The Hawaiian Archipelago - Six Months Among The Palm Groves, Coral Reefs, And Volcanoes Of The Sandwich Islands By Isabella L. Bird
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Not Far Off Is The Battle Field On Which The Adherents
Of The Idols Rallied Their Forces Against The Iconoclasts, And Were
Miserably And Finally Defeated.
Recent lava streams have descended
on each side of the bay, and from the bare black rock of the landing
a flow may be traced up the steep ascent as far as a precipice, over
which it falls in waves and twists, a cataract of stone.
A late
lava river passed through the magnificent forest on the southerly
slope, and the impressions of the stems of coco and fan palms are
stamped clearly on the smooth rock. The rainfall in Kona is heavy,
but there is no standing water, and only one stream in a distance of
100 miles.
This district is famous for oranges, coffee, pineapples, and
silence. A flaming palm-fringed shore with a prolific strip of
table land 1,500 feet above it, a dense timber belt eight miles in
breadth, and a volcano smoking somewhere between that and the
heavens, and glaring through the trees at night, are the salient
points of Kona if anything about it be salient. It is a region
where falls not
". . . Hail or any snow,
Or ever wind blows loudly."
Wind indeed, is a thing unknown. The scarcely audible whisper of
soft airs through the trees morning and evening, rain drops falling
gently, and the murmur of drowsy surges far below, alone break the
stillness. No ripple ever disturbs the great expanse of ocean which
gleams through the still, thick trees.
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