The Hawaiian gazette., 1889-11-12
SOME INCIDENTS


taking only to be compared to
] Jason's search for the Golden Fleece
or Stanley's march through Central
I Africa they were as light of heart
as birds on the wing. They sang,
Hence, loathed Melancholy
OF Cerberus and blacklist midnight born,
But come thou goddess fair and free,
In Heaven yclept Euphrosyne,
And by men, heart-easing mirth;
Haste thee, nymph, and bring with thee
Jest and youthful jollity,
Quips and cranks, and wanton wiles,
Mods and becks, and wreathed smiles,
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,
And love to live in dimple sleek;
Sport that wrinkled care derides,
And laughter, holding both his sides
Come, and trip it as you go,
On the light, fantastic toe;
And in thy right hand lead with thee
The mountain-nymph, sweet liberty"
The mountain nymph and her
whole crew accepted our invitation,
went with us quite round the circle
and made our tent their own.
The knights spent their first after
noon among their friends at Huelo
in high festivities which extended
far into the night. With the rising
sun they bid cheerful adieu to
their kindness and sailed forth into
the great unknown, determined,
come what might, to wave the mys-
tic circle from which their knight
hood hung as a golden prize. As
the Grecian heroes went forth to
Troy, so they sever with a frolic
welcome took the thunder and the
sunshine, and opposed free hearts,
free foreheads."
Often have 1 seen fair knights sit
ting easily and carelessly in their
saddles, riding mp the most fright
full precipices, and steeply descend
ing from dizzy heights into yawn-
ing abysses', all the while singing
as blythe and free as morning larks,
or as quietly as if reclining half
asleep in gently swinging hammocks
and ever
As they journeyed along
They were singing song
In search of the mystic circle.
As the labors of Hercules are care
fully recorded, it is also BETTING
that some of the victories of the
knights of the mystic circle should
be written.
l saw that as they pursued their
journey, they drew nigh to very
miry slough that was in the midst of
their road, and it was impossible to
escape it either on the right hand or
on the left. Go through it they
must to weave the charmed circle.
First the mules plunged IN, and
In their desperate struggles to extri-
cate themselves, were thrown down:
and here they wallowed for time,
being grievously bedaubed with mud
from the tips of their stately ears to
the ends of their slender tails. Be
ing relieved of their burdens as they
lay prone and signing in the slough,
they finally clambered out on the
farther side and switched their
muddy tails in saucy defiance as
though ready TO plunge into any
other stygian pool. The knights,
having heard from some Saneho
Panza that prudence is the better
part of valoE, dismounted, and while
their good steeds plunged wildly
from bog to bog scattering their
masters with mud which they car
ried all round the Mystic Circle, they
jumped airily from island to island,
and escaped without serious disaster.
So they crossed the deep Serbonian
bog"
Then they sat them down to rest
and dine beneath the forest, beside
wide and limpid stream named by
the ancients Simois: and betimes the
young men rose up to play. One
Jumped the Simois with flying
leap. Another climbed over it on
the branch of a wide-spreading Koa.
They plucHed noble bunch of wild
bananas and tossed it to the COM
pany: but in returning, it grleves
me to relate that first one and then
the other of these agile knights,
jumped plump into the reedy Simois,
and in bravely rescuing the second,
the third and youngest knight, amid
laughter and shrieks, was drawn
with a splash into the swiftly flow
ing current, carrying with him the
rod. gauntlet and helmet of the rosy |
knight yclept I'D. v" which doth |
signify. not "God willing |
Dolly Warden, the golden-haired and
blameless knight, who wore her
beaver up and her helmet sitting |
loosely or her head, which gave her
when seen from behind a disting
uished and peculiarly free and
air.
1 saw young Herbert with his beaver on,
His cuisses on his thighs, calamity
armed
Rise from the Simois like feathered Mer-
curry.
1t was a wonder that the twins, ID.
and D. ", who were sitting pre-
cariously perched on a tree over the
water, were not also dragged into
the dangerous stream.
By herculean efforts of a sinewy
knight the helmet and rod were re-
covered from the swift Simois, but
the gauntlet was seen nevermore.
This same sinewy knight, little
later, performed the unparalleled
feat of ascending, unaided by any
artificial helps, cocoanut palm nine
hundred and tifty-seven and half
feet high, and threw down large
number of cocoanuts for the delecta-
ton of the company. This feat we
L,ol1l,r affirm has never been Rnuallad