It was worth a second visit just to get a glimpse of
such a vision of peace.
Halemanu, with hospitable alacrity, soon made breakfast ready, after
which Mr. S., having arranged for my further journey, left me here,
and for the first time I found myself alone among natives ignorant
of English. For the Waimanu trip it is essential to have a horse
bred in the Waimanu Valley and used to its dizzy palis, and such a
horse was procured, and a handsome native, called Hananui, as guide.
We were away by ten, and galloped across the valley till we came to
the nearly perpendicular pali on the other side. The sight of this
air-hung trail from Halemanu's house has turned back several
travellers who were bent on the trip, but I had been told that it
was quite safe on a Waimanu horse; and keeping under my fears as
best I could, I let Hananui precede me, and began the ascent, which
is visible from here for an hour. The pali is as nearly
perpendicular as can be. Not a bush or fern, hardly a tuft of any
green thing, clothes its bare, scathed sides. It terminates
precipitously on the sea at a height of 2000 feet. Up this shelving
wall, something like a sheep track, from thirty to forty-six inches
broad, goes in great swinging zigzags, sometimes as broken steps of
rock breast high, at others as a smooth ledge with hardly foothold,
in three places carried away by heavy rains--altogether the most
frightful track that imagination can conceive.
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