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. The evening is very sombre, and darkness comes on early
between these high walls. I am in a native house in which not a
word of English is spoken, and Deborah, among her own people, has
returned with zest to the exclusive use of her own tongue. This is
more solitary than solitude, and tired as I am with riding and
roughing it, I must console myself with writing to you. The
natives, after staring and giggling for some time, took this letter
out of my hand, with many exclamations, which, Deborah tells me, are
at the rapidity and minuteness of my writing. I told them the
letter was to my sister, and they asked if I had your picture. They
are delighted with it, and it is going round a large circle
assembled without. They see very few foreign women here, and are
surprised that I have not brought a foreign man with me.
There was quite a bustle of small preparations before we left
Onomea. Deborah was much excited, and I was not less so, for it is
such a complete novelty to take a five days' ride alone with
natives. D. is a very nice native girl of seventeen, who speaks
English tolerably, having been brought up by Mr. and Mrs. Austin.
She was lately married to a white man employed on the plantation.
Mr. A. most kindly lent me a favourite mule, but declined to state
that she would not kick, or buck, or turn obstinate, or lie down in
the water, all which performances are characteristic of mules. She
has, however, as he expected, behaved as the most righteous of her
species. Our equipment was a matter for some consideration, as I
had no waterproof; but eventually I wore my flannel riding dress,
and carried my plaid in front of the saddle. My saddle-bags, which
were behind, contained besides our changes of clothes, a jar of
Liebig's essence of beef, some potted beef, a tin of butter, a tin
of biscuits, a tin of sardines, a small loaf, and some roast yams.
Deborah looked very piquante in a bloomer dress of dark blue, with
masses of shining hair in natural ringlets falling over the collar,
mixing with her lei of red rose-buds. She rode a powerful horse, of
which she has much need, as this is the most severe road on horses
on Hawaii, and it takes a really good animal to come to Waipio and
go back to Hilo.
We got away at seven in bright sunshine, and D.'s husband
accompanied us the first mile to see that our girths and gear were
all right. It was very slippery, but my mule deftly gathered her
feet under her, and slid when she could not walk. From Onomea to
the place where we expected to find the guide, we kept going up and
down the steep sides of ravines, and scrambling through torrents
till we reached a deep and most picturesque gulch, with a primitive
school-house at the bottom, and some grass-houses clustering under
palms and papayas, a valley scene of endless ease and perpetual
afternoon. Here we found that D.'s uncle, who was to have been our
guide, could not go, because his horse was not strong enough, but
her cousin volunteered his escort, and went away to catch his horse,
while we tethered ours and went into the school-house.
This reminded me somewhat of the very poorest schools connected with
the Edinburgh Ladies' Highland School Association, but the teacher
had a remarkable paucity of clothing, and he seemed to have the
charge of his baby, which, much clothed, and indeed much muffled,
lay on the bench beside him. For there were benches, and a desk,
and even a blackboard and primers down in the deep wild gulch, where
the music of living waters, and the thunderous roll of the Pacific,
accompanied the children's tuneless voices as they sang an Hawaiian
hymn. I shall remember nothing of the scholars but rows of gleaming
white teeth, and splendid brown eyes. I thought both teacher and
children very apathetic. There were lamentably few, though the
pretty rigidly enforced law, which compels all children between the
ages of six and fifteen to attend school for forty weeks of the
year, had probably gathered together all the children of the
district. They all wore coloured chemises and leis of flowers.
Outside, some natives presented us with some ripe papayas.
Mounting again, we were joined by two native women, who were
travelling the greater part of the way hither, and this made it more
cheerful for D. The elder one had nothing on her head but her wild
black hair, and she wore a black holuku, a lei of the orange seeds
of the pandanus, orange trousers and big spurs strapped on her bare
feet. A child of four, bundled up in a black poncho, rode on a
blanket behind the saddle, and was tied to the woman's waist, by an
orange shawl. The younger woman, who was very pretty, wore a
sailor's hat, leis of crimson ohia blossoms round her hat and
throat, a black holuku, a crimson poncho, and one spur, and held up
a green umbrella whenever it rained.
