Nuhou, Volume I, Number 11, 1 April 1873 — PUHIOKAALA; OR THE SPOUTING CAVE OF KAALA. [ARTICLE]

PUHIOKAALA; OR THE SPOUTING CAVE OF KAALA.

[CONTINUED.] Thoy pasS through the groves of Kalulu and Kumoku [Kamoku], and now the man swerves from the path leading to Mahana and turns hie face agaln seaward. At this the sad and silent child looks up into the faee of her grim and sullen sire and says: "Oh, father, we shall not find mother on this path, but we ehall lose our way and come to the sea once more." "And thy mother is the sea, by the bay of Kaumalapau. There she gathers limpets on the rocks. She has dried a large squid of Palawal for thee. She has pounded some taro of Maunalei and filled her calabash with poi, and would feed thee once more. She is not sick but had I said she was well, thy lord would not have let thee go; but now thou art on the wav to sleep with thy mother by the sea." The poor weary girl now trudged on with a doubting heart. She glanced eadly at her dread sire's moody eye. Silent and sore she trod the stoney path leading down to the shore, and when she came to the beaeh with nought in view but the rocks and sea, she said with a bursting heart: "Oh, my father, is the shark to be my mother, and I to never see my dear chief any more!" "Hear the truth," cried Opunui, "thy home for a tiine is indeed in the sea, and the shark shajl be thy mate, but he shall not harm thee. Thou goest down where the sea-god lives, and he shall tell thee that the accursed chief of the bloody leap shall not carry away any daughter of Lanai. When Kaaialii has sailcd for Kohala then shall tlie chief of Olowalu eome and bring thee to earth again." As the fierce sire spoke, he seized the hand of Kaala, and unheeding her sobs atid cries, led her along the rugged shore to a point eastward of the bay where the beating sea makes the rocky shore tremble beneath your feet. Here was a boiling gulf, a fret and foam of the sea, a roar of waters, and a mighty jet of brine and spray from a spouting cave whose mouth lay deep beneath the battling tide." Sce yon advancing billow! The south wind sends it surging along. It rears its combing, whitening crest, and with mighty, swift rushing volume of angry green sea, it strikes the mouthh j of the cave; it drives and packs the pent up air within, and now the tig|itened wind rebounds t j and driving back the ramming sea, bursts forth. Bouff! What a roar as the huge spout of sea leapa upward to the sky, and then comes curving down in gentle silver spray. The fearful child now clasps the knees of her savage sire. "Not there, oh, father, " she sobbed and wai|ed, "The sea snake (the puhi) has his home in the cave, and he will bite and tear me, and ere I die, the crawling crabs will creep over me and pick out my weeping eyes. Alas, oh father, better give me to the shark, and then my cry and moan will hurt thine ear." The fierce kanaka clasps the slender girl with oue sinewy arm, and with a bound he leapa inio ! the frothed and fretted pool below. Downwards with a dolphin's ease he moves, and with his free arm beating back the brine, he moves along the ocean bed into the sea cave's jagged jaws, and now stemming with stiffened sinew the wind driven tide, he swims onward till he strikes a sunless beach and thon standing up in breathing air inside the cave, whose mouth is beneath the sea.

Here is a broad dry space with a lofty, salt icicled roof. The green translucent sea as it rolled back and forth at their feet, gave to their brown faces a ghastly white glare. The scavenger crabs scrambled away oyer the dank and dripping stones, and the loathsome biting eel, the dread puhi of these seas, slowly reached out its well toothed, wide gaping jaw to tear the tender feet that roused it from its horrid lair, where the dread sea god dwelt. The poor hapless girl sank down upon this gloomy shore and cried, clinging to the kanaka's knee--"Oh, father, beat out my brains with this ' jagged stone, and do not let the puhi tear me and twine around neck, and trail with a loathsome, slimy, creeping crawl over my body before I die. Oh! the crabs will pick and tear me before my i breath is gone." Listen," said Opunui, "thou shalt go back with me to the warm sunny air. Thou shalt tread again the sweet smelling flowery vale of Palawai, and twine thy neek with wreaths of scented jasmin, if thou wilt go with me to the house of the ehief of Olowalu and there let thy bloody lord behold thee wanton with thy love in anothcr arms." "Never," shouted the lover of Kaaialii, "never 1 will I meet any clasp of love but that of my own chief. If I cannot lay my head again upon his breast, 1 will lay it in death upon these cold stones. If his arm shall never again draw me to his heart, then let the puhi twine my neck and let him tear away my cheeks rather than another besides my dear lord, shall press my face."