If such an unlikely thing were to happen as that she
were to bring a letter, I should be much tempted to stay five months
longer on the islands rather than try the climate of Colorado, for I
have come to feel at home, people are so very genial, and suggest so
many plans for my future enjoyment, the islands in their physical
and social aspects are so novel and interesting, and the climate is
unrivalled and restorative.
Honolulu has not yet lost the charm of novelty for me. I am never
satiated with its exotic beauties, and the sight of a kaleidoscopic
whirl of native riders is always fascinating. The passion for
riding, in a people who only learned equitation in the last
generation, is most curious. It is very curious, too, to see women
incessantly enjoying and amusing themselves in riding, swimming, and
making leis. They have few home ties in the shape of children, and
I fear make them fewer still by neglecting them for the sake of
riding and frolic, and man seems rather the help-meet than the
"oppressor" of woman; though I believe that the women have abandoned
that right of choosing their husbands, which, it is said, that they
exercised in the old days. Used to the down-trodden look and
harrassed care-worn faces of the over-worked women of the same class
at home, and in the colonies, the laughing, careless faces of the
Hawaiian women have the effect upon me of a perpetual marvel.
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