Then the track goes down with a great dip, along which we slip and
slide in the mud to a deep broad stream. This is a most picturesque
spot, the junction of two clear bright rivers, and a few native
houses and a Chinaman's store are grouped close by under some palms,
with the customary loungers on horseback, asking and receiving
nuhou, or news, at the doors. Our accustomed horses leaped into a
ferry-scow provided by Government, worked by a bearded female of
hideous aspect, and leaped out on the other side to climb a track
cut on the side of a precipice, which would be steep to mount on
one's own feet. There we met parties of natives, all flower-
wreathed, talking and singing, coming gaily down on their sure-
footed horses, saluting us with the invariable "Aloha." Every now
and then we passed native churches, with spires painted white, or a
native schoolhouse, or a group of scholars all ferns and flowers.
The greenness of the vegetation merits the term "dazzling." We
think England green, but its colour is poor and pale as compared
with that of tropical Hawaii. Palms, candlenuts, ohias, hibiscus,
were it not for their exceeding beauty, would almost pall upon one
from their abundance, and each gulch has its glorious entanglement
of breadfruit, the large-leaved ohia, or native apple, a species of
Eugenia (Eugenia Malaccensis), and the pandanus, with its aerial
roots, all looped together by large sky-blue convolvuli and the
running fern, and is marvellous with parasitic growths.
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