We rode all the forenoon over a level strip of grassy open country bordering the sea, with here and there a native hut near a clump of cocoanuts or a taro-patch. Toward noon we passed fenced pastures in which many horses were grazing, and came in sight of a picturesque cottage near the shore. Miss G---- had told us that on the lawn in front of this cottage were two curious old stone idols which had been discovered in a fish-pond, and we rode up to the gate intending to ask permission to enter and look at them. A Chinese servant let us in, and the owner, an Englishman who lived here during part of the year, came and showed us the idols, and then invited us inside his pretty cottage and gave us a lunch of bread and butter and guava jelly and oranges. The walls and ceilings were of native wood, of the kinds used in delicate cabinet-work and were polished until they shone. The floor was covered with fine straw matting, and around the room were ranged easy-chairs and sofas of willow and rattan. In one corner stood a piano in an ebony case, and on a koa-wood centre-table were a number of fine photographs and works of art. Hanging baskets filled with blooming plants hung in each window and in the veranda. Altogether, it was the prettiest hermitage imaginable. Riding along that afternoon through a country much like that we had passed over in the morning, we heard from a native hut the sound of the mournful Hawaiian wail, "Auea! auea!" (pronounced like the word "away" long drawn out). To our inquiry if any one was dead within, a woman answered, "No, but that some friends had come from a distance on a visit." I have frequently seen two Hawaiian friends or relations who had not met for a long time express their emotions at seeing one another again, not by kissing and laughing and joyful exclamations, but by sitting down on the ground and wailing. Perhaps it was done in remembrance of their long separation and of the changes that had taken place during that time. The native mode of kissing consists in rubbing noses together.