The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-05-10

two lines of steamers running between
the different islands. The trip by either
route is INTERESTING and varied, that by the
lnterlsland Company, landing at Hllo,
being perhaps the most picturesque. A
good many travellers go by one route and
return by the other, an arrangement that
gives week at the volcano and takes in a
great deal of interesting country.
1t would not be possible to give de-
scrlptlon OF the volcano that would convey
any just idea of this most fearful of all
natural wonders. To begin with, it does not
In the least answer to the pictures given in
our biographies of the ''mountain sending
out 1re, smoke and lava" 1t is not like a
nice round sugar-loaf, with little curling
wreath OF vapor issuing from the top like
smoke from cottage chimney. The
mountain is a beautiful, wooded height,
cut with charming little valleys and trav-
ersed by jolly, laughing streams. Sugar
plantations nestle at its feet. The
ascent winds through groves of tropical
trees, forests of banana and ohia, the
native apple, great tree ferns, towering
nifty. feet in air, wild guavas and castor
tnIckets. Ohela berries grow by the road
side, mangos and breadfruits. 1t is one OF
the most beautiful roads that can be i'm
agined, albeit it calls for some stiff
climbing.
AT the end of the journey, thirtysmiles
from anywhere, is the Volcano House, one
OF the best-appointed hotels to be found
anywhere, kept by Peter Lee, genial ex-
sea captain. Here the traveller who ar
rlves worn out with the hard mountain
trip is given vapor bath in the hot sui
phurous breath of the volcano (the steam
being piped into the bathroom by the sim
pie process OF running pipes into the hot
earth), and is then put luxuriously to bed.
In the morning he awakes fresh as a lark,
all the soreness and fatigue of the Journey
gone from his limbs. These baths are
famous cure for rheumatism.
But The crater at the top is like vision
OF sheol. Imagine great pit, thousand
feet deep, with perpendicular walls of Jet
black. The pit is nine miles in circumfer-
ence. 1t Is three miles across, and the
floor, the walls, the very stones by the way
side are black as night. And there
are scenic effects done in ebony
all about you. The crater is broken up
into mountains and valleys, ravines and
streams The mountains are jet black,
the ravlnes are lnky chasms whose mid
night depths cannot be sounded, and the
streams are of burning fire.
One walks across this black waste, not
ing the features of the horrid landscape,
until Hale-mau-mau is reached the ever
lasting fire." This is the lake of the
crater.
DuI Sucn lake! Inc shores are DlacK
lava rock piled thirty feet high by the
tossing waves. Within their combining
circle the lake, mile across, losses and
heaves, its waves lap the shore and send
their spray dashing over, but the waves
are of liquid fire, like molten iron just run
ming from the furnace, and the spray is
blazing drops of hot lava.
The shore on which the spectator stands
burns MS shoes, the heat of the air is in
tense, like the rush of hot breath from an
open furnace door. The spectacle is grand,
beautiful dreadful. 1t exercises fearful
fascination over the beholder. One longs,
yet breads, to leave. The memory of that
sight will never leave the mind. Nature
can have no further terrors for him who
has once seen kilauea. Nowhere in the
known portions of the globe has she
afforded man such spectacle as here
awaits him.
II have been over nearly every portion
of our EARTH" said one passenger by the
Mariposa, land seen about all there is to
be seen, but the crater of Kilauea exceeded
in awfulness and interest all l had ever
dreamed Of | shall never forget it,"