Bellies the plain at Ma-óha,
As it slopes to the land below.
The cool dew-fall comforts Ka-lena:
First pinch this of want mid good luck—
No dream of canoe-voyage last night,
No dream of disaster at sea.
The story of Cape Ka-ena, that finger-like thrusts itself out into the ocean from the western extremity of Oahu, touches Hawaiian mythology at many points: Its mountain eminence was a leina uhane, jumping-off place, where the spirits of the deceased took their flying leap into ghost-land. Here it was that the demigod Mawi had his pou sto when he made the supreme effort of his life to align and unite the scattered group of islands; and here can still be seen Pohaku o Kauai, the one fragment of terra firma his hook could wrench from its base. Here, too, it was that Pele stood when she chaffed the old demi-god for having lured her on, as she supposed, with drum and fife to the pursuit of Lohiau; and now her sister Hiiaka stands in the same place. The subject was well worthy Hiiaka’s muse:
Lele ana o Ka-ena
Me he kaha na ka uwa’u[6] la