Kelea; The Surf Rider (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1900 edition. Excerpt: ...their entertainment. Cocoa-nut Island a favorite resting place of royal chiefs. The tallest cocoa-nut palms wave over it. Branches of trees are there reflected in the stillest of pools. The breeze that stirs their fronds causes no ripples on the side of the island towards the shore. The sands that surround this lovely spot are the whitest, and the mossy turf under the shadows of the palms is the softest. The graceful pandanus trees, with a dozen or more supporting stems growing from the trunk to the ground, incline towards the mirroring waters. Soft, gray mosses droop in rich festoons from branches and trunks, some even dipping in the pools. Here Hookama rested after a bath, while his warriors were escorted to the village as guests of the chief. The night was cool; the sounds of distant revellers and the noise of their drums scarcely reached his ears. The rippling waves upon the sands were musical to him as he lay on the mossy sward and dreamed; dreamed of Oahu, of Pu' Aloha, of Kelea, and FeatherMantle; waking dreams, but all the more fascinating because they were real. He dropped asleep, just as he called to mind his purpose to seek on the morrow the strange haunts of the goddess Pele, whom the dwellers on Oahu worshipped only as a distant deity, whose terrors scarcely troubled them in slight earthquake shocks at infrequent seasons. Now he is to meet her and her fiery ebullitions, at the mouth of the volcano which was her home. As he slept, there appeared to him a vision of a woman divinely fair, of immense proportions and surpassing form. As she lay on beds of black lava, her breasts were twin mountains covered with snow and her limbs were like fiery streams of molten gold. Her face was like the sun in its brightness and its expression was...