The Hawaiian Archipelago - Six Months Among The Palm Groves, Coral Reefs, And Volcanoes Of The Sandwich Islands By Isabella L. Bird
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If Mr. G. Has An Eye For The
Picturesque, He Must Have Been Gratified As He Came In From The
Fog
and darkness into the grass room, with the flaring fire in the
middle, the rifles gleaming on the wall,
The two men in very rough
clothing, and myself huddled up in a blanket sitting on the floor,
where my friend was very glad to join us.
Mr. Green has brought nothing but tea from Kapapala, but Gandle has
made some excellent rolls, besides feasting us on stewed fowl,
dough-nuts, and milk! Little comfort is promised for to-night, as
Gandle says with a twinkle of kindly malice in his eye, that we
shall not "get a wink of sleep, for the place swarms with fleas."
They are a great pest of the colder regions of the islands, and like
all other nuisances, are said to have been imported! Gandle and the
other man have entertained us with the misfortunes of our
predecessors, on which they seem to gloat with ill-omened
satisfaction.
I.L.B.
LETTER XXIX. - Continued.
KAPAPALA, June 8th.
The fleas at Ainepo quite fulfilled Mr. Gandle's prognostications,
and I was glad when the cold stars went out one by one, and a red,
cloudless dawn broke over the mountain, accompanied by a heavy dew
and a morning mist, which soon rolled itself up into rosy folds and
disappeared, and there was a legitimate excuse for getting up. Our
host provided us with flour, sugar, and dough-nuts, and a hot
breakfast, and our expedition, comprising two natives who knew not a
word of English, Mr. G. who does not know very much more Hawaiian
than I do, and myself, started at seven. We had four superb mules,
and two good pack-horses, a large tent, and a plentiful supply of
camping blankets. I put on all my own warm clothes, as well as most
of those which had been lent to me, which gave me the squat, padded,
look of a puffin or Esquimaux, but all, and more were needed long
before we reached the top. The mules were beyond all praise. They
went up the most severe ascent I have ever seen, climbing steadily
for nine hours, without a touch of the spur, and after twenty-four
hours of cold, thirst, and hunger, came down again as actively as
cats. The pack-horses too were very good, but from the comparative
clumsiness with which they move their feet they were very severely
cut.
We went off, as usual, in single file, the guide first, and Mr. G.
last. The track was passably legible for some time, and wound
through long grass, and small koa trees, mixed with stunted ohias
and a few common ferns. Half these koa trees are dead, and all,
both living and dead, have their branches covered with a long hairy
lichen, nearly white, making the dead forest in the slight mist look
like a wood in England when covered with rime on a fine winter
morning.
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