The view up and down these
winding flower-bordered streams was lovely. We rode for miles over this
monotonous country, gradually rising to higher ground. Suddenly, almost
at our very feet, a little bowl-shaped valley about half a mile in
circumference opened to view. The upper rim all around was covered with
smooth green grass, and the sides were hidden by the foliage of
dark-green mango trees, light-green _kukui_, bread-fruit and banana.
Coffee had formerly been cultivated here, and a few bushes still grew
wild, bearing fragrant white flowers or bright red berries. Through the
bottom of the valley ran a little stream, and on its banks were three or
four grass huts beneath tufts of tall cocoanut palms. Several
scantily-clad children rolled about on the ground, and in the shade of a
tamarind tree an old gray-headed man was pounding taro-root. The gray
mass lay before him on a flat stone, and he pounded it with a stone
pestle, then dipped his hands into a calabash of water and kneaded it. A
woman was bathing in the stream, and another stood at the door of one of
the huts holding her child on her hip.

We passed through three other deep valleys like this, and in every case
they opened suddenly to view--hidden nests of tropical foliage and
color. The natives were seated in circles under the trees eating poi, or
wading in the stream looking for fish, or lounging on the grass near
their huts as though life were one long holiday.

Now we entered a vast sunburnt plain overgrown with huge thorny cactus
twelve or fifteen feet high. Without shade or water or verdure it
stretched before us to distant table-lands, upholding mountains whose
peaks were veiled in cloud. The solitude of the plain was rendered more
impressive by the absence of wild creatures of any kind: there were no
birds nor insects nor ground-squirrels nor snakes. The cactus generally
grew in clumps, but sometimes it formed a green prickly wall on either
side of the road, between which we had to pass as between the bayonets
of sentinels. Wherever the road widened out we clattered along, six
abreast, at full speed. Maria, the native woman, presented a picturesque
appearance with her black dress and long flowing streamers of bright
red. She was an elderly woman--perhaps fifty years old--but as active as
a young girl, and a good rider. She had an unfailing fund of good-humor,
and talked and laughed a great deal. My other companions, with the
exception of the native gi