We were warned
that we could not spend a night comfortably there, so wet, tired,
and stiff, we rode on another six miles to the house of a native
called Bola-Bola, where we had been instructed to remain. The rain
was heavy and ceaseless, and the trail had become so slippery that
our progress was much retarded. It was a most unpropitious-looking
evening, and I began to feel the painful stiffness arising from
prolonged fatigue in saturated clothes. I indulged in various
imaginations as we rode up the long ascent leading to Bola-Bola's,
but this time they certainly were not of sofas and tea, and I never
aspired to anything beyond drying my clothes by a good fire, for at
Hilo some people had shrugged their shoulders, and others had
laughed mysteriously at the idea of our sleeping there, and some had
said it was one of the worst of native houses.
A single glance was enough. It was a dilapidated frame-house,
altogether forlorn, standing unsheltered on a slope of the mountain,
with one or two yet more forlorn grass piggeries, which I supposed
might be the cook house, and eating-house near it.
A prolonged har-r-r-rouche from Kaluna brought out a man with a
female horde behind him, all shuffling into clothes as we
approached, and we stiffly dismounted from the wet saddles in which
we had sat for ten hours, and stiffly hobbled up into the littered
verandah, the water dripping from our clothes, and squeezing out of
our boots at every step.
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