VII

A VISIT TO THE SPIRIT LAND; OR, THE STRANGE EXPERIENCE OF A WOMAN IN
KONA, HAWAII

_Mrs. E. N. Haley_


Kalima had been sick for many weeks, and at last died. Her friends
gathered around her with loud cries of grief, and with many expressions
of affection and sorrow at their loss they prepared her body for
its burial.

The grave was dug, and when everything was ready for the last rites
and sad act, husband and friends came to take a final look at the rigid
form and ashen face before it was laid away forever in the ground. The
old mother sat on the mat-covered ground beside her child, brushing
away the intrusive flies with a piece of cocoanut-leaf, and wiping
away the tears that slowly rolled down her cheeks. Now and then she
would break into a low, heart-rending wail, and tell in a sob-choked,
broken voice, how good this her child had always been to her, how her
husband loved her, and how her children would never have any one to
take her place. "Oh, why," she cried, "did the gods leave me? I am old
and heavy with years; my back is bent and my eyes are getting dark. I
cannot work, and am too old and weak to enjoy fishing in the sea,
or dancing and feasting under the trees. But this my child loved all
these things, and was so happy. Why is she taken and I, so useless,