fit on
the back part of a saddle, so arranged that a bag will hang on each side
of the horse, the two thus balancing each other.

Mr. Gulick accompanied us, and quite a number of natives traveled a part
of the way. We started in a rain; six or seven miles of the road were
good; the rest was bad enough to make up for it. The first half-day we
passed over that kind of lava called "a-a," the whole tract, as far as
the eye could reach, looking as if a mountain of lava had been thrown
thousands of feet in the air, and fallen, crumbled and broken, into
irregular ridges and heaps, blackened and barren. In riding, we passed
over an apology for a road, reminding me of our American roads when
filled in with broken stone before being covered with the gravel. Some
of the ridges were fearfully steep and jagged. Here it seemed as if--as
a friend remarked--"we were out of sight of land." Hardly a bush or tree
was to be seen. I never knew the meaning of desolation before. We grew
weary of the dull black scene, and it rained and rained, but we kept on,
up one steep place and down another. The last part of our day's ride was
through woods, over hard lava, which they call "pahoihoi;" but it was
along a mountain side, and the same steep ridges followed us. Darkness
came just as we neared the native village where we were to spend the
night. We had passed over a hard road of thirty-five miles, and been ten
hours in the saddle. We were, of course, not sorry to dismount, which we
did at the largest native house. The man of the house was down at the
sea-shore; the family were of course not expecting foreigners. In the
center of the house was a fire of glowing coals, and near it sat an old
woman stringing candle-nuts upon a cocoa-nut fiber, which were their
only lamps.

"What are _candle-nuts_?" asked the children.

They grow on a beautiful tree called "kukui," or candle-nut tree. The
nuts are about the size of a walnut, and are so oily as to burn quite
well.

Some one went over to the church, a simple thatched house like the rest,
and brought us the only two chairs the village possessed. We set out our
simple meal on the mat, and by twos and threes the natives dropped in to
see us, bringing children and babies; so that by the time our supper was
over, almost all the village were present to see the "houris" or
foreigners. After we had finished, we had family worship, Mr. Gulick
acting as interpreter. Then Mr. G. asked where we were to sleep.