The rain came down, if possible, yet more heavily,
and coursed fiercely down each pali track. Hundreds of cascades
leapt from the cliffs, bringing down stones with a sharp rattling
sound. We crossed a bridge over one gulch, where the water was
thundering down in such volume that it seemed as if it must rend the
hard basalt of the palis. Then we reached the lofty top of the
great Hakalau gulch, the largest of all, with the double river, and
the ocean close to the ford. Mingling with the deep reverberations
of the surf, I heard the sharp crisp rush of a river, and of "a
river that has no bridge."
The dense foliage, and the exigencies of the steep track, which had
become very difficult, owing to the washing away of the soil,
prevented me from seeing anything till I got down. I found Deborah
speaking to a native, who was gesticulating very emphatically, and
pointing up the river. The roar was deafening, and the sight
terrific. Where there were two shallow streams a week ago, with a
house and good-sized piece of ground above their confluence, there
was now one spinning, rushing, chafing, foaming river, twice as wide
as the Clyde at Glasgow, the land was submerged, and, if I remember
correctly, the house only stood above the flood.
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