Some of these men came for health, others
landed from whalers, but of all it is true that infatuated by the
ease and lusciousness of this languid region,
"They sat them down upon the yellow sand,
Between the sun and moon upon the shore;
And sweet it was to dream of Fatherland,
. . . . ; but evermore
Most weary seem'd the sea, weary the oar,
Weary the wandering fields of barren foam.
Then some one said, "We will return no more."
They have enough and more, and a life free from toil, but the
obvious tendency of these marriages is to sink the white man to the
level of native feelings and habits.
There are two or three educated residents, and there is a small
English church with daily service, conducted by a resident
clergyman.
The beauty of this part of Kona is wonderful. The interminable
forest is richer and greener than anything I have yet seen, but
penetrable only by narrow tracks which have been made for hauling
timber. The trees are so dense, and so matted together with
trailers, that no ray of noon-day sun brightens the moist tangle of
exquisite mosses and ferns which covers the ground. Yams with their
burnished leaves, and the Polypodium spectrum, wind round every tree
stem, and the heavy ie, which here attains gigantic proportions,
links the tops of the tallest trees together by its stout knotted
coils.
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