in many an old will; the "spruce kiste bound with yren" of the Low Countries has been a prized possession not only in England and France but also in Spain and Portugal. The chest makers of the Middle Ages were so important a body of artificers that they had a special guild of their own, and ranked next to the gold and silversmiths in the trades of that period. They attained to the highest skill, working in ebony ivory, horn, shell, and all the precious metals.

It is evident that these noble ancestors of our present-day trunk had the widest variety of uses. One in this collection is easily recognized as originally the sea-chest of some captain who voyaged to the East Indies. Several were probably bridal chests, but only one bears the name of its first owner. This is a carved dark oak chest with a convex top and side panels inlaid with ivory and a darker wood and decorated with birds and fruit. It is wider and lower than the usual bridal chest and has big iron handles on the two ends. It bears the inscription "T. Lucia Hagemans - A.D. 1782."

There are several Bible boxes also, and one massive wooden support made to hold a great illuminated volume while it was being read.

A few sets of first editions when printing was young in Europe, and two or three large illuminated books are shown. One of the latter is a most interesting geography by Abrahamus of Antwerp, MDLXX. Another is a Spanish chant-book dated 1642, which has the old-style square notes and illuminated lettering upon parchment. It is bound in leather, with heavy brass mountings to protect the corners and for ornamentation at the back and sides.

139

The porcelains include some Chinese pieces, and specimens of the various European factories in Meissen, Dresden, Sèvres, Staffordshire, Wedgewood, Ruskin and Coalport designs. There is a noteworthy collection of clocks, too, and paintings and sculpture are not neglected; at present there are interesting examples of water-color and drawings illustrative of the work of some of the best schools, and including a romantic subject by Ary Scheffer. Flemish verdure tapestries hang on the walls, giving rich color to the background of this remarkable apartment. For grace and variety, the vista is broken here and there by some excellent bronzes, among them examples of West's modern but wonderfully lifelike studies of Indians and game, and by a few modern French figures by Barré and Michele.

A special group of treasures is not kept open upon the tables. This includes several very valuable pieces of antique jewelry. Among the rarest, I saw a Roman necklace of Camelian intaglios; a Sicilian pendant, of the seventeenth century, set with Indian rubies, diamonds and emeralds; a Sicilian reliquary of the sixteenth century, set with precious stones, holding a gold figure of the Immaculate Conception, and some remarkable cameos and intaglios. One intaglio shows the head of Alexander cut in topaz and bound with pure gold. Another is a head of Jupiter in rock crystal made and signed by Pickler, born 1730, in Naples. It is an oval, not quite two inches long. There is also a seventeenth century giradinetti ring, having a dainty basket of fruit set with emeralds, rubies and diamonds.

un

UNDAY at the great native church at Waimea. Not a chimney to relieve its barnlike outline. A little girl sits at the entrance smoking a cigar. The sexton, a Chinaman, all joints, is pulling at the church bell. His clock formerly controlled the hour for worship, but growing ever more rusty, it now ranges hours before or behind hand, and the pastor's breakfast bell serves as a signal for ringing at the church. As worshipers enter, the bell-puller stops. the bell-puller stops to talk with those who come in, until all sounds cease. These plastered walls enclose a large area. Unlike the distribution of the audience at Honolulu, where the old men, the young married men, the young married men, the old women, the young married women, the young unmarried women, with further subdivision among boys and girls confirmed or unconfirmed, occupy severally especial parts of the church, no such distinctions show themselves today. Here is a family in a roomy pew near the door four children with the mother and father. As the service progresses the children must be amused; a loaf of bread is produced, and while the mother nurses the baby she cuts three slices from the loaf and adds these to the spiritual food which is offered her restless young ones from the pulpit. Directly below the preacher, two old women are seated sideways, confronting each other, their arms firmly clasping the knees, each smokes a pipe; as they smoke they nod and yawn. From the congregation loud snores are occasionally heard. Two little boys, close by the preacher, skirmish with umbrellas, one of the boys is driven to the wall; the father of the defeated comes from the body of the church and roughly

drives the boy away who has discomfited his child.

Young men and women stroll down the aisles or step over the backs of the seats to get drinks, sometimes returning with a mug or calabash of water for a friend. Enforcingly the building has an echo of no small social power! A horse thrusts his head through a window and looks upon the audience.

However, in spite of these events, the main portion of the large assemblage seems undisturbed; the mother with four children produces a rattle, a dernier resort, to quiet the baby. A woman is seized with headache; she loosens her hair and signals a friend, who crosses to her in bee-line, bestriding the backs of the seats, and kneads the muscles of her head in native fashion (lomi-lomi).

Keliokamaka is eighty-five years old; he owns little but a gray umbrella, a faded coat and a white beard braided in two coils.

It is of good report to wear a bonnet into church, as foreigners do. A few ambitious native women subscribed, once on a time, their single bonnet elaborately trimmed. in brilliant blue. Waiting until the mass of the congregation was assembled, the first woman marched down the aisle, wearing the bonnet; she seated herself near a window and lowered the bonnet by its strings to a woman waiting below, who, in her turn wearing it, paraded along the aisle to her seat beside the first woman; this transfer was repeated until the partners were snugly seated in a row, the bonnet remaining on the head of the last comer. Pantomime continued as many Sundays as bonnet held together, and no other effect than a general feeling of envy.

If a native woman sings well she is

not placed in the choir- such distinction would make her vain "like the peacock," says a native preacher, "women get a vain squeaking voice if they are praised as much as other birds." Unfortunately the few good voices in the congregation have no support, and the notes push up in bubbles, as if from under water.

Pausing in his part (his is, by the way, the only tenor voice in the choir), a young man takes from his pocket a little mirror and comb, carefully arranges his necktie, and combs his hair, standing in full view.

