286 



HA WAIL 



[letter XXX. 



when tired of strips of dried mutton and my own society. The 

 hospitality there is as great as the accommodation is small. 

 The first time, I slept on the floor of the shed with some native 

 women who were up there, and was kept awake all night by 

 the magnificence of the light on the volcano. The second 

 time, several of us slept in a small, dark grass-wigwam, only 

 intended as a temporary shelter, the lowliest dwelling in every 

 sense of the word that I ever occupied. That evening was the 

 finest I have seen on the islands; there was a less abrupt 

 transition from day to night, and the three great mountains and 

 the desert were etherealised and glorified by a lingering rose 

 and violet light. When darkness came on, our great camp fire 

 was hardly redder than the glare from the volcano, and its 

 leaping flames illuminated as motley a group as you would wish 

 to see ; the native shearers, who, after shearing eighty sheep 

 each in a day, washed, and changed their clothes before eating ; 

 a negro goat-herd with a native wife and swarthy children, two 

 native women, my host and myself, all engaged in the rough 

 cooking befitting the region, toasting strips of jerked mutton on 

 sticks, broiling wild bullock on the coals, baking kalo under- 

 ground, and rolls in a rough stone oven, and all speaking that 

 base mixture of English and Hawaiian which is current coin 

 here. The meal was not less rude than the cookery. We ate 

 it on the floor of the wigwam, with an old tin, with some fat in 

 it, for a lamp, and a bit of rope for a wick, which kept tumbling 

 into the fat and leaving us in darkness. 



The next day I came up here alone, driving a pack-horse, 

 and with a hind-quarter of sheep tied to my saddle. It is really 

 difficult to find the way over this desert, though I have been 

 several times across. When a breeze ripples the sand between 

 the lava hummocks, the foot-prints are obliterated, and there 

 are few landmarks except the " ox bone " and the small ohia." 

 It is a strange life up here on the mountain side, but I like it, 

 and never yearn after civilization. The only drawback is my 

 ignorance of the language, which not only places me sometimes 

 in grotesque difficulties, but deprives me of much interest. I 

 don't know what day it is, or how long I have been here, and 

 quite understand how possible it would be to fall into an indo- 

 lent and aimless life, in which time is of no account. 



The Rectory, Kona, August 1st. 

 I left Hualalai yesterday morning, and dined with my kind 

 host and hostess in the wigwam. It was the last taste of the 



