said that in the time of the first Kamehameha, the conqueror and hero of
his race, upon an occasion when he visited Molokai, an old sorceress or
priestess sent him word that she had made a garment for him--a robe of
honor--which she desired him to come and get. He returned for answer a
command that she should bring it to him; and when the old hag appeared,
the king desired her to tell him something of the future. She replied that
he would conquer all the Islands, and rule over them but a brief time;
that his own posterity would die out; and that finally all his race would
be gathered together on Molokai; and that this small island would be large
enough to hold them all.

It is probable, of course, that this tale is of recent origin, and that no
priestess of Kamehameha the First possessed so fatal and accurate a gift
of prophecy; but the tale, told me in the midst of the leper asylum,
pointed to the gloomy end of the race with but too plain a finger. The
Hawaiians, once so numerous as to occupy almost all the habitable parts
of all the Islands, have so greatly decreased that they might almost find
their support on the little island of Molokai alone. Happily the decrease
has now ceased.

The great Pali of Molokai, one of the most remarkable and picturesque
sights of the Islands, stretches for a dozen miles along its windward
coast. It is a sheer precipice, in most parts from a thousand to two
thousand feet high, washed by the sea at its base, and having, in most
parts, not a trace of beach. This vast wall of rock is an impressive
sight; here the shipwrecked mariner would be utterly helpless; but would
drown, not merely in sight of land, but with his hands vainly grasping for
even a bush, or root, or a projecting rock.