The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1875-08-21

crater's edge, dispose of our horses, walk forward
aud-look down
That frst glance urscts ali our preconeeiyed
ideas Of the crater. The paintings. sketches,
maps, Mark Iwain's description in d Roughing
1t, - fail to give 4 commensurate idea Of it
vast depth and extent To say that il is thirty
miles in circumference, two thousand feet deep,
and that in It's bosom are many craters mountains
in themselves. and streams Of dead lava riyaiing
in length and breadth many q European river,
conveys no idea Of its majesty, its awful stiffness
and gloomy color, that are its impressive features.
We look down. almost perpendicnlarly, on an
irregular plain, covered with huge mounds,-one
! seven hundred feet high-which hare been formed
by various eruptions. These crater mounds are
smoothly c~onieal, each with n depression in the
centre and one side cut away by the lava stream
that bult them up. Time, and the clements,
have long since worn down all projections and
rough edges. until now they are symmetrical
masses of rcd sand and scoTia. The plain from
which thee .rise was anciently oyerfown with
lava streams, while one broad river of the kind
called IA, or black seoria, sweeps around in n
magnificent curve from a cone on our right ga
pa puad 0 Peh) for three or four miles, and dis
appears in a valley between two moro distant
cones.
From the floor Of the great pit rise huge but
tresses of calcined rock, leaning TO the side walls
and reaching up to the brink on which we stand.
Over this encircling wall a Niagara might pour
its Volume, and the water would be turned 10
spray by the eddying winds long before it reached
tho floor below. The near edge of the plain Is
dotted with what to the naked eye appear to be
bushes, but the glass shows that they are goodly
sized trees. Between the buttresses the debris
has slid down, until, in many places, there is n
smooth grade Of fearful s~teepness, extending to
the plain beneath. Down these inclines it is the
fashion for visitors to roll huge rocks. We unite
in setting in motion masses that oyerhang the
edge, and as a boulder rs large as a hogshead
topples over and falls with n crash on the loose
stones a few feet down, and then fairly starts on
its plupging, bounding journey, we watch it
with growing interest, and enjoy the reckless
g SPORT until its further progress is only made
known by the rattling echoes that CONF up from
the far off depths.
On this side, is one huge gap in the wall Of the
crater, through which we sec the Hama district,
with a long point tufted with cocoanut trees,
running far out to sea. Almost directly south is
another gap, through which we look upon the
channel between this island and Hawaii. The
peaks of Mauna Kea, Mauna Loa and Hualalai
bound the horizon in this direction, and We do
not soon tire of admiring the gentle eastern slope
of Mauna Kea, nor the grand curve described by
the outline of Mauna Loa beyond.
Turning about, we look down ON the whole of
the northeastern part of East Maui, with its
cane-felds like spots of green on a dark ground
and further to the northwest, across the narrow
peninsula to West Maui and into the romantic
valley Of lao.
Beyond Maui We see the Island of AIolokai
beyond that again the dim outline of Oahu to
the left n corner Of Lanai and in the west is
Molokini and KahoOlawe. Somebody at our
elbow asserts that they can make out Kauai, but
we doubt it. We wave our handkerchief at a
schooner off the shore, but as her main-sail looks
from here like n tiny s~ea-gull's wing, we are far
from sure that our signal is recognized. In
Maalaea Bay lies the Pensacola, looking like Il
toy-ship.
But it is quite time we thought about
supper and sleep. The first, with appetites that
are quite unscrupulous) we achieve under the
shelter of a ledge of rocks; the second we post
ponc until our return to a less elevated region.
In spite OF the fire We have built, the cold keeps
us awake. 1t is August, but at noon our Their
mometer stood at $50, and during the night it
drops to 400. But how our lungs (long starved
on the stale atmosphere of Honolulu) drew inspi-
rations deep of the mountain wind!
1T seems the breath Of a celestial cline!
Asnirom Heavens vide open gates did flow
About halt-past four in the morning, standing
upon the breezy summit W look out owards the
east, where already long shafts of opal light ray
out from q common centre on the distant horizon.
just below us lies the uneven outline Of the
islands shore, darkly clothed with streaks of
heavy forest and belted with a fringe of cleaning
breakers, showing like a thin white line. Be
yond, the ocean stretches out in a vast plain,
whose surface is darkened by the shadows of the
billowy clouds that hang above it. Looking
down upon these clouds, whose under surfaces
are level, we see them piled in snowy masses like
distant mountains, or sharp rising into lofty pin
naclcs and bleached ruins. Here and there they
edge about a narrow strait of blue that, spread
ing out, becomes an aerial sea, bearing upon its
bosom fragmentary clouds like ships or icebergs.
The edges of the clouds along the eastern horizon
become suffused with a silvery light that makes
the sky above radiant with approaching day.
Insensibly the objects near at hand take on q life
like aspect, changing from the dim uncertainty of
gray half-lights in which all details are obscured,
to well-known piles of rocks with clean-cut edges,
rough dykes of lava, ragged slopeso of scoria and
level tracts of dead-black sand. Above the belt
of clouds that overlays the south there rises, four
thousand feet above our present elevation, the
uneven crest of Mauna Kea, and beyond the long
slope of Mauna Loa, with their snow-capped sum
mits, on the eastern side, bathed in deepest
crimson, shading into purple lower down, and
blending on the west with the lingering shadows.
AS the king Of day draws nigh, there runs along
the ocean horizon a brilliant gold and silver band;
the clouds take on a lovely crimson flush, that is