We rode over level grass-covered ground,
till we reached the Hamakua bush, fringed with dead trees, and full
of ohias and immense fern trees, some of them with a double tier of
fronds, far larger and finer than any that I saw in New Zealand.
There are herds of wild goats, cattle, and pigs on the island, and
they roam throughout this region, trampling, grubbing, and rending,
grinding the bark of the old trees and eating up the young ones.
This ravaging is threatening at no distant date to destroy the
beauty and alter the climate of the mountainous region of Hawaii.
The cattle are a hideous breed--all bones, hide, and horns.
We were at the top of the Waipio pali at eight, and our barefooted
horses, used to the soft pastures of Waimea, refused to carry us
down its rocky steep, so we had to walk. I admired this lonely
valley far more than before. It was full of infinite depths of
blue--blue smoke in lazy spirals curled upwards; it was eloquent in
a morning silence that I felt reluctant to break. Against its dewy
greenness the beach shone like coarse gold, and its slow silver
river lingered lovingly, as though loth to leave it, and be merged
in the reckless loud-tongued Pacific. Across the valley, the track
I was to take climbed up in thready zigzags, and disappeared round a
bold headland.
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