of the port, with an
entrance like the neck of a bottle. On the 28th of August, by the
assistance of our pilot, Mr. Kit Baker, who played corkscrew on the
occasion, we were safely drawn out--shook the wet canvas from the yards,
and away we coasted along the island.

It was a beautiful sight, indeed! The smooth, green freshness of the
slopes--the distant village, with its groves and fields of coffee and
sugar--native huts and plantations fast coming and going, as we went
sailing by--white cascades--and intensity of verdure everywhere--spread
like a glowing mantle from the mighty shoulders of Mauna Kea and Mauna
Loa--made me doubt if, in all our future "Polynesian researches," we
should behold any scenery so surpassingly lovely as Owyhee, with sweet
little Hilo, and its foaming Wailuku.

CHAPTER XLI.

Before dusk the green shores had faded from our sight, although the
snow-capped head of Mauna Kea arose as plainly and proudly as if we were
within a mile of his feet.

Sometime during the night we entered the Paipolo Passage, and the next
morning were becalmed, in a triangular sea, between the islands of Maui,
Molokai and Lanai. We were bound to the former; towards meridian the
breeze again filled the sails, and in a few hours we were at anchor in
the Roads of Laihaina, securely sheltered by the high hills of the
island.

The general appearance of this group is not unlike clusters of the
Grecian Archipelago: the same reddish hues to the heights, the same
basking verdure in the valleys, with perhaps a far grander outline and
boldness of scenery. In Maui there is no comparison to the universal
greenness and fertility of the east side of Hawaii. The lofty mountains,
attaining an altitude of ten thousand feet, arrest the trade clouds in
their westward flight, and the contents are condensed on the opposite
side of the island. Yet, although the background shows for a great
extent barren and sterile, there is still much to relieve the eye in the
deep green reposing between the sharp split gorges, where vegetation
creeps in thick profusion to the topmost peaks. And then the town
itself--larger than Hilo--built along the sea-shore, radiant with noble
groves of cocoanut, and bread-fruit, and pretty houses half buried in
shrubbery. There is also a great red-roofed New England meeting-house--a
two-storied square stone edifice, which is the King's country palace,
having a double range of verandas in front, and a little lak