SCENES IN THE WOODS. 245 He alone, From fool to wise, from earthly to divine, From Kuapehu one may ride, by a horse-path, three or four miles up into the mountain, through belts of gigantic ferns and brakes, that have formed, in their decay, a very deep and rich vegetable mold. It is matter of curious interest to the traveler to mark the progress and change of productions with the different zones, till you get into the region of koa forests, from which the natives procure their canoes, and timber for all other purposes. One admires there the tangled woods and mosses, and wild bowers made by the con volvuli and other larger vines o'ermantling both decayed and living trees, as in the woods of Florida and Louisiana. Birds, too, carol there with joy, secure from molestation by Indian's arrow or hunter's rifle. I have visited a little school in the woods not far from that region, where the instructor was knowingly teaching geography by a globe he had made out of a calabash; covering it over with cotton cloth, then marking meridians, parallels, and names with ink and native dyes, and besmearing all with a coat of varnish (to keep it from being devoured by cockroaches) made of a native gum they call pi-lali, not unlike gum Arabic. His earth was considerably flattened at the poles, and rather too pursy at the equator; but for all that, it turned easier on its axis than many a fat alderman could on his heel, whom ease and good living have formed into an oblate spheroid, not unlike the honest Hawaiian teacher's earth. I have no doubt many a bright-eyed, tawny urchin, the Flibbertegibbet of his native village, will learn more from it of the round world he treads on than was ever known to Aristotle or Plato. THE PILGRIM PARTING. 247 CHAPTER XII. CANOEING BY SEA AND SURVEY OF VOLCANOES BY LAND. WINGS have we, and as far as we can go We may find pleasure; wilderness and wood, Which with the lofty sanctifies the low: Dreams, books are each a world; and books, we know, Are a substantial world, both pure and good. Hence have I genial seasons, hence have I Smooth passions, smooth discourse, and joyous thought: Rocks in its harbor or puts out to sea. WORDSWORTH. LIKE a bird of passage, again am I on the wing, spirits refreshed and health recruited by nestling so long in the happy missionary dove-cot at Kealakekua. Four days ago, at one o'clock in the morning, my boat and I put out again to sea from that quiet harbor, where pen, and books, and prayer, and confiding Christian converse, together with true hospitality, combined to constitute one of those genial seasons in the life of a traveler which are like a pilgrim's rest in one of the arbors erected by the Lord of the Way. The memory of this grateful episode in my life's drama, and of the friends that made it so, will be always fresh and green. How could it, then, be otherwise than with reluctance that I resumed my wanderings, though under favorable auspices, and com mended to God and the word of his grace by those with whom I had been so pleasantly sojourning? A double canoe, especially when loaded with boards as this was, affords quite a comfortable conveyance for one or more passengers. The boards were piled on much as they are wont to be upon the deck of a "downeast" or Hudson River lumber sloop, away up above the vessel's rail. My place was on the top of them, where one can lie at length and sleep, if he like, and is not afraid of being rolled off into the sea. A double canoe is composed of two single ones of the same size, placed parallel to each other, three or four feet apart, and secured in their places by four or five cross-pieces of wood, curved just in the shape of a bit-stock. These are lashed to both canoes with the strongest cinet, made of cocoa-nut fibre, so as to make the two almost as much one as some of the double ferryboats that ply between Brooklyn and New York. A flattened arch is thus made by the bow-like cross-pieces over the space between the canoes, upon which a board, or a couple of stout poles laid lengthwise, constitute an elevated platform for passenger and freight, while those who paddle and steer sit in the bodies of the canoes at the sides. A slender mast, which may be unstepped in a minute, rises from about the centre of this platform, to give support to a very simple sail, now universally made of white cotton cloth, but formerly of mats. It was comfortable sailing all the day along the cavernous lava-coast of Kona, sometimes within hearing and sight of great funnel-shaped blow-holes in the rocks along the shore, by which the spray of a great wave, and even stones, would sometimes be ejected NIGHT AND MORNING. 249 with great force, and a noise much louder, but not unlike, that of a spouting whale. At night the natives would not be kept from putting into a little bay, between out-jutting masses of lava, and dropping anchor there they alleging that the wind would be ahead, and sailing dangerous, but, in reality (I think), more to enjoy a comfortable sleep, which all Hawaiians love only next best to eating poi. I endured for a couple of hours, unwittingly catching a nap myself; then a few repetitions of Ala! and Hoe, hoe! broke their slumbers, and we again made sail. Morning light found us on the borders of the county of Kau, right opposite where there rise up, a hundred and fifty or two hundred feet, several conical hills of volcanic sand and cinders, and which seem to be the basins of extinct volcanoes. The early hour, and stars fading in the light of dawn, made me call to mind those fine lines of Dana : The silent night has passed into the prime Be ever to me as at this calm hour. We touched at a landing-place for the natives to eat, and to take in a new paddler before meeting with the violent trades which are felt in coming from leeward some time before reaching the southern point of Hawaii. Some wild girls there seemed very glad to |