for his
brutality, continued on, causing me to indulge in certain pious
aspirations for my Mexican whip that I might inflict a few mild
exhortations, in spite of his long line of Kanaka ancestry.

Neither men nor women sit the horse gracefully or firmly, and it is a
matter of hourly occurrence to see them take an aerial toss from the
saddle. A certain kind of equestrian intoxication--possibly caused by
brandy--appears to possess them, and they gallop and prance about as
long as the beasts have a leg to stand on.

It is customary for strangers visiting Honolulu, in the absence of
requisite hotel accommodation, to hire a small tenement expressly
appropriated for that purpose; many of them are pleasant little
domiciles, built of straw, and kept by their proprietors tolerably
clean, free from fleas, and habitable. They are in clusters by
themselves, and surrounded by adobie walls, enclosing a few trees, and
shrubbery, and generally take their designation from the last ship of
war whose officers may have occupied them.

The Alsatia we affected was named in compliment to an English
flag-ship--Collingwood _row_! Our hamlet was tabooed, and none others
than those especially licensed, were permitted to darken those
sanctuaries.

We arose early for a bathe on the coral flats or shoals of the reef,
then took gallop before breakfast; and when the trade began its diurnal
breeze, and the streets were impassible from dust, we reclined within
our thatched castles, enjoying the cooling gusts blowing down the Nuana,
or were seated with segars beneath the shelving eaves, regarding the
natives grouped near the doorways! They were mostly girls--poor,
miserable shameless objects, with diseased, unhealthy complexions,
lounging all day in the glaring sun, or clustered, two and three
together, sucking _poee-poee_, smoking pipes, and chatting their soft
idiom, low and laughingly; but they had not the grace, nor coy witchery
of the charming rustics of Hilo: they were city ladies--in Honolulu,
where there is more population, more want, and far more vice!

Before the sun sinks for the day, there is but little wind, and walking
or riding is then a pleasureable excitement. There is a circle of
agreeable society, too; not alone with foreign merchants and consuls,
but with a higher order of diplomatic agents, who, although severed from
their homes by thousands of leagues of water, still surround themselves
with all the elegancies and enjoyments