As I write now I hear the moaning rustle
of the wind through their plume-like tops, and their long slender
stems, and crisp crown of leaves above the trees with shining
leafage which revel in damp, have a suggestion of Orientalism about
them. How do they come too, on every atoll or rock that raises its
head throughout this lonely ocean? They fringe the shores of these
islands. Wherever it is dry and fiercely hot, and the lava is black
and hard, and nothing else grows, or can grow, there they are, close
to the sea, sending their root-fibres seawards as if in search of
salt water. Their long, curved, wrinkled, perfectly cylindrical
stems, bulging near the ground like an apothecary's pestle, rise to
a height of from sixty to one hundred feet. These stems are never
straight, and in a grove lean and curve every way, and are
apparently capable of enduring any force of wind or earthquake.
They look as if they had never been young, and they show no signs of
growth, rearing their plumy tufts so far aloft, and casting their
shadows so far away, always supremely lonely, as though they
belonged to the heavens rather than the earth. Then, while all else
that grows is green they are yellowish.
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