two or three miles of foreshore, covered with palm-trees and glossy
tropical vegetation, from which peeped out the roofs and towers of the
residence portion of the city. There were mountains behind the town,
jagged sierra-like peaks with clefts and gorges between. They were
terraced half-way up the sides and were covered with the light green
of crops and the deeper green of forests. Tatters of mist draped
them here and there, while clouds lowered in half a dozen spots,
and we could see the smoky lines of as many showers in brisk operation.

On our left the shipping lay clustered about the wharfs, sending
its tracery of masts into the clear sky; and all around glowed the
beauty of a shallow harbor, coral-fringed. From the sapphire of the
water in our immediate vicinity, the sea ranged to azure and apple
green, touched by a ray of sunlight into a flashing mirror here,
heaping into snow wreaths of surf there; and against this play of
color loomed the swart bulk of the Pacific Mail steamer _Coptic_,
flying her quarantine flag.

We watched the doctor's launch go out to her, saw the flag fall
and the belch of smoke as she started shoreward, while the launch
came on to us. In a little while we too were creeping toward the
docks. Naked Kanaka boys swam out to dive for pennies. The buildings
on the shore took shape. The crowd on the dock shaped itself into a
body of normal-looking beings, interspersed with ladies in kimonos
who were carrying babies on their backs (the Japanese population of
Honolulu is very large), and with other dark-skinned ladies in Mother
Hubbards decorated with flower wreaths. There were also numerous
gentlemen of a Comanche-like physiognomy, who wore ordinary dress,
but were distinguished by flower wreaths in lieu of hat bands. Here
and there Chinese women loafed about, wearing trousers of a kind of