"Look!" cries the preacher, on tiptoe, and with vigorous gestures. "Look at the sea, look at that old hill, there are enough raw fish and taro, while you are complaining of famine! Why does n't the Lord bring you calabashes full? Oh, you are too lazy! Go to the ant," etc. Turning to me, the only stranger present, he translates this part of the sermon, the interruption. being received with equanimity by the people. Suddenly descending, he borrows a cap, which he holds before each person in the audience (not excepting his own family) for money or a written promise to bring it next Sabbath, and enters into a discussion of pros and contras when his parishoners object to giving. The delinquents blush and stammer with native grace; a few young men who attempt to slip away from their obligation are checked by a brisk turn of the minister's spectacles; he forces back change upon such as give beyond his approval; the little ones who have brought a keneta are praised and thanked. As a father guiding his children, this good man lives in their confidence and love.

Service is finished, and we may return, through the sweet air and precious hue and shape of jasmine and fern, to find six little natives at home: lively, wicked, pretty creatures-brownies, with snapping eyes, soft, straight, black, glossy hair and winning wise ways. All are anxious to get things, hold things, tip over things. One brings me each morning a bunch of

roses.

141

Who is Pele? And what is a pali? Any pali is now American soil and we simply means a high rock or precipice, ought to recognize it. The word usually overhanging a mountain torrent; but Pele's pali, just here above in the cloud which its great height the valley Waipio, enwrapped forever attracts, is, with a considerable area of table-land, her own reserve. stition completely debars the natives Superfrom visiting this region; it is tabu ground,

"Death sure and swift awaits there,"

and nobody ever goes up to grope in the tangle of this beautiful cloudgarden of the very melodramatic goddess of Hawaii nei. To-day, however, so say these three natives, Pele withdraws her tabu. In compliment to the white haoli traveler, the secretsacred, gray-fluffy cap, always hiding her white face (*) is, in part, removed.

Pele is the true ruler of Hawaii, not a queen or a princess to be bribed or pensioned dollarwise; goddess of infernal coquetry; of form so unstable

reverence

that no idol has been fashioned for her worship, although she is held in such as is given to no other; placable only when masquerading in some chaotic element, whose last footstep tossed molten lava, and who hides. her rare garden where it finds its sunshine above the clouds.

Realizing then, O Lizard, Pussy and Wai Atlantika! that tales are

your

* Pele is represented fair and flaxen-haired. Tradition of northern voyagers visiting these islands deified them, taking note of their light complexion. Captain Cook and his sailors were worshipped at first as gods.

ever highly colored and that eleven days would, most likely, generously span the time wherein your mountain has lately remained under water (even a fish-story must come to the surface to breathe before its eleventh year). Realizing all this, it is pleasant to know that the wind has changed, her tradewind no doubt; such good fortune is not to be slighted, and so we will together ride to the pali.

On unshod horses, lassoed from a neighboring rice-patch, we ride, with slight ascent, through long weeds and grass. Looking backward, the curious illusion prevails, often observed on an island, that the water below appears to rise and confront us, as if we were lower than the sea whose lustrous furrows seem deeper than warped surface of polished mahog

any.

no

Birds are seldom seen on these islands, yet we can hear much twittering, as if made by little hidden birds. These birds are never captured “and if we were to see one," says Wai Atlantika, "we should be drowned."

A few humming-birds are out to-day, and sand-mice, underground, make a noise between singing and chirping.

"Kauka " (Doctor), says Lizard, "it is time to be careful." Henceforth, at stated intervals, we dismount to place crisscross bunches (leis) of flowers and leaves, to propitiate the mountain deities (hoo-kupu).

Very safe it is to push aside the long weeds, seeking yams and ferns, for there are no snakes nor any other venomous reptilian life on beautiful Hawaii; very safe, while listening to the monotonous chant of my companions "Aloha lio loa" (praise to the big horse), to scoop the fingers through a brook for small fish, then eat them alive. The natives do not even chew their squirming captives!

"Kahuna," says Lizard (he means native doctor, witch doctor, sorcerer, and now addresses the outsider as such by reason of our increasing friendship), "my mother buried five of us alive."

"Why?" I ask. "To stop the volcano," replies Lizard (*).

There is no trail. We pass cacti, sprawling in families like turtles, oval, ragged and dusty, some rampant and pugnacious, others on their backs. The hau tree (Hibiscus tilaceus), the banana, the ti (Dracoena terminalis), begonias and yellow blooms of the shrub ohenaupaka (Scævola glabra) are seen in a maze of trailers, fungi and mosses.

Fragrant wood-strawberries grow here, and we may eat them with the slippery, sour guavas found on all sides. A valley to the right is completely overspread by nasturtiums of enormous leafage and the smallest possible blossom. Somewhat pathetic it is, this growth, so many years after its wrinkled seeds were planted by some New England missionary, not quite content with palmetto, ohia (t), orange and fern! And now, without frost to interrupt their progress, the nasturtiums have filled in, from edge to edge, this untrodden vale; the mass of vines is from twenty to fifty feet in depth and extends as far as vision

reaches.

chatterer; he is small, alert, shows Tired Lizard proves to be chief white teeth, rides backward and stops. at times to braid his horse's mane.

My other companions, of the common stolid type, I remember now, only by their legs, so long that the two men seemed to stand over their small horses, mounting. and could walk at option without dis

Ferns now abound, and we may fancy their existence to be most joyous; knowing their right to the soil, sure that they are loved in all the land, for their beautiful life is not essential to the cruel worship of any evil god, they fill every nook or hang above us

* Even at this time the burial of living children is not unknown on Hawaii. The writer remembers an old woman, seamstress in a mission family, who was supposed to have eaten several of her own children.

† Ohia, the native apple (Metrosideros polymorpha).