Between the summit and Waimanu, a distance of ten miles, there are
nine gulches, two of them about 900 feet deep, all very beautiful,
owing to the broken ground, the luxuriant vegetation, and the bright
streams, but the kona, or south wind, was blowing, bringing up the
hot breath of the equatorial belt, and the sun was perfectly
unclouded, so that the heat of the gorges was intense. They succeed
each other occasionally with very great rapidity. Between two of
the deepest and steepest there is a ridge not more than fifty yards
wide.
Soon after noon we simultaneously stopped our horses. The Waimanu
Valley lay 2500 feet (it is said) below us, and the trail struck off
into space. It was a scene of loneliness to which Waipio seems the
world. In a second the eye took in the twenty grass lodges of its
inhabitants, the five cascades which dive into the dense forests of
its upper end, its river like a silver ribbon, and its meadows of
living green. In ten seconds a bird could have spanned the ravine
and feasted on its loveliness, but we could only tip over the dizzy
ridge that overhangs the valley, and laboriously descend into its
heat and silence. The track is as steep and broken as that which
goes up from hence, but not nearly so narrow, and without its
elements of terror, for kukuis, lauhalas, ohias, and ti trees, with
a lavish growth of ferns and trailers, grow luxuriantly in every
damp rift of rock, and screen from view the precipices of the pali.
Pages:
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287