236 

 NOTES ON VEGETATION IN HONOLULU. 



In a recent issue of Park and Cemetery, Charles Mulford Rob- 

 inson, the civic beautifier, writes as follows : 



The Hawaiian Islands, called ''the Paradise of the Pacific," 

 are coming more and more into public thought as a goal, as a 

 dreamed-of haven, where, in the happy Sometime, one may go 

 to find rest and beauty. And those things are found there. 

 No one comes back without testifying that the dream is true ; 

 and year by year the tide of travel rises, more persons journey 

 to Hawaii, realize the dream, and return to awaken a keener 

 interest in those tranquil little islands — the farthest from the 

 main land of all the inhabited islands of the world — where the 

 broad Pacific is a sapphire sea. 



If one could go with his eyes closed from Chicago to the 

 Golden Gate, there certainly would be no sense of disappoint- 

 ment in the first impression made by the vegetation of the 

 Hawaiian Islands after six days of sailing on the ocean. But 

 all the way across the ocean one's eyes are very much open, 

 and going as I did* by way of Southern California, with frcr 

 quent stops of several days at a time — and always saying to 

 one's self, ''Those palms are fine, but wait for Honolulu ; these 

 flowers are lovely, but think of the tropical blooms that we 

 shall see ; and these green fields, and hillsides verdant beneath 

 the warm rains and brilliant sun of the California winter, are 

 well in their way; but one must be temperate in admiration 

 since the tropics are yet to be seen" — if one could go to Hono- 

 lulu with none of this experience, there could be no disappoint- 

 ment. But after the roses of California, after the riot of flowers 

 in park and garden, by wayside and in wood and field, which 

 California offers to the winter traveler, the first views of the 

 Hawaiian Islands and of Honolulu are not quite all one hoped. 



The northern side of the island of Oahu, which is the first 

 land seen at close range, is bleak and bare. Pocks jut into the 

 sea, extinct volcanoes raise bleak sides in a gaunt and naked 

 sternness that the tints of softening distance scarcely hide ; and 

 when the end of the island has been rounded, and skirting the 

 southern shore one comes into the harbor, the land is yet so far 

 away that in the larger features of the scene — in the beauty of 

 peak and crater and of shadowy valley, and in the interest of 

 the structures of the city — one quite forgets to notice the 



