REFUGE IN A CHAPEL. 289 the loudest noise. Their faces were distorted as if with mortal agony; but the mother of the sick child was the only woman that shed real tears. The gloomy reality was completed by a few men who were present, some of whom sat up as profoundly still as the Egyptian Memnon; while the others lay, faces downward, and snoring away as if designing never to wake until the archangel's trumpet should announce the arrival of the resurrection morning. That wailing continued; of itself, it was enough to kill any well child, not to say any thing of one nearly dead. Not caring to stay to philosophize on the subject, I started for the native Church. It was some distance from this scene of sorrow, but the moon was rising, and I found it easily. On entering the building, I groped round for materials to make a pillow, and found a pile of books. These I placed on the platform which supported the pulpit, and once more stretched myself for the purpose of sleep. But the Fates-if they really have an existence—were against me that night. Even there, the siege commenced afresh, but with more vigor, for this time there was an addition of mice and cockroaches. Inch by inch they disputed the ground with me; but remembering that, in this instance at least, discretion was the best part of valor, I concluded to leave them the undisputed victors. There was now left no imaginable alternative but to return to my former lodgings. On nearing the house, I found that another order of things existed—the sick child had suddenly recovered. And now their mirth was as unbounded as their sorrow had just before been deep and distressing. They continued these rejoicings until daylight dawned on the village, and found me half asleep under a large canoe. No vigil-keeper by a sick couch was ever more glad to welcome the coming dawn than I did that morning. In addition to the many annoyances of the previous night, I discovered that my tired horse had been rode all night by some miscreant of a Kanaka. Brimful of wrath at such a proceeding, I quietly returned to Kaluaaha, which place I soon left for Lahaina, on Maui. N CHAPTER XXIII. ISLAND OF MAUI. Lahaina from the Sea. - Lahaina on Shore. —Public Buildings. Palace.Fort. Churches.-Houses.-Beer-shops.—“Fourth of July" at Lahaina.-Police.-Evils of the Police System.-Harbor. —Commerce.-Surf-bathing.—A singular Providence.-Marquesan Chief.—Christian Liberality.—Seminary at Lahainaluna.—Its Location. — Early History. —Present Condition.-Old Hawaiian Gods. VIEWED from the anchorage, Lahaina is the most picturesque town on the Hawaiian group. It is the capital of Maui ; and a few years since it was the abode of royalty. The town of Lahaina is in longitude 156° 41′ west, latitude 20° 51' 50 north. It has a front of two miles, and is close to the sea-shore, which is skirted with the foam of lofty and powerful rollers coming in from the ocean. Many of the houses look as though they had actually grown up out of the trees. But the background of the picture is the most impressive and grand. The mountains rise to a height of rather more than six thousand one hundred feet above the sea, and are cleft asunder by precipices thousands of feet in depth. To come and gaze on these splendid footprints of the Almighty, it is worth a journey of thousands of miles. During every hour of the day, they assume a new feature beneath the different degrees of sunlight. But the most perfect view of them can be obtained just as the sun is going down behind the wave of the ocean. A tourist continues his gaze as though some invisible chain held him to the spot. Towering far above Lahaina, and at a distance of two miles, may be seen the seminary of Lahainaluna. But Lahaina has a very different appearance to a stranger when ashore. It is a difference as great as that which exists LAHAINA ON SHORE. 293 between dream-life and life that is real. It has but one principal street, intersected by a few others running at right angles. They are all too narrow, and without any regular grading, and many portions of them are inclosed by ruined adobe walls. Their surface is composed chiefly of a red tufaceous lava-dust, deep, hot, and dry during a very large portion of the year, and very obnoxious to pedestrians. But all these features are relieved by a various and extensive foliage, comprising the bread-fruit (Artocarpus incisa), the cocoa-nut (Cocos nucifera), the candle-nut (Aleurites triloba), the koa (Acacia falcata), and the hau (Hibiscus tiliaceus). These afford a romantic and refreshing shade from the mid-day sun. In Lahaina the public buildings are few in number and uncostly in appearance. They include a hospital for seamen, a few school-houses for native children, a custom-house and post-office-comprised in one building and a newly-erected jail, which affords rough accommodations for delinquents against civil and spiritual laws, brought from Molokai, Lanai, and every portion of Maui. And among these culprits, poor "Jack," just come in from the toils of the ocean, may not infrequently be numbered for a violation of the seventh precept of the Decalogue. The Palace (!) is a plain, huge frame building for such a place as Lahaina. It is a hundred and twenty feet long, and forty in width, exclusive of a piazza, which entirely surrounds it. It has two stories, divided off into almost any number of apartments, without the least regard to comfort or design. It was never finished, and never will be; consequently, it retains an appearance peculiarly ruinous. The best thing about it is its location, close to the ebbing and flowing of the tides, and within hearing of that never-wearying hymn, the ocean's anthem. Yet this worthless pile, once the abode of royalty. HAMEHA III. convoked his received foreign officials. and every body has changed. erected, too, at vast expense, was Here, in his younger days, KAMEcounselors on affairs of state and But, since those days, every thing The past seems more an as |