This reminded me somewhat of the very poorest schools connected with
the Edinburgh Ladies' Highland School Association, but the teacher
had a remarkable paucity of clothing, and he seemed to have the
charge of his baby, which, much clothed, and indeed much muffled,
lay on the bench beside him. For there were benches, and a desk,
and even a blackboard and primers down in the deep wild gulch, where
the music of living waters, and the thunderous roll of the Pacific,
accompanied the children's tuneless voices as they sang an Hawaiian
hymn. I shall remember nothing of the scholars but rows of gleaming
white teeth, and splendid brown eyes. I thought both teacher and
children very apathetic. There were lamentably few, though the
pretty rigidly enforced law, which compels all children between the
ages of six and fifteen to attend school for forty weeks of the
year, had probably gathered together all the children of the
district. They all wore coloured chemises and leis of flowers.
Outside, some natives presented us with some ripe papayas.
Mounting again, we were joined by two native women, who were
travelling the greater part of the way hither, and this made it more
cheerful for D. The elder one had nothing on her head but her wild
black hair, and she wore a black holuku, a lei of the orange seeds
of the pandanus, orange trousers and big spurs strapped on her bare
feet.
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