For many years a copper plate, fixed to a cocoa-nut tree, marked the spot where Cook fell, but this has now been replaced by a monument, the cost of which was defrayed by subscriptions at Honolulu.  Maui is, I believe, a charming place, containing many fine plantations, and several gentlemen’s estates, laid out in the English style.  Unfortunately, time forbids our accepting some invitations we have received to visit the island, where a great many interesting excursions may be made.

At Kahoolaue there does not seem much to be seen.  It was purchased some years ago, and pays well as a sheep-run.  Lauai, the next island, is scarcely inhabited, and its scenery is not remarkable.

A sad interest attaches to the island of Molokai, which is situated midway between Maui and Oahu.  It is the leper settlement, and to it all the victims of this terrible, loathsome, and incurable disease, unhappily so prevalent in the Hawaiian archipelago, are sent, in order to prevent the spread of the contagion.  They are well cared for and looked after in every way; but their life, separated as they inevitably are from all they hold most dear, and with no prospect before them but that of a slow and cruel death, must indeed be a miserable one.  In Molokai there are many tiny children, fatherless and motherless, parents without children, husbands without wives, wives without husbands, ‘all condemned.’ as Miss Bird says, ’to watch the repulsive steps by which each of their doomed fellows goes down to a loathsome death, knowing that by the same they too must pass.’  A French priest has nobly devoted himself to the religious and secular instruction of the lepers, and up to the present time has enjoyed complete immunity from the disease; but even if he escapes this danger, he can never return to his country and friends.  When one thinks what that implies, and to what a death in life he has condemned himself for the sake of others, it seems impossible to doubt that he will indeed reap a rich reward hereafter.

At two o’clock we saw Diamond Head, the easternmost headland of Oahu, rising from the sea.  By four o’clock we were abreast of it, and steaming along the coast.  The cape itself rises grandly from the midst of a grove of cocoa-nuts, and the shore all along, with the sharp high mountains of the Pali as a background, is fine and picturesque.  A coral reef stretches far into the sea, and outside this we lay waiting for a pilot to take us into Honolulu Harbour.

It was a long business mooring us by hawsers, from our stem and stern, but we were at last safely secured in a convenient place, a short distance from the shore, and where we should be refreshed by the sea breeze and the land breeze alternately.  It was six o’clock, and nearly dark, when we reached the shore; the town seemed entirely deserted; all the little wooden houses were shut up, and there were no lights visible.  The post-office was closed, but it was a terrible blow to hear there were no letters for us, though we still hoped that there might be some at the British Consulate.