closed by high, steep
mountain-walls, with sharp ridges down their sides clothed with rich
forests. All around us grew delicate, luxuriant ferns, of which there
are one hundred and fifty varieties in the islands. Along the shores of
the bay some women were wading, their dresses held above their knees,
picking shellfish and green sea-moss off the rocks for supper. We rode
up to the cottage of Kekoa, a native minister who had studied under Miss
P----'s father. His half-Chinese, half-native wife was in a grass hut at
the back of the house, and she came immediately to take our horses,
saying that her husband was at the church, but would be at home soon.
Then opening the door, she told us to go inside and rest ourselves. It
was a pretty cottage, with floors and walls of wood and a grass roof.
Braided mats of palm and pandanus-leaves were on the floor, and on the
walls hung portraits of the Hawaiian royal family and Generals Lee and
Grant. It had two rooms--a sitting-room and a bedroom--the first
furnished with a table and chairs, the latter with a huge high-posted
bedstead with a canopy over it. Altogether, it was much above the common
native houses, and was evidently not used every day, but kept for the
reception of guests--travelling ministers and the like.

When Kekoa came he welcomed us warmly on account of the attachment he
had for Miss P----'s father, and told us to consider the house ours as
long as it pleased us to stay. He sent his wife to catch a chicken, and
soon set before us on the table in the sitting-room a supper consisting
of boiled chicken, rice, baked taro, coarse salt from the bay, and
bananas. We overlooked the absence of bread, which the natives know not
of, and shared the use of the one knife and fork between us. Our host
waited on us, his wife bringing the food to the door and handing it to
him. After supper other natives came in, and Miss P---- conversed with
them in Hawaiian. Being tired and stiff from my long ride, I went into
the next room and lay down on the bed. Mrs. Kekoa came in presently and
began to lomi-lomi me. She kneaded me with her hands from head to foot,
just as a cook kneads dough, continuing the process for nearly an hour,
although I begged her several times to stop lest she should be tired. At
the end of that time all sensation of fatigue and stiffness was gone and
I felt fresh and well. Kekoa and his wife slept in a grass hut several
rods farther up the valley, and Miss P---- and I