HAWAIIAN GUIDE BOOR. 69 



WAIPIO AS DESCRIBED BY MISS BIRD* 

 " There is something fearful in the isolation of this 

 valley, open at one end to the sea, and walled in on all 

 others by palis or precipices, from 1,000 to 2,000 feet in 

 height, over the easiest of which hangs the dizzy track, 

 which after trailing over the country for sixty difficult 

 miles, connects Waipio with the little world of Hilo. 

 * * * I do not care for any waterfall hut Niagara, 

 nor do I care in itself for this one, for though its first 

 leap is 200 feet and its second 1,600, it is so frittered 

 away and dissipated in spray, owing to the very magni- 

 tude of its descent, there is no volume of water within 

 sight to create mass or sound. But no words can paint 

 the majesty of the surroundings, the caverned, precipi- 

 tous walls of rock coming down in one black plunge 

 from the blue sky above to the dark abyss of water be- 

 low ; the sullen shuddering sound with which pieces of 

 rock came hurtling down among the trees, the thin tin- 

 kle of the water as it falls, the full rush of the river, the 

 feathery growth of ferns, gigantic below, but so dimin- 

 ished by the height above, as only to show their pres- 

 ence by the green tinge upon the rocks ; while in addi- 

 tion to the gloom produced by the stupendous height of 

 the clifis, there is a cool, green darkness of dense for- 

 est, and mighty trees of strange tropical forms glass 

 themselves in the black mirror of the basin. For one 

 moment a ray of sunshine turned the upper part of the 

 spray into a rainbow, and never to my eyes had the bow 

 of promise looked so heavenly as when it spanned the 

 black, solemn, tree-shadowed abyss, whose deep, still 

 waters only catch a sunbeam on five days of the year." 



* " Hawuiian Archipelago,*' 



