The blossoms of Nu’uanu:
Afloat in the sea are the flowers—
A scene that takes one to Hilo,
Whose tide lines them up as a lei;
For bloom of lehua to drift
Far at sea is a Hilo mark.
When, after this battery of compliment, they came close up to the princess Pele-ula—who, as will be seen, was a power in the land—having exchanged still further compliments, Hiiaka invited her to come aboard. Pele-ula, very naturally, declined this kind offer, but with a fine show of hospitality in her turn begged that they would honor her by being her guests during their stay in the place, assuring them of hospitable entertainment and such pleasures as her court could offer. Under her piloting, accordingly, they made their way by paddle across the beautiful land-locked harbor of Kou and, entering the Nu’uanu stream—in those days much broader, sweeter and deeper than now—turned into its eastern branch and erelong found themselves at the landing from which a path led up to Pele-ula’s residence. Imagine the fairy scene, if you will;—a canoe-load of smiling nereids piloted by a mermaid princess swimming on ahead, with a merry convoy of mermaiden and mermen following in the wake.
A word in regard to this little land, now lying close to the heart of Honolulu itself, which still bears the same name as its old-time mistress, Pele-ula. To the kamaaina the sturdy samang tree, whose vigorous bole parts the traffic of Vineyard Street just before its junction with the highway of Nu’uanu has long been a familiar object. This fine tree has a history of its own and can claim the respectable age of not less than forty years. The land about it has borne the classic name of Pele-ula for a period of centuries that hark back to the antiquity of Hawaiian tradition. The sightseer of to-day who views the region from the macadamized roadway, some ten feet above the level of the surrounding land, must not judge of its former attractiveness and fitness as a place of residence by its present insalubrity—now shut in by embankments, overhung by dank and shadowy trees, its once-pure stream either diverted for economic purposes or cluttered and defiled with the debris of civilization. A study of the region, on the inner—mauka—border of which lies Pele-ula, will easily convince the observer that within a short geologic period the wash of silt and mud from higher levels has filled in and converted what must have been at one time a clear salt-water basin into the swampy flats that not long ago met the eye. Now, of course, this whole alluvial basin has been still further filled in and artificially overlaid with a more-or-less solid crust of earth and rock to meet the demands of Honolulu’s ever expanding growth.
To return to our narrative: to this hamlet of Pele-ula, such as it was in the days of Arcadian sweetness—if not of light—Hiiaka and her select company now enter as the honored guests of a woman distinguished alike for her beauty, her spiritual subtility and insight—she was a makaula—and for her devotion to pleasure. One of her chief diversions, naturally enough, was the hula, especially that form of the dance which was used in connection with that risqué entertainment, the kilu.[1]