Probably each
year will render the overhaste of this course more apparent, and it
is likely that some other mode of upholding pure Christianity will
have to be adopted, when the venerable men who now sustain and guide
the native pastors by their influence shall have been gathered to
their rest.
I.L.B.
LETTER XXIII.
LIHUE. KAUAI, April 17.
Before leaving Kauai I must tell you of a solitary expedition I have
just made to the lovely valley of Hanalei. It was only a three days
"frolic," but an essentially "good time." Mr. Rice provided me with
a horse and a very pleasing native guide. I did not leave till two
in the afternoon, as I only intended to ride fifteen miles, and, as
the custom is, ask for a night's lodging at a settler's house.
However, as I drew near Mr. B.'s ranch, I felt my false courage
oozing out of the tips of my fingers, and as I rode up to the door,
certain obnoxious colonial words, such as "sundowners," and
"bummers," occurred to me, and I felt myself a "sundowner" when the
host came out and asked me to dismount. He said he was sorry his
wife was away, but he would do his best for me in her absence, and
took me down to a room where a very rough-looking man was tenderly
nursing a baby a year old, which was badly burned or scalded, and
which began to cry violently at my entrance, and required the united
efforts of the two bereaved men to pacify it.
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