There is a
strange fascination in the languid air, and it is strangely sweet
"to dream of fatherland" . . .
I.L.B.
LETTER IV.
HILO, HAWAII.
I find that I can send another short letter before leaving for the
volcano. I cannot convey to you any idea of the greenness and
lavish luxuriance of this place, where everything flourishes, and
glorious trailers and parasitic ferns hide all unsightly objects out
of sight. It presents a bewildering maze of lilies, roses,
fuschias, clematis, begonias, convolvuli, the huge appalling looking
granadilla, the purple and yellow water lemons, also varieties of
passiflora, both with delicious edible fruit, custard apples, rose
apples, mangoes, mangostein guavas, bamboos, alligator pears,
oranges, tamarinds, papayas, bananas, breadfruit, magnolias,
geraniums, candle-nut, gardenias, dracaenas, eucalyptus, pandanus,
ohias, {59a} kamani trees, kalo, {59b} noni, {59c} and quantities of
other trees and flowers, of which I shall eventually learn the
names, patches of pine-apple, melons, and sugar-cane for children to
suck, kalo and sweet potatoes.
In the vicinity of this and all other houses, Chili peppers, and a
ginger-plant with a drooping flower-stalk with a great number of
blossoms, which when not fully developed have a singular resemblance
to very pure porcelain tinted with pink at the extremities of the
buds, are to be seen growing in "yards," to use a most unfitting
Americanism.
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