The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1896-04-02

is compelled to cut his way
through.
Deep unfathomable chasms
and caverns are quite abundant
in Puma. Some of these caverns
extend miles underground with
many branches leading off from
the main entrance. It is not
safe to venture into a cave with
out a competent guide.
Mr.. Wright, of Wilder Steam
ship Company has incorporated
a coffee association with a paid
up capital of $4,000 for the
purpose of opening up the
coffee country in Puma. The
company has purchased three
hundred acres of the estcoffee
lands in Puma, to be divided in
to ten acre lots, and it is in
tended to induce industrious
Americans of small means to
emigrate to the islands and en-
gage in coffee growing. It is
proposed to give them one
plantation in return for improv-
ing one for the company. The
company itself will have one
hundred acres in coffee, fifty in
cocoa, ten to twenty in citron
roots, and will utilize the bal
ance of it's three hundred in pine
apples and guavas for jelly.
Kama, the rival of Puma, is
about as barren and sterile a
country as it has ever been my
lot to see. One travels over
miles and miles of blackened
rocks and lava flow, most of it
in this portion of the Island
being the rugged flow called by
the natives "aa." On the first
day we crossed the flow of 1887.
This is black, but after a travel
of ten hours, the color changes.
The flow is older, and trees are
found growing on it. Occas-
ionally the dead branches of
monster ohia trees could be
seen sticking up from the lava
which overwhelmed it in past
years, the top branches white
and glistening like the bones of
a skeleton.
After we had passed the black
lava flow of 1887, which extends
for about ten miles beyond the
Kahuka Ranch, the trees be-
came more abundant, and soon
we were in forests of ferns and
ohia trees. The road here is
through the lava, and straight
as an air line railroad. Where
there are trees the road is cut
directly through them, and if
there are no trees the road is
equally as discernable by the
leveling down of the lava
which is piled up ina wall on
either side.
For hours at a time we
wendell our way up hill and
down, the roadbed often choked
with great stones over which
the tired horses could hardly
step. Whenever there was a
smooth bit of road, the guide
uttered a shout: "Wic-ke, vic
ke!" and put the horses at a
gallop. This was only for a
short time, however, for there
is not a strip of good road fifty
yards in length in all Kama
after you have left the sugar
plantations.
People in Hawaii seem tc
have no more idea of miles
than they have of the cardinal
points of the compass, and that
is nil. When we were half a
days journey from a village o,
plantation and I asked the dis
lance, the answer would be
"Oh it is too far!" If the blaze
was only two or three miles
away, the answer would be
"Oh, it's not too far" White
men seem to HAYES ccumbed tt
this custom of the natives.
asked a Norwegian the distance
to Hookenia, and he answered
-Four hours"
But how many miles?'
asked.
II don't know" he answered
E"We never reckon distance by
miles, but'by the hours it takes
to reach a place. It may be
eight, may be twelve miles
may be six, but all the same il
will take you four hours tc
make it"
At Hookenia l met several
coffee-growers.