LETTER XXX.* 



Captain Cook's Monument— Dreamland— The Dead Volcano of Hualalai 

 —Lassoing Cattle— " Praying to Death"— The Honolulu Mission. 



Ridge House, Kona, Hawaii, June 12. 



I landed in Kealakakua Bay on a black lava block, on 

 which tradition says that Captain Cook fell, struck with his 

 death-wound, a century ago. The morning sun was flaming 

 above the walls of lava 1000 feet in height which curve round 

 the dark bay, the green, deep water rolled shorewards in lazy 

 undulations, canoes piled full of pineapples poised themselves 

 on the swell, ancient coco-palms glassed themselves in still 

 waters — it was hot, silent, tropical. 



The disturbance which made the bay famous is known to 

 every schoolboy ; how the great explorer, long supposed by 

 the natives to be their vanished god Lono, betrayed his earthly 

 lineage by groaning when he was wounded, and was then dis- 

 patched outright. A cocoanut stump, faced by a sheet of 

 copper recording the circumstance, is the great circumnavi- 

 gator's monument. A few miles beyond, is the enclosure of 

 Haunaunau, the City of Refuge for western Hawaii. In this 

 district there is a lava road ascribed to Umi, a legendary king, 

 who is said to have lived 500 years ago. It is very perfect, 

 well defined on both sides with kerb-stones, and greatly re- 

 sembles the chariot ways in Pompeii. Near it are several 

 structures formed of four stones, three being set upright, and 

 the fourth forming the roof. In a northerly direction is the 

 place where Liholiho, the king who died in England, excited 



* Several letters are omitted here, as they contain repetitions of journeys 

 and circumstances which have been amply detailed before. I went to the 

 Kona district for a few days only, intending to return to friends on Kauai 

 and Maui ; but owing to an alteration in the sailings of the Kilauea, 

 was detained there for a month, and afterwards, owing to uncertainties 

 connected with the San Francisco steamers, was obliged to leave the 

 Islands abruptly, after a residence of nearly seven months. 



