And Sometimes Ukiukiu
Or Naulu, Abruptly Sending Out A Heavy Charging Column, Captures The
Ragged Little Skirmishers Or Drives Them Skyward, Turning Over And
Over, In Vertical Whirls, Thousands Of Feet In The Air.
But it is on the western slopes of Haleakala that the main battle
goes on.
Here Naulu masses his heaviest formations and wins his
greatest victories. Ukiukiu grows weak toward late afternoon, which
is the way of all trade-winds, and is driven backward by Naulu.
Naulu's generalship is excellent. All day he has been gathering and
packing away immense reserves. As the afternoon draws on, he welds
them into a solid column, sharp-pointed, miles in length, a mile in
width, and hundreds of feet thick. This column he slowly thrusts
forward into the broad battle-front of Ukiukiu, and slowly and
surely Ukiukiu, weakening fast, is split asunder. But it is not all
bloodless. At times Ukiukiu struggles wildly, and with fresh
accessions of strength from the limitless north-east, smashes away
half a mile at a time of Naulu's column and sweeps it off and away
toward West Maui. Sometimes, when the two charging armies meet end-
on, a tremendous perpendicular whirl results, the cloud-masses,
locked together, mounting thousands of feet into the air and turning
over and over. A favourite device of Ukiukiu is to send a low,
squat formation, densely packed, forward along the ground and under
Naulu. When Ukiukiu is under, he proceeds to buck. Naulu's mighty
middle gives to the blow and bends upward, but usually he turns the
attacking column back upon itself and sets it milling.
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