We were shortly joined by Kaluna, the cousin, on an old, big, wall-
eyed, bare-tailed, raw-boned horse, whose wall-eyes contrived to
express mingled suspicion and fear, while a flabby, pendant, lower
lip, conveyed the impression of complete abjectness. He looked like
some human beings who would be vicious if they dared, but the vice
had been beaten out of him long ago, and only the fear remained. He
has a raw suppurating sore under the saddle, glueing the blanket to
his lean back, and crouches when he is mounted. Both legs on one
side look shorter than on the other, giving a crooked look to
himself and his rider, and his bare feet are worn thin as if he had
been on lava. I rode him for a mile yesterday, and when he
attempted a convulsive canter, with three short steps and a stumble
in it, his abbreviated off legs made me feel as if I were rolling
over on one side. Kaluna beats him the whole time with a heavy
stick; but except when he strikes him most barbarously about his
eyes and nose he only cringes, without quickening his pace. When I
rode him mercifully the true hound nature came out. The sufferings
of this wretched animal have been the great drawback on this
journey. I have now bribed Kaluna with as much as the horse is
worth to give him a month's rest, and long before that time I hope
the owl-hawks will be picking his bones.
The horse has come before the rider, but Kaluna is no nonentity. He
is a very handsome youth of sixteen, with eyes which are remarkable,
even in this land of splendid eyes, a straight nose, a very fine
mouth, and beautiful teeth, a mass of wavy, almost curly hair, and a
complexion not so brown as to conceal the mantling of the bright
southern blood in his cheeks. His figure is lithe, athletic, and as
pliable as if he were an invertebrate animal, capable of unlimited
doublings up and contortions, to which his thin white shirt and blue
cotton trousers are no impediment. He is almost a complete savage;
his movements are impulsive and uncontrolled, and his handsome face
looks as if it belonged to a half-tamed creature out of the woods.
He talks loud, laughs incessantly, croons a monotonous chant, which
sounds almost as heathenish as tom-toms, throws himself out of his
saddle, hanging on by one foot, lingers behind to gather fruits, and
then comes tearing up, beating his horse over the ears and nose,
with a fearful yell and a prolonged sound like har-r-r-ouche,
striking my mule and threatening to overturn me as he passes me on
the narrow track. He is the most thoroughly careless and
irresponsible being I ever saw, reckless about the horses, reckless
about himself, without any manners or any obvious sense of right and
propriety. In his mouth this musical tongue becomes as harsh as the
speech of a cocatoo or parrot. His manner is familiar. He rides up
to me, pokes his head under my hat, and says, interrogatively,
"Cold!" by which I understand that the poor boy is shivering
himself. In eating he plunges his hand into my bowl of fowl, or
snatches half my biscuit. Yet I daresay he means well, and I am
thoroughly amused with him, except when he maltreats his horse.
It is a very strange life going about with natives, whose ideas, as
shown by their habits, are, to say the least of it, very peculiar.
Deborah speaks English fairly, having been brought up by white
people, and is a very nice girl. But were she one of our own race I
should not suppose her to be more than eleven years old, and she
does not seem able to understand my ideas on any subject, though I
can be very much interested and amused with hearing hers.
We had a perfect day until the middle of the afternoon. The
dimpling Pacific was never more than a mile from us as we kept the
narrow track in the long green grass; and on our left the blunt
snow-patched peaks of Mauna Kea rose from the girdle of forest,
looking so delusively near that I fancied a two-hours' climb would
take us to his lofty summit. The track for twenty-six miles is just
in and out of gulches, from 100 to 800 feet in depth, all opening on
the sea, which sweeps into them in three booming rollers. The
candle-nut or kukui (aleurites triloba) tree, which on the whole
predominates, has leaves of a rich deep green when mature, which
contrast beautifully with the flaky silvery look of the younger
foliage. Some of the shallower gulches are filled exclusively with
this tree, which in growing up to the light to within 100 feet of
the top, presents a mass and density of leafage quite unique, giving
the gulch the appearance as if billows of green had rolled in and
solidified there. Each gulch has some specialty of ferns and trees,
and in such a distance as sixty miles they vary considerably with
the variations of soil, climate, and temperature. But everywhere
the rocks, trees, and soil are covered and crowded with the most
exquisite ferns and mosses, from the great tree-fern, whose bright
fronds light up the darker foliage, to the lovely maiden-hair and
graceful selaginellas which are mirrored in pools of sparkling
water. Everywhere, too, the great blue morning glory opened to a
heaven not bluer than itself.
