

 three days' expedition to Puna in the south of Hawaii, and I 

 preferred their agreeable company even to solitude ! My 

 sociable Kahe'le was also pleased, and consequently behaved 

 yery well. We were compelled to ride for twenty-three miles 

 in single file, owing to the extreme narrowness of the lava: 

 track, which has been literally hammered down in some places 

 to make it passable even for shod horses. We were a party of 

 four, and a very fat policeman on a very fat horse brought up 

 the rear. 



At some distance from Hilo there is a glorious burst of 

 tropical forest, and then the track passes into green grass 

 dotted over with clumps of the pandanus and the beautiful 

 eugenia. In that hot, dry district the fruit was already ripe, 

 and we quenched our thirst with it. The " native apple," as 

 it is called, is of such a brilliant crimson colour as to be hardly 

 less beautiful than the flowers. The rind is very thin, and the 

 inside is white, juicy, and very slightly acidulated. We were 

 always near the sea, and the surf kept bursting up behind the 

 trees in great snowy drifts, and every opening gave us a glimpse 

 of deep blue water. The coast the whole way is composed of 

 great blocks of very hard, black lava, more or less elevated, 

 upon which the surges break in perpetual thunder. 



Suddenly the verdure ceased, and we emerged upon a hideous 

 scene, one of the many lava flows from Kilauea, an irregular 

 branching stream, about a mile broad. It is suggestive of 

 fearful work on the part of nature, for here the volcano has not 

 created but destroyed. The black, tumbled sea mocked the 



