The mail to-day was an event to me, as it has brought your long-
looked-for letters.
LETTER XXVII.
HILO. June 1.
Mr. and Mrs. Severance and I have just returned from a three-days'
expedition to Puna in the south of Hawaii, and I preferred their
agreeable company even to solitude! My sociable Kahele was also
pleased, and consequently behaved very well. We were compelled to
ride for twenty-three miles in single file, owing to the extreme
narrowness of the lava track, which has been literally hammered down
in some places to make it passable even for shod horses. We were a
party of four, and a very fat policeman on a very fat horse brought
up the rear.
At some distance from Hilo there is a glorious burst of tropical
forest, and then the track passes into green grass dotted over with
clumps of the pandanus and the beautiful eugenia. In that hot dry
district the fruit was already ripe, and we quenched our thirst with
it. The "native apple," as it is called, is of such a brilliant
crimson colour as to be hardly less beautiful than the flowers. The
rind is very thin, and the inside is white, juicy, and very slightly
acidulated. We were always near the sea, and the surf kept bursting
up behind the trees in great snowy drifts, and every opening gave us
a glimpse of deep blue water.
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