The descent into the gulches is always solemn. You canter along a
bright breezy upland, and are suddenly arrested by a precipice, and
from the depths of a forest abyss a low plash or murmur rises, or a
deep bass sound, significant of water which must be crossed, and one
reluctantly leaves the upper air to plunge into heavy shadow, and
each experience increases one's apprehensions concerning the next.
Though in some gulches the kukui preponderates, in others the
lauhala whose aerial roots support it in otherwise impossible
positions, and in others the sombre ohia, yet there were some grand
clefts in which nature has mingled her treasures impartially, and
out of cool depths of ferns rose the feathery coco-palm, the
glorious breadfruit, with its green melon-like fruit, the large
ohia, ideal in its beauty,--the most gorgeous flowering tree I have
ever seen, with spikes of rose-crimson blossoms borne on the old
wood, blazing among its shining many-tinted leafage,--the tall
papaya with its fantastic crown, the profuse gigantic plantain, and
innumerable other trees, shrubs, and lianas, in the beauty and
bounteousness of an endless spring. Imagine my surprise on seeing
at the bottom of one gulch, a grove of good-sized, dark-leaved, very
handsome trees, with an abundance of smooth round green fruit upon
them, and on reaching them finding that they were orange trees,
their great size, far exceeding that of the largest at Valencia,
having prevented me from recognizing them earlier! In another, some
large shrubs with oval, shining, dark leaves, much crimped at the
edges, bright green berries along the stalks, and masses of pure
white flowers lying flat, like snow on evergreens, turned out to be
coffee! The guava with its obtuse smooth leaves, sweet white
blossoms on solitary axillary stalks, and yellow fruit was
universal. The novelty of the fruit, foliage, and vegetation is an
intense delight to me. I should like to see how the rigid aspect of
a coniferous tree, of which there is not one indigenous to the
islands, would look by contrast. We passed through a long thicket
of sumach, an exotic from North America, which still retains its old
habit of shedding its leaves, and its grey, wintry, desolate-looking
branches reminded me that there are less-favoured parts of the
world, and that you are among mist, cold, murk, slush, gales,
leaflessness, and all the dismal concomitants of an English winter.
It is wonderful that people should have thought of crossing these
gulches on anything with four legs. Formerly, that is, within the
last thirty years, the precipices could only be ascended by climbing
with the utmost care, and descended by being lowered with ropes from
crag to crag, and from tree to tree, when hanging on by the hands
became impracticable to even the most experienced mountaineer. In
this last fashion Mr. Coan and Mr. Lyons were let down to preach the
gospel to the people of the then populous valleys. But within
recent years, narrow tracks, allowing one horse to pass another,
have been cut along the sides of these precipices, without any
windings to make them easier, and only deviating enough from the
perpendicular to allow of their descent by the sure-footed native-
born animals. Most of them are worn by water and animals' feet,
broken, rugged, jagged, with steps of rock sometimes three feet
high, produced by breakage here and there. Up and down these the
animals slip, jump, and scramble, some of them standing still until
severely spurred, or driven by some one from behind. Then there are
softer descents, slippery with damp, and perilous in heavy rains,
down which they slide dexterously, gathering all their legs under
them. On a few of these tracks a false step means death, but the
vegetation which clothes the pali below, blinds one to the risk. I
don't think anything would induce me to go up a swinging zigzag--up
a terrible pali opposite to me as I write, the sides of which are
quite undraped.
All the gulches for the first twenty-four miles contain running
water. The great Hakalau gulch we crossed early yesterday, has a
river with a smooth bed as wide as the Thames at Eton. Some have
only small quiet streams, which pass gently through ferny grottoes.
Others have fierce strong torrents dashing between abrupt walls of
rock, among immense boulders into deep abysses, and cast themselves
over precipice after precipice into the ocean. Probably, many of
these are the courses of fire torrents, whose jagged masses of a-a
have since been worn smooth, and channelled into holes by the action
of water. A few are crossed on narrow bridges, but the majority are
forded, if that quiet conventional term can be applied to the
violent flounderings by which the horses bring one through. The
transparency deceives them, and however deep the water is, they
always try to lift their fore feet out of it, which gives them a
disagreeable rolling motion. (Mr. Brigham in his valuable monograph
on the Hawaiian volcanoes quoted below, {138} appears as much
impressed with these gulches as I am.)
