Close To The Track Crystals Of Olivine Lie In Great Profusion, And In A Few Of The Crevices There Are Young Plants Of A Fern Which Everywhere Has The Audacity To Act As The Herald Of Vegetation.

Beyond this desert the country is different in its features from the rest of the island, a green smiling land of Beulah, varied by lines of craters covered within and without with vegetation.

For thirty miles the track passes under the deep shade of coco palms, of which Puna is the true home; and from under their feathery shadow, and from amidst the dark leafage of the breadfruit, gleamed the rose- crimson apples of the eugenia, and the golden balls of the guava. I have not before seen this exquisite palm to advantage, for those which fringe the coast have, as compared with these, a look of tattered, sombre, harassed antiquity. Here they stood in thousands, young as well as old, their fronds gigantic, their stems curving every way, and the golden light, which is peculiar to them, toned into a golden green. They were loaded with fruit in all stages, indeed it is produced in such abundance that thousands of nuts lie unheeded on the ground. Animals, including dogs and cats, revel in the meat, and in the scarcity of good water the milk is a useful substitute.

Late in the afternoon we reached our destination, a comfortable frame house, on one of those fine natural lawns in which Hawaii abounds. A shower at seven each morning keeps Puna always green. Our kind host, a German, married to a native woman, served our meals in a house made of grass and bamboo; but the wife and children, as is usual in these cases, never appeared at table, and contented themselves with contemplating us at a great distance.

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