Though the regular trades,
which blow for nine months of the year, have not yet set in, and the
mercury stands at 80 degrees, there is no sultriness: a tremulous
sea-breeze and a mountain breeze fan the town, and the purple
nights, when the stars hang out like lamps, and the moon gives a
light which is almost golden, are cool and delicious. Roughly
computed, the annual mean temperature is 75 degrees 55', with a
divergence in either direction of only 7 degrees 55'. As a general
rule the temperature is cooler by four degrees for every thousand
feet of altitude, so that people can choose their climate to suit
themselves without leaving the islands.
I am gradually learning a little of the topography of this island
and of Honolulu, but the last is very intricate. The appearance of
Oahu from the sea is deceptive. It looks hardly larger than Arran,
but it is really forty-six miles long by twenty-five broad, and is
530 square miles in extent. Diamond Hill, or Leahi, is the most
prominent object south of the town, beyond the palm groves of
Waikiki. It is red and arid, except when, as now, it is verdure-
tinged by recent rains. Its height is 760 feet, and its crater
nearly as deep, but its cone is rapidly diminishing.
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