PARK AND CEMETERY 
77 
Qvic Improvement 
THe OvitlooK for Civic Beaxitx in Honolxilvi. 
By Charles Mulford Robinson. 
Author of '‘''The Improvement of Tovjns and Citiesf’' and '"'‘Modern Civic Art,^'* 
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 ma\' 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 per- 
sons 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 Pa- 
cific 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 disappointment in the first impression made by the 
vegetation of the Hawaiian Islands after six days of 
sailing on the ocean. But all the wav across the 
ocean one’s eyes are very much open, and going as I 
did by way of southern California, with frequent 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 Hon- 
olulu with none of this experience, there could be no 
disappointment. But after the roses of California, 
after the riot of flowers in park and garden, by way- 
side 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. 
Rocks 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 south- 
ern 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 cocoanut palms, 
which in pictures give the necessary touch of trop- 
icalness. 
In the first days there is recognized the beauty of 
the hills, but they are not quite as high as one had 
expected — not really mountains, on the island upon 
which is Honolulu ; and one misses a wealth of gar- 
den flowers. There are no roses, a Japanese beetle 
having destroyed them all some years ago and suc- 
cessfully prevented their culture since, and the few 
flowers raised in gardens — as petunias, geraniums, 
and nasturtiums — seem no more flourishing than in 
the eastern states. The banana is stunning but 
scraggly. and its big leaves have become familiar in 
California. The graceful pepper tree is not as beau- 
tiful here as on the coast ; the orange and lemon 
trees are hardlv as good, and for the common date 
and fan-leaved palm one had no need to cross two 
thousand miles of ocean. The whole effect is not, 
in short, the sum of many additions — California plus 
and plus — and in the first recognition of its algebraic 
character, that there are deductions to be made, one 
does feel a little pang of disappointment. 
By degrees, however, one turns from subtractions 
to additions. There is here the wonderful royal 
palm, its great white trunk making it the most archi- 
tectural of all God's trees, so that a row of the royal 
palms is a natural colonnade ; there is the ever pic- 
turesque cocoanut palm, its long stem shooting off 
on grotesque curves, like a sky-rocket ; there is the 
far-spreading, hospitable banyan of childhood’s pic- 
