n a softened
form obtained by the elision of the letter _w_.]

[Footnote 168: _Hilo_, or Whiro, as in the Maori, was a great
navigator.]

[Translation]

CANTO II

Heaven-magic, fetch a Hilo-pour from heaven!
Morn's cloud-buds, look! they swell in the East.
The rain-cloud parts, Hilo is deluged with rain,
The Hilo of King Hana-kahi.

5 Surf breaks, stirs the mire of Pii-lani; 5
The bones of Hilo are broken
By the blows of the rain.
Ghostly the rain-scud of Hilo in heaven;

The cloud-forms of Pua-lani grow and thicken.
10 The rain-priest bestirs him now to go forth,
Forth to observe the stab and thrust of the rain,
The rain that clings to the roof of Hilo.

Hilo, like Puna, stands mountainless;
Aye, mountain-free stand Hilo and Puna.
15 Puna 's a gulf 'twixt Ka-u and Hilo;
Just leaning her back on Mount Nothing,
She sleeps at the feet of Mount Loa.

A mountain-back is Ka-u which the wind strikes,
Ka-u, a land much scourged by the A'e.
20 A dust-cloud lifts in Ka-u as one climbs.
A dust-bloom floats, the lift of the wind:
'Tis blasts from mountain-walls piles dust, the A'e.

Ka-u was always tormented with wind.
Cape-of-the-Dog feels Unulau's blasts;
25 They turmoil the cove of Ka-hea-hea,
Defying all strength with their violence.

There's a storm when wind blows at Kau-na.
Just look at the tempest there raging!
Hono-malino sleeps sheltered by Kona.
30 A eulogy this of a name.

"What name?" was asked of the old Hawaiian.

"A god," said he.

"How is that? A mele-inoa celebrates the name and glory of a
king, not of a god."
[Page 67]

His answer was, "The gods composed the mele; men did not
compose it."

Like an old-time geologist, he solved the puzzle of a novel
phenomenon by ascribing it to God.

MAHELE III