Altogether the days passed very pleasantly and we were a very merry and friendly party by the time we reached Honolulu.

At Honolulu I got my first glimpse of real tropics, and I was enchanted. It was a glorious sensation for me that April morning when I saw these mid-Pacific islands, for the first time, rise before me out of a white-capped sea; clear-cut in an atmosphere which seems never to be blurred by mist.

American energy, ambition and initiative have wrought great material changes in the islands and these, which were even then important, were brought to our admiring attention later on. I shall always think of Hawaii⁠—of the island of Oahu, rather⁠—as it appeared to me then when our ship steamed past Diamond Head, skirted the high breakers of Waikiki and made its way up through the bright waters of the bay into the harbour of Honolulu. Honolulu is a little, modern city lying, all in sight, against the green of a narrow, gently-sloping, peak-encircled valley.

The Punchbowl, a spent and emptied volcano, outlined in perfect form against the higher hills behind it, plainly tells the story of the spectacular construction of the islands and makes it almost possible to visualise their sudden rise from the sea. They are not very old, according to scientific measurements of time, but they are old enough, at any rate, to have clothed themselves in the most brilliant luxuriance, which is the first thing to impress the traveller as his ship sails into the harbour.

The brilliance from the ship’s deck is the brilliance of every imaginable shade of green, massed against the towering, pointed hills and picked into contrasts of highlight and shadow by a sun and atmosphere peculiar to the tropics. Once ashore, the green foliage becomes the background for a wealth of blooming flowers, flowers everywhere, of unnumbered different varieties, with the flaming hibiscus in every garden, striking the high note of colour. Until we left Honolulu laden with “leis”⁠—long festoons of flower petals which are thrown upon the shoulders of departing friends and visitors⁠—there were always flowers.