We lunched in one glorious valley, and Kaluna made drinking cups
which held fully a pint, out of the beautiful leaves of the Arum
esculentum. Towards afternoon turbid-looking clouds lowered over
the sea, and by the time we reached the worst pali of all, the south
side of Laupahoehoe, they burst on us in torrents of rain
accompanied by strong wind. This terrible precipice takes one
entirely by surprise. Kaluna, who rode first, disappeared so
suddenly that I thought he had gone over. It is merely a dangerous
broken ledge, and besides that it looks as if there were only
foothold for a goat, one is dizzied by the sight of the foaming
ocean immediately below, and, when we actually reached the bottom,
there was only a narrow strip of shingle between the stupendous
cliff and the resounding surges, which came up as if bent on
destruction. The path by which we descended looked a mere thread on
the side of the precipice. I don't know what the word beetling
means, but if it means anything bad, I will certainly apply it to
that pali.
A number of disastrous-looking native houses are clustered under
some very tall palms in the open part of the gulch, but it is a most
wretched situation; the roar of the surf is deafening, the scanty
supply of water is brackish, there are rumours that leprosy is rife,
and the people are said to be the poorest on Hawaii. We were warned
that we could not spend a night comfortably there, so wet, tired,
and stiff, we rode on another six miles to the house of a native
called Bola-Bola, where we had been instructed to remain. The rain
was heavy and ceaseless, and the trail had become so slippery that
our progress was much retarded. It was a most unpropitious-looking
evening, and I began to feel the painful stiffness arising from
prolonged fatigue in saturated clothes. I indulged in various
imaginations as we rode up the long ascent leading to Bola-Bola's,
but this time they certainly were not of sofas and tea, and I never
aspired to anything beyond drying my clothes by a good fire, for at
Hilo some people had shrugged their shoulders, and others had
laughed mysteriously at the idea of our sleeping there, and some had
said it was one of the worst of native houses.
A single glance was enough. It was a dilapidated frame-house,
altogether forlorn, standing unsheltered on a slope of the mountain,
with one or two yet more forlorn grass piggeries, which I supposed
might be the cook house, and eating-house near it.
A prolonged har-r-r-rouche from Kaluna brought out a man with a
female horde behind him, all shuffling into clothes as we
approached, and we stiffly dismounted from the wet saddles in which
we had sat for ten hours, and stiffly hobbled up into the littered
verandah, the water dripping from our clothes, and squeezing out of
our boots at every step. Inside there was one room about 18 x 14
feet, which looked as if the people had just arrived and had thrown
down their goods promiscuously. There were mats on the floor not
over clean, and half the room was littered and piled with mats
rolled up, boxes, bamboos, saddles, blankets, lassos, cocoanuts,
kalo roots, bananas, quilts, pans, calabashes, bundles of hard poi
in ti leaves, bones, cats, fowls, clothes. A frightful old woman,
looking like a relic of the old heathen days, with bristling grey
hair cut short, her body tattooed all over, and no clothing but a
ragged blanket huddled round her shoulders; a girl about twelve,
with torrents of shining hair, and a piece of bright green calico
thrown round her, and two very good-looking young women in rose-
coloured chemises, one of them holding a baby, were squatting and
lying on the mats, one over another, like a heap of savages.
When the man found that we were going to stay all night he bestirred
himself, dragged some of the things to one side and put down a
shake-down of pulu (the silky covering of the fronds of one species
of tree-fern), with a sheet over it, and a gay quilt of orange and
red cotton. There was a thin printed muslin curtain to divide off
one half of the room, a usual arrangement in native houses. He then
helped to unsaddle the horses, and the confusion of the room was
increased by a heap of our wet saddles, blankets, and gear. All
this time the women lay on the floor and stared at us.
Rheumatism seemed impending, for the air up there was chilly, and I
said to Deborah that I must make some change in my dress, and she
signed to Kaluna, who sprang at my soaked boots and pulled them off,
and my stockings too, with a savage alacrity which left it doubtful
for a moment whether he had not also pulled off my feet! I had no
means of making any further change except putting on a wrapper over
my wet clothes.
Meanwhile the man killed and boiled a fowl, and boiled some sweet
potato, and when these untempting viands, and a calabash of poi were
put before us, we sat round them and eat; I with my knife, the
others with their fingers. There was some coffee in a dirty bowl.
