Chapter LXV - Page 2

maintained,
but at last the chief priest fell, pierced to the heart with a spear, and
the unlucky omen fell like a blight upon the brave souls at his back;
with a triumphant shout the invaders pressed forward--the line was
crossed--the offended gods deserted the despairing army, and, accepting
the doom their perjury had brought upon them, they broke and fled over
the plain where Honolulu stands now--up the beautiful Nuuanu Valley--
paused a moment, hemmed in by precipitous mountains on either hand and
the frightful precipice of the Pari in front, and then were driven over--
a sheer plunge of six hundred feet!

The story is pretty enough, but Mr. Jarves' excellent history says the
Oahuans were intrenched in Nuuanu Valley; that Kamehameha ousted them,
routed them, pursued them up the valley and drove them over the
precipice. He makes no mention of our bone-yard at all in his book.

Impressed by the profound silence and repose that rested over the
beautiful landscape, and being, as usual, in the rear, I gave voice to my
thoughts. I said:

"What a picture is here slumbering in the solemn glory of the moon! How
strong the rugged outlines of the dead volcano stand out against the
clear sky! What a snowy fringe marks the bursting of the surf over the
long, curved reef! How calmly the dim city sleeps yonder in the plain!
How soft the shadows lie upon the stately mountains that border the
dream-haunted Mauoa Valley! What a grand pyramid of billowy clouds
towers above the storied Pari! How the grim warriors of the past seem
flocking in ghostly squadrons to their ancient battlefield again--how the
wails of the dying well up from the--"

At this point the horse called Oahu sat down in the sand. Sat down to
listen, I suppose. Never mind what he heard, I stopped apostrophising
and convinced him that I was not a man to allow contempt of Court on the
part of a horse. I broke the back-bone of a Chief over his rump and set
out to join the cavalcade again.

Very considerably fagged out we arrived in town at 9 o'clock at night,
myself in the lead--for when my horse finally came to understand that he
was homeward bound and hadn't far to go, he turned his attention strictly
to business.

This is a good time to drop in a paragraph of information. There is no
regular livery stable in Honolulu, or, indeed, in any part of the Kingdom
of Hawaii; therefore unless you are acquainted with wealthy residents
(who all have good horses), you must hire animals of the wretchedest
description from the Kanakas. (i.e. natives.) Any horse you hire, even
though it be from a white man, is not often of much account, because it
will be brought in for you from some ranch, and has necessarily been
leading a hard life. If the Kanakas who have been caring for him