When you have seen Honolulu and the Nuanu Valley, and bathed and drunk cocoa-nut milk at Waikiki, you will be ready for a charming excursion—­the ride around the Island of Oahu.  For this you should take several days.  It is most pleasantly made by a party of three or four persons, and ladies, if they can sit in the saddle at all, can very well do it.  You should provide yourself with a pack-mule, which will carry not only spare clothing but some provisions; and your guide ought to take care of your horses and be able, if necessary, to cook you a lunch.  The ride is easily done in four days, and you will sleep every night at a plantation or farm.  The roads are excellent for riding, and carriages have made the journey.  It is best to set out by way of Pearl River and return by the Pali, as thus you have the trade-wind in your face all the way.  If you are accustomed to ride, and can do thirty miles a day, you should sleep the first night at or near Waialua, the next at or near what is called the Mormon Settlement, and on the third day ride into Honolulu.

If ladies are of your party, and the stages must be shorter, you can ride the first day to Ewa, which is but ten miles; the next, to Waialua, eighteen miles further; the third, to the neighborhood of Kahuku, twelve miles; thence to Kahana, fifteen miles; thence to Kaalaea, twelve miles; and the next day carries you, by an easy ride of thirteen miles, into Honolulu.  Any one who can sit on a horse at all will enjoy this excursion, and receive benefit from it; the different stages of it are so short that each day’s work is only a pleasure.  On the way you will see, near Ewa, the Pearl Lochs, which it has recently been proposed to cede as a naval station to the United States; and near Waialua an interesting boarding-school for Hawaiian girls, in which they are taught not only in the usual school studies, but in sewing, and the various arts of the housewife.  If you are curious to see the high valley in which the famous Waialua oranges are grown, you must take a day for that purpose.  Between Kahuku and Kahana it is worth while to make a detour into the mountains to see the Kaliawa Falls, which are a very picturesque sight.  The rock, at a height of several hundred feet, has been curiously worn by the water into the shape of a canoe.  Here, also, the precipitous walls are covered with masses of fine ferns.  At Kahana, and also at Koloa, you will see rice-fields, which are cultivated by Chinese.  You pass also on your road several sugar-plantations; and if it is the season of sugar-boiling, you will be interested in this process.  For miles you ride along the sea-shore, and your guide will lead you to proper places for a midday bath, preliminary to your lunch.

After leaving the Mormon Settlement, the scenery becomes very grand—­it is, indeed, as fine as any on the Islands, and compares well with any scenery in the world.  That it can be seen without severe toil gives it, for such people as myself, no slight advantage over some other scenery in these Islands and elsewhere, access to which can be gained only by toilsome and disagreeable journeys.  There is a blending of sea and mountain which will dwell in your memory as not oppressively grand, and yet fine enough to make you thankful that Providence has made the world so lovely and fair.