LETTER XXX.] 



THE " HONOLULU MISSION. 



287 



wild Hawaiian life I have learned to love so well, the last meal 

 on a mat, the last exercise of skill in eating " two-fingered " 

 poi. I took leave gratefully of those who had been so truly- 

 kind to me, and with the friendly aloha from kindly lips in my 

 ears, regretfully left the purple desert in which I have lived so 

 serenely, and plunged into the forest gloom. Half way down, 

 I met a string of my native acquaintances, who, as the cour- 

 teous custom is, threw over me Ids of maile and roses, and since 

 I arrived here, others have called to wish me good-bye, bring- 

 ing presents of figs, cocoa-nuts and bananas. 



This is one of the stations of the " Honolulu Mission," and 

 Mr. Davies, the clergyman, has, besides Sunday and daily ser- 

 vices, a day-school for boys and girls. The Sunday attendance 

 at church, so far as I have seen, consists of three adults, though 

 the white population within four miles is considerable, and at 

 another station on Maui, the congregation was composed solely 

 of the family of a planter. Among the whites who have sunk 

 into the mire of an indolent and godless, if not an openly im- 

 moral life, there is an undoubted field for Evangelistic effort ; but 

 it is very doubtful, I think, whether this class can be reached by 

 services which appeal to higher culture and instincts than it 

 possesses. 



Kona looks unutterably beautiful, a languid dream of all fair 

 things. Yet truly my heart warms to nothing so much as to a 

 row of fat, English cabbages which grow in the rectory garden, 

 with a complacent, self-asserting John Bullism about them. It 

 is best to leave the islands now. I love them better every day, 

 and dreams of Fatherland are growing fainter in this perfumed 

 air and under this glittering sky. A little longer, and I too 

 should say, like all who have made their homes here under the 

 deep banana shade, — 



" We will return no more, 

 . . . our island home 



Is far beyond the wave, we will no longer roam." 



I. L. B. 



