erdant peaks, and you stand on a lofty terrace, and gaze
through a great balconied window, cut like an embrasure, and formed by
piles of rocks at the sides and base, while below is a frightful
precipice, and beyond a glorious undulating landscape is breathing in
verdure and beauty, dotted here and there by native hamlets, whose
bleached white thatching is glistening in the sun, with herds of cattle
upon the hill sides, chequered by bright patches under cultivation;
while further still, the island is girdled about by high waves, breaking
upon the rock-bound coast with the full force of the trades.

This is the _Pali_, concerning which, among other heathenish legends,
which have neither romance nor chivalric merit to recommend them, it is
said that a certain island king once hurled from thence a number of his
rebellious subjects.

Returning, we can take a glance at scores of poor squalid wretches,
with closely-shaven heads, living in filthy kennels that a decent dog
would despise; but they have been guilty of breaking one of the
commandments, and to reform their morals are herded together, and made
to labor upon the public roads!

Saturday is the Saturnalia of the Kanakas! They revel on horseback; the
streets, roads and plains are filled with them. It is surprising where
they all spring from; for although they are an ambulating population,
without local attachments, and go in schooner-loads from island to
island of the group, particularly upon the advent of a large ship of
war, and no doubt are packed very closely in their hovels in and around
Honolulu, yet it still is a matter for wonderment where all come from.
Hundreds of both sexes throng the pathways; and those more fortunate,
who can hire horses, are riding, and racing, leaping, and kicking up all
the noise and dust possible. The women bestride their steeds like men,
with petticoats tucked snugly around them, and sometimes wearing for
head gear as many as three bonnets of different colors, one within the
other, like nests of pill boxes. The young princes of the blood, too,
attended by the copper-colored nobility of the kingdom, ride with
headlong speed, and are not remarkable for taking less than
three-fourths of the highway, to the great peril and inconvenience of
more soberly-mounted passengers. On one pleasant evening an aristocratic
sprig rode rudely against an Anglo-Saxon demoiselle, in whose train I
had the pleasure of being, and without pausing to apologise