us), with its many
tints, its softened lights and shadows, its billowy undulations sweeping
gently down from the mountain to the sea. It was pleasant also, at
intervals, to leave the sultry sun and pass into the cool, green depths
of this forest and indulge in sentimental reflections under the
inspiration of its brooding twilight and its whispering foliage.
We rode through one orange grove that had ten thousand tree in it!
They were all laden with fruit.

At one farmhouse we got some large peaches of excellent flavor.
This fruit, as a general thing, does not do well in the Sandwich Islands.
It takes a sort of almond shape, and is small and bitter. It needs
frost, they say, and perhaps it does; if this be so, it will have a good
opportunity to go on needing it, as it will not be likely to get it.
The trees from which the fine fruit I have spoken of, came, had been
planted and replanted sixteen times, and to this treatment the proprietor
of the orchard attributed his-success.

We passed several sugar plantations--new ones and not very extensive.
The crops were, in most cases, third rattoons. [NOTE.--The first crop is
called "plant cane;" subsequent crops which spring from the original
roots, without replanting, are called "rattoons."] Almost everywhere on
the island of Hawaii sugar-cane matures in twelve months, both rattoons
and plant, and although it ought to be taken off as soon as it tassels,
no doubt, it is not absolutely necessary to do it until about four months
afterward. In Kona, the average yield of an acre of ground is two tons
of sugar, they say. This is only a moderate yield for these islands, but
would be astounding for Louisiana and most other sugar growing countries.
The plantations in Kona being on pretty high ground--up among the light
and frequent rains--no irrigation whatever is required.

CHAPTER LXX.

We stopped some time at one of the plantations, to rest ourselves and
refresh the horses. We had a chatty conversation with several gentlemen
present; but there was one person, a middle aged man, with an absent look
in his face, who simply glanced up, gave us good-day and lapsed again
into the meditations which our coming had interrupted. The planters
whispered us not to mind him--crazy. They said he was in the Islands for
his health; was a preacher; his home, Michigan. They said that if he
woke up presently and fell to talking about a correspondence which he had
some time held with M