ing the girls, a man passed us, at the usual jog
canter, with a coffin slung on the saddle in front of him, and after
him followed another rider with the lid. We remarked upon the strange
burden, and I asked of the first man, who was going to be buried? "My
wife," he replied; "me pay seventy-five dollars for um coffin." He
grinned, and seemed quite pleased with his coffin, which was really a
handsome one.

As we ascend, we seem to get quite into the bush. Thick vegetation
spreads up the steep hills on each side of us. I can now understand
how difficult it must be to travel through a tropical forest. The
brushwood grows so close together, and is so intertwined, that it
would appear almost impossible to force one's way through it. The
mountains rise higher and higher as we advance, and are covered with
lovely light-green foliage. The hills seem to have been thrown up
evenly in ridges, each ridge running up the mountain-side having its
separate peak. Here and there a small cataract leaps down the face of
a rock, shining like a silver thread, and disappearing in the
brushwood below until it comes down to swell the mountain-torrent
running by our side close to the road.

At a turn of the road, we suddenly encountered a number of men coming
down from some cattle ranches in the hills, mounted _a la Mexicaine_,
with lassoes on their saddles and heavy whips in their hands, driving
before them a few miserable cattle. There seemed to be about eighteen
men to a dozen small beasts. I guess that a couple of Australian
stockmen, with their whips, could easily have driven before them the
whole lot--men, horses, and cattle.

We were now about seven miles from Honolulu, and very near the end of
our up-hill journey. After walking up a steeper ascent than usual, the
scenery becoming even more romantic and picturesque, we pass through a
thicket of hibiscus and other trees, when suddenly, on turning round a
small pile of volcanic rocks, we emerge on an open space, and the
grand precipice or Pali, of the Nuuanu Valley bursts upon us with
startling effect.

Here, in some tremendous convulsion of Nature, the mountain-ridge
seems to have been suddenly rent and burst through towards its
summit, and we look down over a precipice some five hundred feet deep.
It is possible to wind down the face of the rock by a narrow path;
but, having no mind to make the descent, we rest and admire the
magnificent prospect before and below us. Under the preci