We Were Galloping Down To The Beach Round A Sharp Corner, When We Had To Pull Our Horses Almost On Their Haunches To Avoid Knocking Over The King, The American Admiral, The Captain Of The "Benicia," Nine Of Their Officers, And The Two Generals.

When I saw the politely veiled stare of the white men it occurred to me that probably it was the first time that they had seen a white woman riding cavalier fashion!

We had a delicious gallop over the sands to the Waiakea river, which we crossed, and came upon one of the vast lava-flows of ages since, over which we had to ride carefully, as the pahoehoe lies in rivers, coils, tortuosities, and holes partially concealed by a luxuriant growth of ferns and convolvuli. The country is thickly sprinkled with cocoa- nuts and bread-fruit trees, which merge into the dense, dark, glorious forest, which tenderly hides out of sight hideous broken lava, on which one cannot venture six feet from the track without the risk of breaking one's limbs. All these tropical forests are absolutely impenetrable, except to axe and billhook, and after a trail has been laboriously opened, it needs to be cut once or twice a year, so rapid is the growth of vegetation. This one, through the Puna woods, only admits of one person at a time. It was really rapturously lovely. Through the trees we saw the soft steel-blue of the summer sky: not a leaf stirred, not a bird sang, a hush had fallen on insect life, the quiet was perfect, even the ring of our horses' hoofs on the lava was a discord.

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