In the proem to this idyl I seem to see two shadowy figures passing up and down over a lonesome land. Fever and famine do not stay them: the elements alone have power to check their pilgrimage. Their advent is hailed with joyful bells: tears fall when they depart. Their paths are peace. Fearlessly they battle with contagion, and are at hand to close the pestilential lips of unclean death. They have lifted my soul above things earthly, and held it secure for a moment. From beyond the waters my heart returns to them. Again at twilight, over the still sea, floats the sweet Angelus; again I approach the chapel falling to slow decay: there are fresh mounds in the churchyard, and the voice of wailing is heard for a passing soul. By and by, if there is work to do, it shall be done, and the hands shall be folded, for the young apostles will have followed in the silent footsteps of their flock. Here endeth the lesson of the Chapel of the Palms.
KAHÉLE.
FROM a bluff, whose bald forehead jutted a thousand feet into the air, and under whose chin the sea shrugged its great shoulders, Kahéle, my boy,—that delightful contradiction, who was always plausible, yet never right,—Kahéle and I looked timidly over into the sunset valley of Méha. The "Valley of Solitude" it was called; albeit, at that moment, and with half an eye, we counted the thirty grass-lodges of the village, and heard the liquid tongues of a trio of waterfalls, that dived head-first into the groves at the farther end of the valley, where the mountain seemed to have opened its heart wide enough to let a rivulet escape into the sea. But the spot was a palpable and living dream, and no fond rivulet would go too hastily through it; so there was a glittering sort of monogram writ in water, and about it the village lodges were clustered in a very pleasing disorder.
The trail dropped down the cliff below us in long, swinging zigzags, and wound lazily through the village; crossed the stream at the ford; dipped off toward the sea, as though the beach, shining like coarse gold, were a trifle too lovely to be passed without recognition, and then it climbed laboriously up the opposite cliff, and struck off into space. In ten seconds a bird might have spanned the deep ravine, and caught as much of its loveliness as we; but we weren't birds, and, moreover, we had six legs apiece to look after, so we tipped off from the dizzy ridge that overhung the valley of Méha to the north, and gradually descended into the heat and silence of the place, that seemed to make a picture of itself when we first looked down upon it from our eyry.
We found the floor of the valley very solemn and very lovely, when we at last got down into it. Three youngsters, as brown as berries, and without any leaves upon them, broke loose from a banana-orchard and leaped into a low hou-tree as we approached. They were a little shy of my color, pale-faces being rare in that vicinity. Two women who were washing at the ford—and washing the very garments they should have had upon their backs—discovered us, and plunged into the stream with a refreshing splash, and a laugh apiece that was worth hearing, it was so genuine and hearty. Another youngster hurried off from a stone-wall like a startled lizard, and struck on his head, but didn't cry much, for he was too frightened. A large woman lay at full length on a broad mat, spread under a pandanus, and slept like a turtle. I began to think there were nothing but women and children in the solitary valley, but Kahéle had kept an eye on the reef, and, with an air of superior intelligence, he assured me that there were many men living about there, and they, with most of the women and children, were then out in the surf, fishing.