The halt
was brief.--Gayly laughing and talking, the party galloped on, and I
clung to the pommel and cantered after. Presently we came to a place
where no grass grew--a wide expanse of deep sand. They said it was an
old battle ground. All around everywhere, not three feet apart, the
bleached bones of men gleamed white in the moonlight. We picked up a lot
of them for mementoes. I got quite a number of arm bones and leg bones
--of great chiefs, may be, who had fought savagely in that fearful battle
in the old days, when blood flowed like wine where we now stood--and wore
the choicest of them out on Oahu afterward, trying to make him go. All
sorts of bones could be found except skulls; but a citizen said,
irreverently, that there had been an unusual number of "skull-hunters"
there lately--a species of sportsmen I had never heard of before.
Nothing whatever is known about this place--its story is a secret that
will never be revealed. The oldest natives make no pretense of being
possessed of its history. They say these bones were here when they were
children. They were here when their grandfathers were children--but how
they came here, they can only conjecture. Many people believe this spot
to be an ancient battle-ground, and it is usual to call it so; and they
believe that these skeletons have lain for ages just where their
proprietors fell in the great fight. Other people believe that
Kamehameha I. fought his first battle here.
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