To me, with my hatred of reptiles and insects, it is not
the least among the charms of Hawaii, that these glorious
entanglements and cool damp depths of a redundant vegetation give
shelter to nothing of unseemly shape and venomous proboscis or fang.
Here, in cool, dreamy, sunny Onomea, there are no horrid, drumming,
stabbing, mosquitoes as at Honolulu, to remind me of what I forget
sometimes, that I am not in Eden. {128}
I.L.B.
LETTER X.
WAIPIO VALLEY, HAWAII.
There is something fearful in the isolation of this valley, open at
one end to the sea, and walled in on all others by palis or
precipices, from 1,000 to 2,000 feet in height, over the easiest of
which hangs the dizzy track, which after trailing over the country
for sixty difficult miles, connects Waipio with the little world of
Hilo. The evening is very sombre, and darkness comes on early
between these high walls. I am in a native house in which not a
word of English is spoken, and Deborah, among her own people, has
returned with zest to the exclusive use of her own tongue. This is
more solitary than solitude, and tired as I am with riding and
roughing it, I must console myself with writing to you.
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