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.
