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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As It Was, I Got Up Soon After Midnight, And
Cautiously Stepping Among The Sleeping Forms, Went Out Of Doors.
Everything favoured reflection, but I think the topics to which my
mind most frequently reverted were my own absolute security
- A lone
white woman among "savages," and the civilizing influence which
Christianity has exercised, so that even in this isolated valley,
gouged out of a mountainous coast, there was nothing disagreeable or
improper to be seen. The night was very still, but the sea was
moaning; the river rippled very gently as it brushed past the reeds;
there was a hardly perceptible vibration in the atmosphere, which
suggested falling water and quivering leaves; and the air was full
of a heavy, drowsy fragrance, the breath of orange flowers, perhaps,
and of the night-blowing Cereus, which had opened its ivory urn to
the moon. I should have liked to stay out all night in the vague,
delicious moonlight, but the dew was heavy, and moreover I had not
any boots on, so I reluctantly returned to the grass house, which
was stifling with heat and smells of cocoa-nut oil, tobacco, and the
rancid smoke from beef fat.
Before sunrise this morning my horse was saddled, and a number of
natives had assembled. Hananui had disappeared, but the man who
lent me his bare-backed horse yesterday was ready to act as guide.
My boots could not then be found, so I adopted the native fashion of
riding with bare feet.
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