ortable rocking-chairs under the verandah. It is a small white
wooden building, overhung with orange-trees, with a pond full of ducks
and geese outside it, and a few scattered outbuildings, including a
cooking hut, close by. A good-looking man was busy broiling
beef-steaks, stewing chickens, and boiling _taro_, and we had soon a
plentiful repast set before us, with the very weakest of weak tea as a
beverage. The woman of the house, which contained some finely worked
mats and clean-looking beds, showed us some _tappa cloth_, together
with the mallets and other instruments used in its manufacture, and a
beautiful orange-coloured _lei_, or feather necklace, which she had
made herself. The cloth and mallets were for sale, but no inducement
would persuade her to part with the necklace. It was the first she had
ever made, and I was afterwards told that the natives are
superstitiously careful to preserve the first specimen of their
handiwork, of whatever kind it may be.

A woman dressed in a pink _holoku_ and a light green apron had
followed us hither from the cottages we had first stopped at, and I
noticed at the time that, though she was chatting and laughing with a
female companion, she did not seem very well. Whilst we were at lunch
a sudden increase to her family took place, and before we were ready
to start I paid her and her infant a visit. She was then sitting up,
apparently as well as ever, and seemed to look upon the recent event
as a very light matter.

Directly we had finished our meal--about three o'clock--the guide came
and tried to persuade us that, as the baggage-mules had not yet
arrived, it would be too late for us to go on to-day, and that we had
better spend the night where we were, and start early in the morning.
We did not, however, approve of this arrangement, so the horses were
saddled, and, leaving word that the baggage-mules were to follow on as
soon as possible, we mounted, and set off for the 'Volcano House.' We
had not gone far before we were again overtaken by a shower, which
once more drenched us to the skin.

The scene was certainly one of extreme beauty. The moon was hidden by
a cloud, and the prospect lighted only by the red glare of the
volcano, which hovered before and above us like the Israelites' pillar
of fire, giving us hopes of a splendid spectacle when we should at
last reach the long-wished-for crater. Presently the moon shone forth
again, and gleamed and glistened on the rain-drop