instance as the
more explicit; but the whole race must have been stricken at the moment
with a similar weakness. No man dare say of this revolution that it was
unprovoked; but its means were treachery and violence; the numbers and
position of those engaged made the design one of the most insolent in
history; and a mere modicum of native boldness and cohesion must have
brought it to the dust. "My race had one virtue, they were brave," said
a typical Hawaiian: "and now they have taken that away."

I have named a French example: but the thought that haunts the stranger
in Hawaii is that of Italy. The ruggedness of feature which marks out
the race among Polynesians is the Italian ruggedness. Countenances of
the same eloquent harshness, manners of the same vivacious cordiality,
are to be found in Hawaii and amongst Italian fisher-folk or whose
people, in the midst of life, retain more charm. I recall faces, both of
men and women, with a certain leonine stamp, trusty, sagacious, brave,
beautiful in plainness: faces that take the heart captive. The tougher
struggle of the race in these hard isles has written history there;
energy enlivens the Hawaiian strength--or did so once, and the faces are
still eloquent of the lost possession. The stock that has produced a
Caesar, a Kamehameha, a Kaa-humanu, retains their signature.

CHAPTER II

A RIDE IN THE FOREST

By the Hawaiian tongue, the slope of these steep islands is parcelled
out in zones. As we mount from the seaboard, we pass by the region of
Ilima, named for a flowering shrub, and the region of Apaa, named for a
wind, to Mau, the place of mist. This has a secondary name, the Au- or
Wao-Kanaka, "the place of men" by exclusion, man not dwelling higher.
The next, accordingly, is called the Waoakua, region of gods and
goblins; other names, some apparently involving thoughts of solitude and
danger, follow till the top is reached. The mountain itself might be a
god or the seat of a god; it might be a volcano, the home of the dread
Pele; and into desert places few would venture but such as were adroit
to snare the whispering spirits of the dead. To-day, from the Waoakua or
the Waomaukele, the gods have perhaps fled; the descendants of
Vancouver's cattle fill them with less questionable terrors.

As we mounted the glacis of the island, the horses clattering on the
lava, we saw far above us the curtain of the rain exclude the view. The
sky was clear, the sun strong overh