The determined conspirators, after satisfying their hunger, set off, and soon arrived, with humble mien, in the presence of the chief, between Paihau and Kaalualu.  “Prince,” said they, “here are your servants with provisions.”  They humbly laid at his feet their bundles wrapped in la’i.  The wrappers were opened, and the scene changes.  These people, apparently half dead, became in an instant like furious lions, ready to devour their prey.  They armed themselves with stones, and showered them upon Koihala and his company, who perished together.

Two other high chiefs of the island were exterminated by the same people.  One was killed at Kalae, beaten to death by the paddles of fishermen; the other was stoned at Aukukano.

These revolts against the chiefs have given birth, to several proverbial expressions, applied to the district of Ka’u.  Thus it is called Aina makaha—­Land of torrents:  a nation which removes and shatters every thing like a torrent; Ka’u makaha—­Ka’u the torrent; Ka lua kupapau o na’lii—­The sepulchre of the high chiefs; Aina kipi—­The rebellious land.

LEGEND OF KALEIKINI.

He was a chief of the olden time.

On the sea-shore, between Kaalikii and Pohue, the waves were ingulfed beneath the land, and shot into the air by a natural aperture some fifty feet from the shore.  The water leaped to a prodigious height, disappeared in the form of fine rain, and fell in vapor over a circuit of two leagues, spreading sterility over the land to such an extent that neither kalo nor sweet-potatoes could be grown there.  The chief Kaleikini closed the mouth of the gulf by means of enormous stones, which he made the natives roll thither.  It is plainly seen that this blow-hole has been closed by human hands.  There still remains a little opening through which the water hisses to the height of thirty or forty feet.

Kaleikini closed at Kohala, on the shore of Nailima, a volcanic mouth like that of Ka’u.

On the heights of Honokane, he silenced the thunders of a water-fall by changing its course.  At Maui Hikina, he secured the foundations of the hill of Puuiki, which the great tides had rendered unstable.  To do this, he put into the caverns of Puuiki a huge rock, which stopped the tumults of the sea, and put an end to the trembling of the hill.

For these feats of strength, and many others like them, Kaleikini was called Kupua—­Wizard.[D]

DOCUMENTS ON THE PROVINCE OF PUNA.

According to common tradition, the district of Puna was, until two centuries ago, a magnificent country, possessing a sandy soil, it is true, but one very favorable to vegetation, and with smooth and even roads.  The Hawaiians of our day hold a tradition from their ancestors, that their great-grandparents beheld the advent of the volcanic floods in Puna.  Here, in brief, is the tradition as it is preserved by the natives: