The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1877-11-22


best kind Of play.
--W1de Awabe.
The Largest Volcano in the World.
Why, it isn't on the top of noun
tain at all What humbug my geog-
raphy must have been |"
So wrote little fellow to a young
friend in America.
He was right. 1t isn't on the top Of a
mountain, though the biographies do
say. "a volcano is q mountain sending
forth fire, smoke and lava, and give the
picture of a mountain smoking at the
top.
This volcano is nothing of the kind;
but is hideous, yawning black pit at
the bottomof amountain, and big enough
to stow away large city.
OF course you want to know, first,
where this wonder is. Get out the map
Of the Western hemisphere, put your
finger on any Of the lines running north
and south, through North America, and
called meridians; follow itsouth until you
come to the TrOpic of Cancer, running
east and west; then left-about-face p
and, following the tropic, sail out into the
calm Pacific. After q voyage Of about
1000 miles, you run ashore on one Of a
group OF islands marked Sandwich. We
will call them Hawaiian, for that is their
true name. Not one of the brown, ma
tive inhabitants would call them g Sand
WITCH. An English sailor gave them
that name, out of compliment to O GER
tain Lord Sandwich.
On the largest of these islands,
Hawaii pronounced Ha-y-e"-is the
volcano, Kilauea, the largest volcano in
the world.
We have seen it a great many times,
and, that you may see ii as clearly
as possible, you shall have letter from
the very spot. The letter reads
Here we are, q large party of us,
looking into Kilauea, which is nine miles
in circumference, and a thousand feet
below us-a pit about seven times as
deep as Niagara falls are high. We
came to-day, on horseback, from HilO,
a ride Of thirty miles. Hilo is a beauti-
full sea-shore village, the largest on the
island OF Hawaii, and from it all visitors
to KiIauea make their start.
The road over which we came is
nothing but a bridle-path, and very
rough one at that, traversing miles and
miles OF old lava flows. We had almost
ridden to the crater's brink before we
discovered, in the dim twilight, the aw-
full abyss.
Before us is the immense pit which,
in the daytime, shows only a floor of
black lava, looking rs smooth as satin;
and, miles away, rising out of this floor,
are few slender columns OF smoke.
8" AT night everything is changed !;
and you can't conceive Of the lurid, de-
moniacai effect. Each slender column
of smoke becomes a pillar of fire that
rolls upward, throbbing as it moves,
and spreads itself out above the crater
like an immense canopy, all ablaze.
Ships q hundred miles from land see
the glow, and we here, on the precipice
above, can read ordinary print by it's
lUrid light.
emo wonder the natives worshiped
the volcano. They thought it the home
OF a goddess, whom they named Pele,
and in times of unusual activity believed
her to be very angry with them. Then
they came In long professions, from the
seashore villages, bringing pigs, dogs.
fowls, and sometimes human beings. for
sacrifice. These they threw into the
crater, to appease her wrath.
"A small berry, called the ohelo,
grows on the banks Of the pit, and Of
these the natives never dared to eat IN
Til Pele had first had her share. Very
polite, were they not? And if ever they
forgot their manners I dare say she
gave them shaking up by an earth
quake as reminder.
Sandal-wood and strawberries grow
all about here-and feas, too ! wicked
heas, that bite voraciously, to keep
themselves warm, I think, for here, SO
far from Pele's hearth, it is cold, and we
sit by log fire of our own.
The day after our arrival we went
into the crater, starting Immediately af-
ter an early breakfast. There is but
one entrance, a narrow ledge, formed by
the gradual crUmbling and falling in 81
the precipice. Along this ledge we
slipped and scrambled, making the
descent ON foot-for no ridden animal
has ever been able to descend the
trail. Holding on to bushes and snage
when the path was dangerously steep
we finally landed below on the blach
satin floor of lava
S tin What had looked so smooth
and tempting from thousand feet above
turned out TO bea surface more troubled
and uneven than the oceans in the mos
violent storm. And that tiny thread D