centic Bay of Waialae, he took the helm and doubled the bold headland of Diamond Point, an extinct volcanic crater abruptly terminating a range of hills running from the interior toward the sea. From this point, five or six miles from Honolulu, the shore line for nearly that distance was seen prettily bordered by the tropical cocoa and tutui trees; the ocean swells breaking over the coral reef, and rolling their white fringe up the yellow sands to kiss the feet of those waving banners of peace that cease not to welcome the weary mariners of all countries. A remarkable entrance through the reef to the harbor of the capital has been left by nature, a tortuous channel a mile long, from one hundred and twenty to two hundred and twenty yards wide, the least depth of water being twenty-two feet, opening into a port of perfect security, with room for two hundred vessels. The fact that an entering vessel would have to sail in the "wind's eye" coming down the Nuuanu Valley, and incur the risk of going on the reef, has made a steam-tug a necessity of navigation for safety. We threw it a hawser when it puffed its high-pressure salutation across the bow of the "Rapid," which, furling sails, surrendered herself to the blustering little craft, and passing from the deep blue of ocean to the green of soundings, and then through the milky-tinted waters of the submerged reef, bounded on each side by a more superficial coral bank, we anchored in the inner harbor on the thirteenth day of the voyage from San Francisco.

HAWAIIAN ISLANDS-HONOLULU AND ITS ENVIRONS-HAWAIIAN CUSTOMS-THE KINGA VULGAR DIPLOMAT-HONOLULU SOCIETY-PUBLIC BUILDINGS-NUUANU VALLEYTHE PALI-WAIKIKI-LEAHI-WAIALAE-WAIALUPE-MANOA VALLEY-OAHU COLLEGE -MISTAKEN SYSTEM OF EDUCATION-PUAII.

THE Hawaiian Islands are grouped in a somewhat crescentic form, with a convexity presenting to the northeast, and lie between the parallels of 18° 50' and 22° 20' north latitude, and west longitude 154° 53' and 160° 15'. There are eleven of them, of which three are but barren rocks and uninhabited. The other eight, named from northwest to southeast, are Niihau, Kauai, Oahu, Molokai, Lanai, Maui, Kahoolawe, and Hawaii. The whole embrace an area of nearly sixty-one hundred square miles, of which Hawaii contains two-thirds, its superficial extent being four thousand square miles.

Although Hawaii is most distinguished for size, agricultural capacity, and physical grandeur, Oahu, from its more central position, and from the influence of general maritime interests and trade, has asserted political supremacy, and on it is the capital of the kingdom, Honolulu, a name implying, it is said, “on the back of, to leeward," because it is beyond the mountains, and protected by them from the northeast trade-winds.

No equally small part of the New World has been so minutely described as the Hawaiian Islands. The Pacific commerce has sought their welcoming harbors wherein to fold its weary wings, while whalers, worn with toil, have gladly escaped from polar storms, to rest and refit in their genial atmosphere. The mariner has ofttimes told his tale of wonder, and awakened in the homes of civilization a peculiar interest in the beings who

people these fairy isles. The American missionary, too, has penetrated their every nook, and unwilling to hide his light under a bushel, has multiplied and magnified descriptions to superfluity. If to these sources of information the labor of the historian be added, for Hawaii has now a recorded past, and the official reports of scientific explorers, it may well be supposed that the proposal to write any thing new on this subject would be hopeless, especially if undertaken by one who but skims the surface before him, with an eye rarely withdrawn from an object of special duty. But the figures of the kaleidoscope please, although each turn of the toy, while it destroys one illusion, gives no trace of connection with another. Each presents its distinctive attraction, and comes of a separate creation. Thus it is with what is presented in the rapidly-changing scenes before me, novel, perhaps, and exciting, though disconnected and valueless; sketched, too, by a rude artist. Yet in some respects it may be the turning of the kaleidoscope at least for my amusement.

The Hawaiian Islands are indisputably of volcanic origin, and present accordingly the bold and diversified features of that character of creation. They seem to have been uplifted from the ocean successively from northwest to southeast, Kauai having been the first in the order of appearance. And this opinion is supported by the fact that that island, while it has but two visible craters at its southeastern part only, all the others, which doubtless formerly existed, being obliterated by age or concealed by forests, possesses also in proportion to its size a greater proportion of arable land, deeper soil, and more vegetation. Oahu, the next island to the east, presents more numerous and palpaable proofs of volcanic action. Maui lifts its magnificent crater of Haleakala, worthy of being called by the natives "the house of the sun," more than ten thousand feet above the sea to attest its origin; and Hawaii, the last and greatest of the insular series, still exhibits in fearful activity the sublime agency to which its creation is due. It is probable that these islands are in truth the loftiest volcanic peaks of a sub-oceanic mountain range, stretching from Niihau and Kauai, in the extreme west, to Hawaii, in the southeast. Oahu, on which we first landed, is dig

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nified by the residence of Hawaiian majesty; it is forty-six miles long and twenty-five miles broad. Here is the capital and chief commercial town, Honolulu, standing on the southern shore of a plain stretching nine or ten miles east and west, and varying from one to two miles wide, at the foot of a corresponding mountain range, which latter is cleft in twain by a deep gorge, continuous with the beautiful Nuuanu valley that debouches at the back of the town. The plain is overlooked to the east by Diamond Head, and to the north by Punch-bowl Hill, two now extinct craters, the eruptions of which doubtless in past ages formed them, as shown by the substrata of lava, ashes, and cinders, overspreading the deeper coral formations, mingled with sea sediment, bones of fishes, and marine shells. The accumulated mineral and vegetable decay of centuries has covered the plain and the valley, which opens upon it, with a rich soil, the cultivation of which forms a setting of flowers and verdure to the capital.

Honolulu presents features in strange contrast, while some are such mere shadings of diversity as to make it difficult to determine in what the difference consists. On landing, the traveller is surprised at the many signs of European civilization in men, manners, and pursuits, for the Caucasian is seen to have transplanted himself here with his social habits, and his mechanical, manufacturing, and mercantile enterprise. While gazing at the busy scene, in disdain of servile labor, stand the sorrowing descendants of the once haughty and happy islanders, listless spectators of doings in which they can only participate as slaves, subject to the will of those who with specious promises have lured them to corruption and decay, and whom they have learned to regard as the destroyers of their race. True, mongrelism is filling up the gap; and while it is approximating the extremes of physical characteristics, is also moulding the weaker nature into conformity with the customs of the stronger, or is crushing it out by that process of extinction which comes of vices inculcated in greater proportion than virtues. Many houses of modern style, commodious and convenient, are seen, built of dressed lumber, or of coral rock quarried from the ocean-bed around the island, where those busy little

architects, the reef-building polyps, have been through long centuries rearing those wonderful sea-walls. But the native hut, with its thick wall and roof of thatched grass, admirably adapted to exclude the tropical heat of day, and the cool air of night, is still seen to assert its claim of priority, while the rival tastes of Old and of New England are struggling for predomi