Buackpurn—The Hawaiian Archipelago. 201 
staple of the forests, are:—The ‘‘ohia ai” of the natives (Eugenia of botany), 
which bears a pleasant fruit resembling an apple in appearance; the palm-like 
pandanus (sometimes attaining a very great size); an acacia, called by the natives 
mamaina (I am not sure of the spelling); a magnificent draczena (which, however, 
is rather local), &c., &c. Besides the above, there are giant tree-ferns, often 
twenty feet high, bananas, and innumerable creepers, consisting of convolvuli, 
yams, and especially the freycinetia (called by the natives ‘‘ieie”). This superb 
plant, which creeps over the tallest forest trees, resembles a palm in the arrange- 
ment of its great clusters of ribbon-like leaves, and has stalks scarcely less thick 
than a man’s arm, with fleshy crimson flowers scarcely smaller than a man’s head. 
On nearly all the species of forest trees there are numerous parasites; and almost 
every fork in the branches, where a little collection of decayed vegetable matter 
has formed a soil, is a hanging garden of ferns. Undergrowth in the denser parts 
of the forest is almost non-existent, failing to hold its own in the struggle 
upwards for light and air; but wherever the forest is at all open, a considerable 
variety of low plants may be found, among which the most conspicuous and 
abundant are ferns, and what I take to be a large species of the nettle tribe. The 
forest extends from about 2000 feet above sea level to about 6000 feet, whence it 
begins to thin off, entirely disappearing at about 9000 feet. Above that elevation 
there are only stunted bushes (species unknown to me), tufts of coarse grass, and 
a few other small and scattered plants. The densest region of the forest is 
that between 2000 and 5000 feet above sea level; and it is the partially 
cleared portions of this part of the forest that I have found most prolific in insect 
life. 
The scenery of the Hawaiian Islands is, as may be supposed, exceedingly fine. 
Perhaps there is no part of the world where lofty mountains can be seen to greater 
advantage, for the principal Hawaiian peaks rise so continuously from the sea 
that their summits are visible from the level of their base. Consequently the 
zesthetic effect of their altitude is much greater than in the case of many of the 
chief continental mountains of the world, which seem to be hemmed in by a 
surrounding multitude of rivals, and of which it is generally almost impossible to 
get a glimpse until one is half-way between sea level and their summit. Some- 
times, when I have been sailing around the apparently endless base of Haleakala, 
and revelling in the luxury of its loveliness, carrying my gaze slowly upwards 
and ever upwards through the sunshine, from the white surf beating the foot of the 
mountain, past the villages scattered along the shore, past the lonely forests that 
creep aloft from the houses, past the banks of cloud that are almost always 
floating against the mountain’s breast, past the huge bare rocks piled up beneath 
the summit, and still upwards to the thin layer of snow silvering the topmost 
peak, and looking so unearthly cold and calm, I have compared the sight with my 
memory of loftier mountains still (say, Mont Blanc, as seen from Chamounix), and 
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