It looks green and bright, and
the atmosphere is perfect, with the cool air coming down from the
mountains, and a soft breeze coming up from the blue dreamy ocean.
Behind the house the uplands slope away to the colossal Mauna Kea.
The actual, dense, impenetrable forest does not begin for a mile and
a half from the coast, and its broad dark belt, extending to a
height of 4,000 feet, and beautifully broken, throws out into
greater brightness the upward glades of grass and the fields of
sugar-cane.
This is a very busy season, and as this is a large plantation there
is an appearance of great animation. There are five or six saddled
horses usually tethered below the house; and with overseers, white
and coloured, and natives riding at full gallop, and people coming
on all sorts of errands, the hum of the crushing-mill, the rush of
water in the flumes, and the grind of the waggons carrying cane,
there is no end of stir.
The plantations in the Hilo district enjoy special advantages, for
by turning some of the innumerable mountain streams into flumes the
owners can bring a great part of their cane and all their wood for
fuel down to the mills without other expense than the original cost
of the woodwork.
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