Prefatory.
Early in the spring of 1885 a party of six or eight ladies and gentlemen—the writer being of the number—made a carriage circuit of the island of Oahu. Ample preparations for the little journey had been made by the governor of the island, and the marshal of the kingdom acted in the double capacity of guide and escort. A score of attending natives accompanied the party on horseback, and a delightful week or more was consumed in skirting the breezy beaches of Koolau, in dalliance at Waialua, in visiting historic points of interest, and in completing a journey of something less than one hundred miles.
Starting from Honolulu, the empty carriages were carefully lowered down the steep, ragged and narrow Pali road leading to the valleys below, and the first evening found us at rest by the beautiful shores of Kaneohe. Entering the district of Koolauloa the next day, and approaching the coast over a broad stretch of grassy meadow but slightly above the level of the ocean, our party was suddenly brought to a halt beside a pool of clear water, nearly round, and perhaps a hundred feet in diameter. The surface of the pool was ten or twelve feet below the level of the surrounding plain, and its even banks of solid rock dropped almost perpendicularly into water of unknown depth. The volume of the pool is affected neither by rain nor drought, and the native belief is that it is fed by springs at the bottom, and has a subterranean drainage to the ocean, some two or three miles distant.
This, we learned, was the celebrated pond of Waiapuka, around which so many strange legends have been woven. All of them speak of a cavern somewhere beyond the walls of the pool, and to be reached only by diving into the water and finding the narrow passage leading up into it.
While listening to fragments of the story of Laieikawai and of other legends connected with the mysterious cavern, and seriously doubting the existence of the secret chamber so prominently referred to in the early folk-lore of Oahu, an old native, who had joined the party at Kaneohe, quietly and without a word dismounted, divested himself of his upper garments and plunged into the pool. Swimming to the northern wall, he clung for a moment to a slight projection, and then disappeared. It was suggested for the first time that he was in search of the cavern of Laieikawai, and all eyes were turned toward the point where he was last seen above the water.
Three or four minutes elapsed, and fears for his safety began to be exchanged, when the salutation of “aloha!” greeted us from the opposite wall, and the next moment a pair of black eyes were seen glistening through a small opening into the cavern, not before observed, about four feet above the surface of the water.
The swimmer then returned to the pool by the passage through which he had left it, and we were compelled to admit that the cavern of Laieikawai was a reality, however wild and visionary may have been the stories connected with it. Not a single person present, including the governor, had ever before seen the passage to the cavern attempted, and the natives were overjoyed at what they had witnessed.
To the many questions with which he was pressed the old man returned but brief answers on his return, and when importuned to explain the method of his entrance to the cavern, that the secret might not be lost, he pointed significantly to the sea, and declared that there would be found the bodies of those who sought to solve the mystery of the passage and failed.
This rediscovery of the entrance to the cavern of Laieikawai created a renewed interest in the legends associated with it, and thenceforth during our journey many of the old stories were rehearsed. The most interesting related to Laieikawai. It is a recklessly fanciful recital, and gives expression to the extravagant conceits of the early Hawaiian bards. Following is presented a condensation of the legend of Laieikawai, as more elaborately told by Haleole.—Editor.