The females had arranged a row of pillows on their mat, and all lay
face downwards, with their chins resting upon them, staring at us
with their great brown eyes, and talking and laughing incessantly.
They had low sensual faces, like some low order of animal. When our
meal was over, the man threw them the relics, and they soon picked
the bones clean. It surprised me that after such a badly served
meal the man brought a bowl of water for our hands, and something
intended for a towel.
By this time it was dark, and a stone, deeply hollowed at the top,
was produced, containing beef fat and a piece of rag for a wick,
which burned with a strong flaring light. The women gathered
themselves up and sat round a large calabash of poi, conveying the
sour paste to their mouths with an inimitable twist of the fingers,
laying their heads back and closing their eyes with a look of animal
satisfaction. When they had eaten they lay down as before, with
their chins on their pillows, and again the row of great brown eyes
confronted me. Deborah, Kaluna, and the women talked incessantly in
loud shrill voices till Kaluna uttered the word auwe with a long
groaning intonation, apparently signifying weariness, divested
himself of his clothes and laid down on a mat alongside our shake-
down, upon which we let down the dividing curtain and wrapped
ourselves up as warmly as possible.
I was uneasy about Deborah who had had a cough for some time, and
consequently took the outside place under the window which was
broken, and presently a large cat jumped through the hole and down
upon me, followed by another and another, till five wild cats had
effected an entrance, making me a stepping-stone to ulterior
proceedings. Had there been a sixth I think I could not have borne
the infliction quietly. Strips of jerked beef were hanging from the
rafters, and by the light which was still burning I watched the cats
climb up stealthily, seize on some of these, descend, and disappear
through the window, making me a stepping-stone as before, but with
all their craft they let some of the strips fall, which awoke
Deborah, and next I saw Kaluna's magnificent eyes peering at us
under the curtain. Then the natives got up, and smoked and eat more
poi at intervals, and talked, and Kaluna and Deborah quarrelled,
jokingly, about the time of night she told me, and the moon through
the rain-clouds occasionally gave us delusive hopes of dawn, and I
kept moving my place to get out of the drip from the roof, and so
the night passed. I was amused all the time, though I should have
preferred sleep to such nocturnal diversions. It was so new, and so
odd, to be the only white person among eleven natives in a lonely
house, and yet to be as secure from danger and annoyance as in our
own home.
At last a pale dawn did appear, but the rain was still coming down
heavily, and our poor animals were standing dismally with their
heads down and their tails turned towards the wind. Yesterday
evening I took a change of clothes out of the damp saddle-bags, and
put them into what I hoped was a dry place, but they were soaked,
wetter even than those in which I had been sleeping, and my boots
and Deborah's were so stiff, that we gladly availed ourselves of
Kaluna's most willing services. The mode of washing was peculiar:
he held a calabash with about half-a-pint of water in it, while we
bathed our faces and hands, and all the natives looked on and
tittered. This was apparently his idea of politeness, for no
persuasion would induce him to put the bowl down on the mat, and
Deborah evidently thought it was proper respect. We had a
repetition of the same viands as the night before for breakfast,
and, as before, the women lay with their chins on their pillows and
stared at us.
The rain ceased almost as soon as we started, and though it has not
been a bright day, it has been very pleasant. There are no large
gulches on to-day's journey. The track is mostly through long
grass, over undulating uplands, with park-like clumps of trees, and
thickets of guava and the exotic sumach. Different ferns, flowers,
and vegetation, with much less luxuriance and little water, denoted
a drier climate and a different soil. There are native churches at
distances of six or seven miles all the way from Hilo, but they seem
too large and too many for the scanty population.
We moved on in single file at a jog-trot wherever the road admitted
of it, meeting mounted natives now and then, which led to a delay
for the exchange of nuhou; and twice we had to turn into the thicket
to avoid what here seems to be considered a danger. There are many
large herds of semi-wild bullocks on the mountains, branded cattle,
as distinguished from the wild or unbranded, and when they are
wanted for food, a number of experienced vaccheros on strong shod
horses go up, and drive forty or fifty of them down. We met such a
drove bound for Hilo, with one or two men in front and others at the
sides and behind, uttering loud shouts. The bullocks are nearly mad
with being hunted and driven, and at times rush like a living
tornado, tearing up the earth with their horns. As soon as the
galloping riders are seen and the crooked-horned beasts, you retire
behind a screen. There must be some tradition of some one having
been knocked down and hurt, for reckless as the natives are said to
be, they are careful about this, and we were warned several times by
travellers whom we met, that there were "bullocks ahead." The law
provides that the vaccheros shall station one of their number at the
head of a gulch to give notice when cattle are to pass through.
