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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It Is Very Perfect,
Well Defined On Both Sides With Kerb-Stones, And Greatly Resembles
The Chariot Ways In Pompeii.
Near it are several structures formed
of four stones, three being set upright, and the fourth forming the
roof.
In a northerly direction is the place where Liholiho, the
king who died in England, excited by drink and the persuasions of
Kaahumanu, broke tabu, and made an end of the superstitions of
heathenism. Not far off is the battle field on which the adherents
of the idols rallied their forces against the iconoclasts, and were
miserably and finally defeated. Recent lava streams have descended
on each side of the bay, and from the bare black rock of the landing
a flow may be traced up the steep ascent as far as a precipice, over
which it falls in waves and twists, a cataract of stone. A late
lava river passed through the magnificent forest on the southerly
slope, and the impressions of the stems of coco and fan palms are
stamped clearly on the smooth rock. The rainfall in Kona is heavy,
but there is no standing water, and only one stream in a distance of
100 miles.
This district is famous for oranges, coffee, pineapples, and
silence. A flaming palm-fringed shore with a prolific strip of
table land 1,500 feet above it, a dense timber belt eight miles in
breadth, and a volcano smoking somewhere between that and the
heavens, and glaring through the trees at night, are the salient
points of Kona if anything about it be salient. It is a region
where falls not
". . . Hail or any snow,
Or ever wind blows loudly."
Wind indeed, is a thing unknown. The scarcely audible whisper of
soft airs through the trees morning and evening, rain drops falling
gently, and the murmur of drowsy surges far below, alone break the
stillness. No ripple ever disturbs the great expanse of ocean which
gleams through the still, thick trees. Rose in the sweet cool
morning, gold in the sweet cool evening, but always dreaming; and
white sails come and go, no larger than a butterfly's wing on the
horizon, of ships drifting on ocean currents, dreaming too! Nothing
surely can ever happen here: it is so dumb and quiet, and people
speak in hushed thin voices, and move as in a lethargy, dreaming
too! No heat, cold, or wind, nothing emphasised or italicised, it
is truly a region of endless afternoons, "a land where all things
always seem the same." Life is dead, and existence is a languid
swoon.
This is the only regular boarding house on Hawaii. The company is
accidental and promiscuous. The conversation consists of
speculations, varied and repeated with the hours, as to the arrivals
and departures of the Honolulu schooners Uilama and Prince, who they
will bring, who they will take, and how long their respective
passages will be. A certain amount of local gossip is also hashed
up at each meal, and every stranger who has travelled through Hawaii
for the last ten years is picked to pieces and worn threadbare, and
his purse, weight, entertainers, and habits are thoroughly
canvassed.
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