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MAKAUELI, KAUAI.

FTER my letters from Hawaii, and their narratives of volcanoes, freshets, and out-of-the-world valleys, you will think my present letters dull, so I

must begin this one pleasantly, by telling you that I have no stirring adventures to relate, I am enjoying myself and improving again in health, and that the people are hospitable, genial, and cultivated, and that Kauai, though altogether different from Hawaii, has an extreme beauty altogether its own, which wins one's love, though it does not startle one into admiration like that of the Hawaiian gulches. Is it because that, though the magic of novelty is over it, there is a perpetual undercurrent of home resemblance? The dash of its musical waters might be in Cumberland; its swelling uplands, with their clumps of trees, might be in Kent; and then again, steep, broken, wooded

ridges, with glades of grass, suggest the Val Moutiers; and broader sweeps of mountain outline, the finest scenery of the Alleghanies.

But yet the very things which have a certain tenderness of familiarity, are in a foreign setting. The great expanse of restful sea, so faintly blue all day, and so faintly red in the late afternoon, is like no other ocean in its unutterable peace; and this joyous, riotous trade-wind, which rustles the trees all day, and falls asleep at night, and cools the air, seems to come from some widely different laboratory than that in which our vicious east winds, and damp west winds, and piercing north winds, and suffocating south winds are concocted. Here one cannot ride "into the teeth of a north-easter," for such the trade-wind really is, without feeling at once invigorated, and wrapped in an atmosphere of balm. It is not here so tropical looking as in Hawaii, and though there are not the frightful volcanic wildernesses which make a thirsty solitude in the centre of that island, neither are there those bursts of tropical luxuriance which make every gulch an epitome of Paradise: I really cannot define the difference, for here, as there, palms glass themselves in still waters, bananas flourish, and the forests are green with ferns.

We took three days for our journey of twenty-three miles from Koloa, the we consisting of Mrs., the widow of an early missionary teacher, venerable in years and character, a native boy of ten years old, her squire, a second Kaluna, without Kaluna's good qualities, and myself. Mrs. is not a bold horsewoman, and preferred to keep to a foot's pace, which fretted my ambitious animal, whose innocent antics alarmed her in turn. We only rode seven miles the first day, through a park-like region, very like Western Wisconsin, and just like what I expected and failed to find in New Zealand. Grass-land

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much tumbled about, the turf very fine and green, dotted over with clumps and single trees, with picturesque, rocky hills, deeply cleft by watercourses were on our right, and on our left the green slopes blended with the flushed, stony soil near the sea, on which indigo and various compositæ are the chief vegetation. It was hot, but among the hills on our right, cool clouds were coming down in frequent showers, and the white foam of cascades gleamed among the ohias, whose dark foliage at a distance has almost the look of pine woods.

Our first halting place was one of the prettiest places I ever saw, a buff frame-house, with a deep verandah festooned with passion-flowers, two or three guest houses, also bright with trailers, scattered about under the trees near it, a pretty garden, a background of gray, rocky hills cool with woods and ravines, and over all the vicinity, that air of exquisite trimness which is artificially produced in England, but is natural here.

Kaluna the Second soon showed symptoms of being troublesome. The native servants were away, and he was dull, and for that I pitied him. He asked leave to go back to Koloa for a "sleeping tapa," which was refused, and either out of spite or carelessness, instead of fastening the horses into the pasture, he let them go, and the following morning when we were ready for our journey they were lost. Then he borrowed a horse, and late in the afternoon returned with the four animals, all white with foam and dust, and this escapade detained us another night. Subsequently, after disobeying orders, he lost his horse, which was a borrowed one, deserted his mistress, and absconded!

The slopes over which we travelled were red, hot, and stony, cleft in one place, however, by a green, fertile valley, full of rice and kalo patches, and native houses, with

a broad river, the Hanapépé, flowing quietly down the middle, which we forded near the sea, where it was halfway up my horse's sides. After plodding all day over stony soil in the changeless sunshine, as the shadows lengthened, we turned directly up towards the mountains and began a two hours' ascent. It was delicious. They were so cool, so green, so varied, their gray pinnacles so splintered, their precipices so abrupt, their ravines so dark and deep, and their lower slopes covered with the greenest and finest grass; then dark ohias rose singly, then in twos and threes, and finally mixed in dense forest masses, with the pea-green of the kukui.

It became yet lovelier as the track wound through deep wooded ravines, or snaked along the narrow tops of spinelike ridges; the air became cooler, damper, and more like elixir, till at a height of one thousand five hundred feet we came upon Makaueli, ideally situated upon an unequalled natural plateau, a house of patriarchial size for the islands, with a verandah festooned with roses, fuchsias, the water-lemon, and other passion-flowers, and with a large guest house attached. It stands on a natural lawn, with abrupt slopes, sprinkled with orange trees burdened with fruit, ohias, and hibiscus. From the back verandah the forest-covered mountains rise, and in front a deep ravine widens to the grassy slopes below and the lonely Pacific, as I write, a golden sea, on which the island of Niihau, eighteen miles distant, floats like an amethyst.

The solitude is perfect. Except the "quarters" at the back, I think there is not a house, native or foreign, within six miles, though there are several hundred natives on the property. Birds sing in the morning, and the trees rustle throughout the day; but in the cool evenings the air is perfectly still, and the trickle of a stream is the only sound.

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The house has the striking novelty of a chimney, and there is a fire all day long in the dining-room.

I must now say a little about my hosts and try to give you some idea of them. I heard their history from Mr. Damon, and thought it too strange to be altogether true until it was confirmed by themselves.* The venerable lady at the head of the house emigrated from Scotland to New Zealand many years ago, where her husband was unfortunately drowned, and she being left to bring up a large family, and manage a large property, was equally successful with both. Her great ambition was to keep her family together, something on the old patriarchal system; and when her children grew up, and it seemed as if even their very extensive New Zealand property was not large enough for them, she sold it, and embarked her family and movable possessions on board a clipper-ship, owned and commanded by one of her sons-in-law, they sailed through the Pacific in search of a home where they could remain together.

They were strongly tempted by Tahiti, but some reasons having decided them against it, they sailed northwards and put into Honolulu. Mr. Damon, who was seaman's chaplain, on going down to the wharf one day, was surprised to find their trim barque, with this large family party on board, with a beautiful and brilliant old lady at its head, books, pictures, work, and all that could add refinement to a floating home, about them, and cattle and sheep of valuable breeds in pens on deck. They then sailed for British Columbia, but were much disappointed with it, and in three months they reappeared at Honolulu, much at a loss regarding their future prospects.

*These circumstances are well-known throughout the islands, and with the omission of some personal details, there is nothing which may not be known by a larger public.