The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1893-10-21
Our @lio.
HAwAII's FIERY PEAKS.
From the New York Tribune

From the New York Tribune.
The Hawaiian Islands possess probably
greater variety of climate and diversity
of natural features than any other group Of
islands of like extent in all the world. But
the one dominant feature for which they
are best known and most famed is to be
found in their mountain peaks and voica-
noes While many other Pacific Islands
are of coral formation, these are distinctly
volcanic Each member of the group has
one or more commanding peaks. On the
largest, Hawaii itself, are the stupendous
cones of Mauna Loa and Mauna kea,
which rival the loftiest of the Alps, and
far outrank fny other island mountains in
the world save the lately discovered peak
in Papua. Here also is Kilauea, on the
side of Mauna Loa, making with the sum
init crater of the latter the largest two ac-
tive volcanoes in the world; while JUS
across the channel in Maui, towers the
gigantic Haleakala, an extinct volcano
surprising Mount Etna in size and grand
eur.
Kilauea is. always active, and at the
present time seems threatening anoth er
serious eruption. The latest mail advices
from Hawaii tell that the crater has for
some time been seething and bubbling, and
sending up magnificent fountain jets of fire
that are visible for miles. Venturesome
visitors, going to the edge, found the fiery
bowl more than full, the molten lava at the
centre being several feet higher than at the
edges. Now and then it would flow over
and pour down the slope of the mountain
side for some distance, until it cooled,
formed crust, and thus damned up the
torrent. Earthquake shocks were frequent,
and there were all the symptoms of an I'M
pending eruption. This fact, however,
caused no panic, but rather attracted hosts
of visitors, eager 10 witness the incompar-
able spectacle.
There is probably nowhere on the globe
scene more awe-inspiring and dreadfully
sublime than that presented by the crater
of Haleakala Round about the mountain
and on its slopes is Paradise. You ride
for hours amid the semi-tropical verdure
and bloom. Up to the very summit there
is not sign of what lies just beyond the
mountain rim. You reach the top ten
thousand feet in air, and glance back over
glorious panorama of land and ocean, and
involuntarily murmur
''Summer isles of Eden lying in dark
purple spheres of sea.
And then you look before you and see
"the barren beach of He'll at ebb tide"
At your feet lies u stupend0us chasm 5000
feet deep and more than six miles wide,
In its desolate expanse almost any of the
great cities of the world could find room to
be swallowed up. Placed upon its floor,
the tallest peaks of the Catskills could
scarcely be seen above its sulphurous par
apet. And in all its gloomy recesses there
is not a tree nor shrub nor flower nor
blade of grass. There is no living OBJ
iect No bird even flies across it. 1t lies
there in eternal silence and eternal death,
lifted up toward the heavens of perpetual
sum mer, frown upon the smiling face of
nature, the Abomination of Desolation in
the midst of Paradise. Not even the aw-
full lake Of fire on .Mauna Loa so thrills the
hehoder with feas and dread as this dead
crater
'It is He'll with the fires out = said one
visitor, reverently crossing himself, as he
first gazed upon its gloomy depths.
From the crest of Haleakala one can see
the lofty peaks of Hawaii, forty miles away,
seemingly floating in midair. Crossing the
channel and landing at Hilo, one makes his
way toward the peak of Maupa L,oa through
literal jungle of luxuriant tropical vege
tation Even the lava, which, cold and
hard as flint, covers miles Of the land, is
densely overgrown with shrubs. 1t is
ride of thirty miles, and one should take
two days for it; and he may lie awake the
night between them and see fitful flashes
Of volcanic ire playing on the heights above
him, like sheet lightning on the edges ola
distant thntder cloud. The lake of FIRE,
Halemaumau, IS not at the summit of
Mauna Loa, but on its side, only 1000
feet m. II is at one side of the vast crater
called Kilauea. On the very brink of this
abyss stands hotel, the Volcano House,
from the windows of which one may look
down into the pit 1900 feet and across it,
three miles, to whero an ominous blue cloud
forever floats above the bosom of Halemau-
mau -
[tis difficult descent from the hotel to
the floor of the crater, At first theFo is
little vegetation, but after that. for $500
feet down, and then for three miles across,
Kilauea is as barren and as desolate as
Haleakala itself There is nothing but
lava, black, shining, glossy, lying IN fan
tastic folds and waves, No pen can de-
scribe the sensation which the visitor feels
in treading upon such floor and march,
ing across it for miles. He does not think
stbe dust we tread upon was once alive
no, bpt.It was once seethipg, fiery mass,
to approach which would have been instant
death. And even nov there are ominous
assures and bubbles, hot and menacing.
And who knows at what moment the Godss
dess Pee may stir the whole again into a