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CHAPTER VI.

THE HOME OF KAIULANI.

THE

HE last Sunday in February I received an invitation to visit Mr. Cleghorn's grounds, and to go through the new house which he had. just completed for the occupancy of his daughter, the Princess Kaiulani, who was then absent in England. Mr. Cleghorn was of Scottish descent, a prominent personage in Honolulu society. He was a man of considerable wealth, and president of the British-American Club. He apologised for receiving me on Sunday, and explained that it was his only day of leisure. We drove up the winding carriage road to the house, halting under the shade of a giant banyan tree - one of the most magnificent of its kind. It recalled my geography days, — the spreading branches, with their thick, dark-green, glossy leaves; the heavy boughs, with their smooth bark, not unlike our birches, these boughs sending roots down into the earth like pillars, their spreading branches making a canopy under which a caravan might have found shade. A carpenter's bench was

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strewn with chips and shavings, and there were other evidences of incompleted work, which, however, was progressing rapidly towards completion.

Mr. Cleghorn's place was one of the most beautiful in the Islands. The spacious grounds were ordinarily closed to visitors, with "Kapu" ("No Admittance") over the gate at the entrance. The new house was a white frame structure, of two storeys, with wings at either end-the favourite form of Honolulu architecture with a wide verandah extending across the front. The shrubbery had been cut away for several yards in every direction to allow the free circulation. of the air, and just beyond the main entrance stood the one incomparable banyan tree, which the owner presently informed me was the handsomest thing he had. He was not visible when we arrived, and I was helped from the carriage and sat down upon the carpenter's chest among the chips and shavings while a Chinese servant went in search of him. After a short interval he came. a tall, handsome man, erect as a field marshal, as dignified as a Spanish grandee, and altogether an impressive figure, with his keen black eyes, white beard and hair. had been out amongst his flowers, he explained, and in proof of this he dropped a pair of pruning-shears into the pocket of his loose alpaca coat. It was not every day that one met the parent of royalty so occupied.

He

"The house is nearly completed," he said, look

1893.]

AN UNUSED PALACE.

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ing up at the closed windows with a wistful expression. "I built it for the Princess, and expected to have it all in readiness, and now this overturn has come."

It was a little difficult to reply to this remark. I could not assure him of any honest belief in the re-establishment of Hawaiian royalty, which I did not think would ever be accomplished. So I gently turned the conversation upon other and impersonal subjects, and told him how glad I was to see a banyan tree, and one so beautiful as the fine specimen which he had raised. This evidently gratified him, and after pointing out its various beauties he invited me to come into the house. The key was brought, and I was shown into the hall, then into the grand drawing-room, where the young heir-apparent would have held informal receptions. It was a stately apartment, probably forty feet in length and thirty feet in width, with many windows looking out upon the velvet lawn. The panelling was in beautiful native woods highly polished, and the decorative tiles in the corridor had been brought from Chicago. At one end there was a large room enclosed with Venetian blinds on two sides, the windows extending from floor to ceiling, and being provided with screens. This was the "mosquito-room," in which the Princess. and the English companion whom she was to have brought back with her had expected to sit and

sew, read and talk. so universal in the United States, but which, strangely enough, 'were not in ordinary use in that mosquitoridden land. On the upper floor I was shown the Princess's private suite, the bedchamber corresponding to the drawing-room below, with a boudoir at one end and a dressing-room at the other. The Hawaiian coronet, and the kahili, the ancient symbol of Hawaiian royalty, recurred at intervals in the decorations of the ceiling.

Much was made of the screens,

Long experience had made me very expert in the use of my crutches, and upon getting up the gangway of the Mohican, a few days before, I had boastingly remarked to Captain Ludlow, her commanding officer, as he expressed some fear for my security, that I felt certain I could climb on to the roof of a house, if an opportunity were given me. As frequently happens, I had been taken at my word. After we had gone through all the rooms on the upper floor Mr. Cleghorn wondered if it would be possible for me to get out on the roof. "There is a beautiful view," he added, by way of additional incentive.

I wanted to see the view; but, apart from this, I had said that I could walk onto a roof on my crutches, and now that the occasion, so little anticipated, had come I must make good the assertion. or be considered thereafter a vain boaster and a person altogether over-imaginative. So I replied,

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A PERILOUS ADVENTURE.

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without an instant's hesitation, though I did not in the least know how it was to be managed, that nothing would be easier.

He opened a door, and there was a staircase as nearly perpendicular as a staircase could be, with the narrowest of steps, and lighted by a trap-door, which he ran up and opened.

I looked at this arrangement dubiously; I could have hopped down with a little help on one foot; but I could not hop up. However, a gallant escort came to the rescue and steadied me, while another followed to catch me in case I lost my balance and toppled over backwards, and the thing was done. The roof was flat, and once reached there was no further difficulty; the descent of the staircase was comparatively easy-comparatively, not altogether.

The view certainly was most beautiful-worth even more than the effort I had made to see it, and it remains vividly in my mind.

Below us were acres of rice field, the most vivid and tender green; there were the solemn mountains, with great ragged masses of cloud floating down their summits and across the valleys; there was the sea, blue as sapphire, with the white surf tossing along the curve of sunken reef; there was the harbour with its shipping; the shady streets, the blossoming hedges, and gardens crowded with palms and algaroba and mango trees.

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