LETTER IV. 



Beauties of Hilo— Palms and Bananas— My First Hawaiian Ride— Hilo 

 Visiting — The Rev. Titus Coan. 



Hilo, Hawaii. 



I find that I can send another short letter before leaving for 

 the volcano. I cannot convey to you any idea of the greenness 

 and lavish luxuriance of this place, where everything flourishes, 

 and glorious trailers and parasitic ferns hide all unsightly 

 objects out of sight. It presents a bewildering maze of lilies, 

 roses, fuchsias, clematis, begonias, convolvuli, the huge grana- 

 dilla, the purple and yellow water lemons, also varieties of 

 passiflora, both with delicious edible fruit, custard apples, rose 

 apples, mangoes, mangostein guavas, bamboos, alligator pears, 

 oranges, tamarinds, papayas, bananas, breadfruit, magnolias, 

 geraniums, candle-nut, gardenias, dracamas, eucalyptus, panda- 

 nus, o/ims* kamani trees, kalo,^ noni,\ and quantities of other 

 trees and flowers, of which I shall eventually learn the names, 

 patches of pine-apple, melons, and sugar-cane for children to 

 suck, kalo and sweet potatoes. 



In the vicinity of this and all other houses, Chili pepper, 

 and a ginger-plant with a drooping flower-stalk with a great 

 number of blossoms, which when not fully developed have a 

 singular resemblance to very pure porcelain tinted with pink at 

 the extremities of the buds, are to be seen growing in "yards," 

 to use a most unfitting Americanism. I don't know how to 

 introduce you to some of the things Avhich delight my eyes 

 here; but you must try to believe that the specimens of 

 tropical growths which we see in conservatories at home are in 

 general either misrepresentations, or very feeble representations 

 of these growths in their natural homes. I don't allude to 

 flowers, and especially not to orchids, but in this instance very 

 specially to bananas, coco-palms, and the pandanus. For 

 example, there is a specimen of the Pandanus odoratissimus in 

 the palm-house in the Edinburgh Botanic Gardens, which is cer- 



* Metrosideros Polymorpha. 

 + Colocasia antiquorum (arum esculentum). + Morinda Citrifolia. 



