Hawaii - James Michener [413]
But most memorable of all he saw that day was the red earth. Down millions of years the volcanic eruptions of Kauai had spewed forth layers of iron-rich rocks, and for subsequent millions of years this iron had slowly, imperceptibly disintegrated until it now stood like gigantic piles of scintillating rust, the famous red earth of Kauai. Sometimes a green-clad mountain would show a gaping scar where the side of a cliff had fallen away, disclosing earth as red as new blood. At other times the fields along which the men rode would be an unblemished furnace-red, as if flame had just left it. Again in some deep valley where small amounts of black earth had intruded, the resulting red nearly resembled a brick color. But always the soil was red. It shone in a hundred different hues, but it was loveliest when it stood out against the rich green verdure of the island, for then the two colors complemented each other, and Kauai seemed to merit the name by which it was affectionately known: the Garden Island.
For out of its lush red soil, teeming with iron, grew a multitude of trees: palms that clung to the shore; pandanus that twisted itself into dense jungle; banyans with their thousand aerial roots; hau and kou, the excellent trees of the islands; swift-growing wild plum that had been imported from Japan to provide burning fagots for the laborers; and here and there a royal palm, its moss-pocked trunk rising majestically toward the heavens. But there was one tree specially dedicated to Kauai, and it made both life and agriculture on the island possible. Wherever the powerful northeast trades whipped sea and salt air inland, killing everything that grew, men had planted the strange, silky, gray-green casuarina tree, known sometimes as the ironwood. Groves of this curious tree, covered with ten-inch needles and seed cones that resembled round buttons, stood along the shore and protected the island. The foliage of the casuarina was not copious and to the stranger each tree looked so frail that it seemed about to die, but it possessed incredible powers of recuperation, and what it thrived on most was a harsh, salty trade wind that whipped its fragile needles into a frenzy and tore at its cherry-bark trunk; for then the casuarina dug in and saved the island. The sea winds howled through its branches; its frail needles caught the salt; the force of the storm was broken and all who lived in the shadow of the casuarina tree lived securely.
As the Japanese rode through this verdant wonderland, a storm flashed in from the sea, throwing tubs of water over the land, but Wild Whip, holding his prancing horse under control, shouted to his interpreter, "Ishii-san, tell the men that on Kauai we don't run from storms!” The frail little interpreter ran from wagon to wagon, shouting, "On this island it rains a dozen times a day. Soon the sun comes out. We never bother." And as he predicted, after a few minutes the wild storm moved on to sulk in a valley until a rainbow was flung across it, and it was toward this rainbow that Kamejiro and his companions rode.
They had come to the valley of Hanakai, the Valley of the Sea, but they were not yet aware of that fact, for the highway upon which they rode was at this point more than a mile inland; but leading off from it, to the right and toward the sea, appeared a spectacular lane. It was marked by twenty pairs of royal palms, gray-trunked and erect, that Whip had sent home from Madagascar on one of the H & H ships, and these magnificent sentinels guarded the road as stone lions had once stood watch for the Assyrians. Entering the deep shade of the