" Above Hilo, broad lands sweeping up cloudwards, with their
sugar cane, kalo, melons, pine-apples, and banana groves suggest the
boundless liberality of Nature. Woods and waters, hill and valley
are all there, and from the region of an endless summer the eye
takes in the domain of an endless winter, where almost perpetual
snow crowns the summits of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. Mauna Kea from
Hilo has a shapely aspect, for its top is broken into peaks, said to
be the craters of extinct volcanoes, but my eyes seek the dome-like
curve of Mauna Loa with far deeper interest, for it is as yet an
unfinished mountain. It has a huge crater on its summit 800 feet in
depth, and a pit of unresting fire on its side; it throbs and
rumbles, and palpitates; it has sent forth floods of fire over all
this part of Hawaii, and at any moment it may be crowned with a
lonely light, showing that its tremendous forces are again in
activity. My imagination is already inflamed by hearing of marvels,
and I am beginning to think tropically.
Canoes came off from the shore, dusky swimmers glided through the
water, youths, athletes, like the bronzes of the Naples Museum, rode
the waves on their surf-boards, brilliantly dressed riders galloped
along the sands and came trooping down the bridle-paths from all the
vicinity till a many-coloured tropical crowd had assembled at the
landing.
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