An Old Man, Clothed Only With His Dark Skin, Was Pounding Baked Kalo For Poi, In Front Of The House;

A woman with flowers in her hair, but apparently not otherwise clothed, was wading up to her waist in the

River, pushing before her a light trumpet-shaped basket used for catching shrimps, and the other women wore the usual bright-coloured chemises.

I wanted to make the most of the six hours of daylight left, and we remounted our horses and rode for some distance up the river, which is the highway of the valley, all the children swimming on our right and left, each holding up a bundle of clothes with one hand, and two canoes paddled behind us. The river is still and clear, with a smooth bottom, but comes halfway up a horse's body, and riders take their feet out of the stirrups, bring them to a level with the saddle, lean slightly back, and hold them against the horse's neck. Equestrians following this fashion, canoes gliding, children and dogs swimming, were a most amusing picture. Several of the children swim to and from school every day. I was anxious to get rid of this voluntary escort, and we took a gallop over the soft springy grass till we reached some very pretty grass houses, under the shade of the most magnificent bread-fruit trees on Hawaii, loaded with fruit. There were orange trees in blossom, and coffee trees with masses of sweet white flowers lying among their flaky branches like snow, and the unfailing cocoa-nut rising out of banana groves, and clusters of gardenia smothering the red hibiscus.

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