{295}
To turn from drink to climate. It is strange that with such a heavy
rainfall, dwellings built on the ground and never dried by fires
should be so perfectly free from damp as they are. On seeing the
houses here and in Honolulu, buried away in dense foliage, my first
thought was, "how lovely in summer, but how unendurably damp in
winter," forgetting that I arrived in the nominal winter, and that
it is really summer all the year. Lest you should think that I am
perversely exaggerating the charms of the climate, I copy a sentence
from a speech made by Kamehameha IV., at the opening of an Hawaiian
agricultural society:--
"Who ever heard of winter on our shores? Where among us shall we
find the numberless drawbacks which, in less favoured countries, the
labourer has to contend with? They have no place in our beautiful
group, which rests like a water lily on the swelling bosom of the
Pacific. The heaven is tranquil above our heads, and the sun keeps
his jealous eye upon us every day, while his rays are so tempered
that they never wither prematurely what they have warmed into life."
{296} The kindness of my hosts is quite overwhelming. They will
not hear of my buying a horse, but insist on my taking away with me
the one which I have been riding since I came, the best I have
ridden on the islands, surefooted, fast, easy, and ambitious.
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