Wyllie to Lady Franklin, in
compliment to her admiration of its loveliness. Hanalei has been
likened by some to Paradise, and by others to the Vale of Caschmir.
Everyone who sees it raves about it. "See Hanalei and die," is the
feeling of the islanders, and certainly I was not disappointed, nor
should I be with Paradise itself were it even a shade less fair! It
has every element of beauty, and in the bright sunshine, with the
dark shadows on the mountains, the waterfalls streaking their wooded
sides, the river rushing under kukuis and ohias, and then lingering
lovingly amidst living greenery, it looked as if the curse had never
lighted there.
Its mouth, where it opens on the Pacific, is from two to three miles
wide, but the boundary mountains gradually approach each other, so
that five miles from the sea a narrow gorge of wonderful beauty
alone remains. The crystal Hanalei flows placidly to the sea for
the last three or four miles, tired by its impetuous rush from the
mountains, and mirrors on its breast hundreds of acres of cane,
growing on a plantation formerly belonging to Mr. Wyllie, an
enterprising Ayrshire man, and one of the ablest and most
disinterested foreigners who ever administered Hawaiian affairs.
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