It was intolerably cold. I
singed my clothes by sitting in the chimney, but could not warm
myself. A fowl was stewed native fashion, and some rice was boiled,
and we had sheep's milk and some ice cold water, the drip, I think,
from a neighbouring cave, as running and standing water are unknown.
There are 9000 sheep here, but they require hardly any attendance
except at shearing time, and dogs are not used in herding them.
Indeed, labour is much dispensed with, as the sheep are shorn
unwashed, a great contrast to the elaborate washings of the flocks
of the Australian Riverina. They come down at night of their own
sagacity, in close converging columns, sleep on the gravel about the
station, and in the early morning betake themselves to their feeding
grounds on the mountain.
Mauna Kea, and the forests which skirt his base, are the resort of
thousands of wild cattle, and there are many men nearly as wild, who
live half savage lives in the woods, gaining their living by
lassoing and shooting these animals for their skins. Wild black
swine also abound.
The mist as usual disappeared at night, leaving a sky wonderful with
stars, which burned blue and pale against the furnace glare on the
top of Mauna Loa, to which we are comparatively near.
