University of Virginia Library

THE STEED “OAHU.”

THE landlord of the American hotel at
Honolulu said the party had been
gone nearly an hour, but that he
could give me my choice of several horses that
could easily overtake them. I said, Never mind
—I preferred a safe horse to a fast one—I
would like to have an excessively gentle horse
—a horse with no spirit whatever—a lame one,
if he had such a thing. Inside of five minutes
I was mounted, and perfectly satisfied with my
outfit. I had no time to label him, “This is a
horse,” and so if the public took him for a
sheep I can not help it. I was satisfied, and
that was the main thing. I could see that he
had as many fine points as any man's horse,
and I just hung my hat on one of them, behind
the saddle, and swabbed the perspiration
from my face and started. I named him after
this island, “Oahu,” (pronounced O-waw-hoo.)

The first gate he came to he started in; I had
neither whip nor spur, and so I simply argued
the case with him. He firmly resisted argument,
but ultimately yielded to insult and
abuse. He backed out of that gate and
steered for another one on the other side of the
street. I triumphed by my former process.
Within the next six hundred yards he crossed
the street fourteen times, and attempted thirteen
gates, and in the mean time the tropical
sun was beating down and threatening to cave
the top of my head in, and I was literally dripping
with perspiration and profanity. (I am
only human, and I was sorely aggravated; I
shall behave better next time.) He quit the gate
business after that, and went along peaceably
enough, but absorbed in meditation. I noticed
this latter circumstance, and it soon began to
fill me with the gravest apprehension. I said
to myself, This malignant brute is planning
some new outrage—some fresh deviltry or other;
no horse ever thought over a subject so profoundly
as this one is doing just for nothing.
The more this thing preyed upon my mind the
more uneasy I became, until at last the suspense
became unbearable, and I dismounted to
see if there was any thing wild in his eye; for
I had heard that the eye of this noblest of our
domestic animals is very expressive. I can not
describe what a load of anxiety was lifted from
my mind when I found that he was only asleep.
I woke him up and started him into a faster
walk, and then the inborn villainy of his nature
came out again. He tried to climb over a
stone wall five or six feet high. I saw that I
must apply force to this horse, and that I
might as well begin first as last. I plucked a
stout switch from a tamarind tree, and the moment
he saw it he gave in. He broke into a
convulsive sort of a canter, which had three
short steps in it and one long one, and reminded
me alternately of the clattering shake of the
great earthquake and the sweeping plunging
of the Ajax in a storm.