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It was full of eager groups; round the betting post a swarming cluster, while the magic circle itself was surrounded by a host of horsemen shouting from their saddles the odds they were ready to receive or give, and the names of the horses they were prepared to back or to oppose. "Will any one do anything about Hybiscus?"
Snowy arums and golden lilies choke the brooks, overflowing from the constant showers combining with a vertical sun to foster the wealth of greenery, the incandescent scarlet and yellow of hybiscus and allemanda glowing with the transparent depth of hue, beside which the fragile fairness of European flowers, is but a spectral reflection of those colour-drenched blossoms fused into jewelled lustre by the solar fires.
The Gardenia, with its strongly scented blossom and evergreen leaves, made a capital hedge. Great bushes of the Hybiscus, scarlet and buff, glowed in the sun they were called shoe-flowers, for they were used instead of blacking to polish our shoes. The pink one-hundred-leaved rose grew freely, and blossomed all the year round.
But the day of tents had long since given place to the day of spacious, square-shouldered bungalows, with pillared verandahs, set in the midst of rambling compounds, where the ferasch and banana flourished in dusty luxuriance, while orange, pomegranate, hybiscus, and poinsettia, to say nothing of marigolds and roses, blazed regally in the blossoming season with scarlet, and crimson gold.
The summit is gained; the tactics alter: here Pavis brings up Caravan, with extraordinary severity, the pace round Tattenham corner terrific; Caravan leading, then Phosphorus a little above him, Mahometan next, Hybiscus fourth. Rat-trap looking badly, Wisdom, Benedict and another handy. By this time Pocket Hercules has enough, and at the road the tailing grows at every stride.
"Do you want the odds against Hybiscus, Berners?" said a guardsman looking up from his book, which he had been very intently studying. "All I want is some supper, and as you are not using your place " "You shall have it. Oh! here's Milford, he will give them me."
A dilapidated carriage is chartered with difficulty, as only three vehicles belong to the island, and the driver evidently expects his skeleton steed to collapse at any pace quicker than a walk. The green lanes, with their hedges of scarlet hybiscus overhung by the feathery foliage of tamarind and bamboo, wind along the shore, and penetrate into the depths of the hills.
Tondano, with houses and verandahs gleaming in spotless whiteness among green spaces and luxuriant trees, appears a typical Dutch town, incongruous but picturesque. The absolute purity and transparency of the atmosphere give value and intensity to every shade of colour, and the scarlet hybiscus flowers show the incandescent glow belonging rather to lamps than to blossoms.
It seemed a scene and a supper where the marble guest of Juan might have been expected, and had he arrived, he would have found probably hearts as bold and spirits as reckless as he encountered in Andalusia. "Will any one do anything about Hybiscus?" sang out a gentleman in the ring at Epsom.
Date and cocoa-palms with shadowy paths beneath them; clear rills with bamboo thickets along their banks and with tangles of white myrtle, red clouds of oleanders that diffused an almond perfume, delicate hybiscus, and unknown flowers combined to weave a magic woof of beauty, using the sifted sunlight for gold threads of warp.
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