We jogged on again till we met a native who told us that we were
quite close to our destination; but there were no signs of it, for
we were still on the lofty uplands, and the only prominent objects
were huge headlands confronting the sea. I got off to walk, as my
mule seemed footsore, but had not gone many yards when we came
suddenly to the verge of a pali, about 1,000 feet deep, with a
narrow fertile valley below, with a yet higher pali on the other
side, both abutting perpendicularly on the sea. I should think the
valley is not more than three miles long, and it is walled in by
high inaccessible mountains. It is in fact, a gulch on a vastly
enlarged scale. The prospect below us was very charming, a fertile
region perfectly level, protected from the sea by sandhills, watered
by a winding stream, and bright with fishponds, meadow lands, kalo
patches, orange and coffee groves, figs, breadfruit, and palms.
There were a number of grass-houses, and a native church with a
spire, and another up the valley testified to the energy and
aggressiveness of Rome. We saw all this from the moment we reached
the pali; and it enlarged, and the detail grew upon us with every
yard of the laborious descent of broken craggy track, which is the
only mode of access to the valley from the outer world. I got down
on foot with difficulty; a difficulty much increased by the long
rowels of my spurs, which caught on the rocks and entangled my
dress, the simple expedient of taking them off not having occurred
to me!
A neat frame-house, with large stones between it and the river, was
our destination. It belongs to a native named Halemanu, a great man
in the district, for, besides being a member of the legislature, he
is deputy sheriff. He is a man of property, also; and though he
cannot speak a word of English, he is well educated in Hawaiian, and
writes an excellent hand. I brought a letter of introduction to him
from Mr. Severance, and we were at once received with every
hospitality, our horses cared for, and ourselves luxuriously lodged.
We walked up the valley before dark to get a view of a cascade, and
found supper ready on our return. This is such luxury after last
night. There is a very light bright sitting-room, with papered
walls, and manilla matting on the floor, a round centre table with
books and a photographic album upon it, two rocking-chairs, an
office-desk, another table and chairs, and a Canadian lounge. I
can't imagine in what way this furniture was brought here. Our
bedroom opens from this, and it actually has a four-post bedstead
with mosquito bars, a lounge and two chairs, and the floor is
covered with native matting. The washing apparatus is rather an
anomaly, for it consists of a basin and crash towel placed in the
verandah, in full view of fifteen people. The natives all bathe in
the river.
Halemanu has a cook house and native cook, and an eating-room, where
I was surprised to find everything in foreign style--chairs, a table
with a snow white cover, and table napkins, knives, forks, and even
salt-cellars. I asked him to eat with us, and he used a knife and
fork quite correctly, never, for instance, putting the knife into
his mouth. I was amused to see him afterwards, sitting on a mat
among his family and dependants, helping himself to poi from a
calabash with his fingers. He gave us for supper delicious river
fish fried, boiled kalo, and Waipio coffee with boiled milk.
It is very annoying only to be able to converse with this man
through an interpreter; and Deborah, as is natural, is rather
unwilling to be troubled to speak English, now that she is among her
own people. After supper we sat by candlelight in the parlour, and
he showed me his photograph album. At eight he took a large Bible,
put on glasses, and read a chapter in Hawaiian; after which he knelt
and prayed with profound reverence of manner and tone. Towards the
end I recognized the Hawaiian words for "Our Father." {148} Here in
Waipio there is something pathetic in the idea of this Fatherhood,
which is wider than the ties of kin and race. Even here not one is
a stranger, an alien, a foreigner! And this man, so civilized and
Christianized, only now in middle life, was, he said, "a big boy
when the first teachers came," and may very likely have witnessed
horrors in the heiau, or temple, close by, of which little is left
now.
This bedroom is thoroughly comfortable. Kaluna wanted to sleep on
the lounge here, probably because he is afraid of akuas, or spirits,
but we have exiled him to a blanket on the parlour lounge.
I.L.B.