760 
THE VOYAGE OE H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 
of Distichopora coccinea, often mistaken by purchasers for Precious Coral ( Corallium 
rubrum), and spurious imitations of native implements manufactured for sale, are dis- 
posed of, at exorbitant prices, to passengers by the mail steamers. It is said that a 
Chinaman is even employed to manufacture facsimiles of the stone gods of the ancient 
Hawaiians for sale as genuine curiosities ; the forged deities being represented as having 
been dug up in taro fields. 
The business streets are very hot and dusty, but around the hotel and villa dwelling 
houses on the east side of the town are pretty gardens, filled with the usual imported 
tropical garden plants, shrubs, and trees, which are maintained alive only by constant 
irrigation, hoses from the town supply-pipes being kept playing on them day and night. 
Thirty years ago, where these gardens now are, there was not a single tree, and now the 
gardens form only a small oasis in a dry parched desert, which extends along the coast 
east and west, and is soon reached on leaving the town in either of these directions. 
On this tract the bare volcanic rock shows out everywhere, and the only conspicuous 
vegetation is a Prickly Pear ( Opuntia ) introduced from America, which has spread far 
on either side from the town and multiplied exceedingly, so as to form in places a dense 
impassable growth, and constitute a most conspicuous feature in the landscape. These 
barren parts of Oahu resemble somewhat the rocky tracts of Tenerife with their growth 
of Euphorbia canariensis. The Guava, another introduced American plant, has spread 
in all directions, in places forming dense thickets from which it is difficult to drive out 
the half-wild cattle. 
The whole town of Honolulu has a thoroughly American aspect. Americans are 
supplanting the rapidly decreasing native population ; American plants are, as has been 
said, covering the ground, and American birds have been introduced and bid fair to 
spread and oust the native fauna, which has no single land bird in common with any 
other Polynesian island group. The only vigorous opponents of the Americans in the 
struggle for existence seem to be the Chinese. 
Behind Honolulu is the Nuuanu Valley (see fig. 266), with precipitous walls in its 
upper part, which becomes greener and greener as the ascent is made by the road leading 
up it. The difference between the rainfall in the valley and in Honolulu is most remarkable. 
At Waikiki, near Honolulu, at sea level, the rainfall in 1873 was 37'85 inches, whilst in 
the Nuuanu Valley, 2§ miles inland, and at an elevation of only 550 feet, the fall in the 
same year was 134'06 inches. Captain Wilkes says that even certain streets in the town 
of Honolulu are said to be more rainy than others. The leading native trees in the 
valley are the malvaceous Hibiscus tiliaceus, the Acacia koa, and the Candle Nut ( Aleurites 
triloba). The Hibiscus forms curiously tangled impassable thickets, while the Acacia grows 
only high up on the cliff tops. The Candle Nut trees, by the peculiar glaucous colour 
of their foliage, give a characteristic appearance to the vegetation seen in the far distance, 
for these bluish green trees appear as rounded bushes, dotted over the high ground above 
