The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1896-04-30

sound of our voices. The tones were
echoless and dead. and it seemed at
times as though another mans voice
was articulated through ones mouth
In a short time the guide moved on
again, by instinct, apparently, especial
ly when the mist closes in heavily, but
every now and then traces could be seen
of the party who had preceded us by
a few days. The stiffness was oppres-
siye, only broken at times by what Mr..
Nantilini, in his mangle-turDing days,
would call zone demned internal
grind" of the horses feet upon the grit
ty pahoehoe, but as we could see the
smoke of the crater before, albeit above,
as, we felt assured of the general di-
rection. At the expiration of another
hour we rested again, and while COM
menting on the probable length of time
that would elapse before vegetation
would clothe the horrid waste, Effer-
Vescent Bob laid wager with the his
torian that in 300 years there would
be a desirable farm where we then
stood. We bound ourselves to be wit
nesses to the result, and move on.
The lava fields of this region exceed in
wilderness and confusion the most ex-
tTavagant nightmare ever inflicted up
on mortal man. For miles on either
hand, behind and above, great billowy
masses tossed and twisted into a thou
sand grotesque shapes met the eye.
Huge terrace after terrace is surmount-
ed, and still before us rise new rugged
outlines TO be overcome. Immense bub-
bles have slowly risen from the con-
fused masses and burst, and yawned
apart. Swift running. streams of molten
H. NARL 49, -
the CONCEALED surface. Massive flows
have fallen in, exposing new depths of
Jagged outlines; at times we skirt the
sides of great streams of "a, that have
rushed down over everything, and
heaped high rugged mounds of brown
scorfa into impossible walls. Winding
around the base of tossed up hillocks of
rounded pahoehoe, traversing the sur
face of what was once a widespread |
lake that in cooling had cracked and |
rent its floor into thousand gaps and |
assures; painfully toiling up the sides |
of mounds of debris, and again for miles |
surrounding the rounded surfaces of
billowy lava, the road leads on and ever
upward 1t was rough Walking for |
half an hour ran the pulse up to 165 |
beats per minute, and while resting the |
average rate of those who had been rid |
ing, was 100 beats per minute. But lit |
tie nausea or mountain sickness" was
felt, but all were more or less troubled |
with a turgid sensation in the head, |
some ringing of the ears, and all
breathed quickly, with frequent strong
inspirations. to fill the lungs. A slight
cut on the finger of one of the party
bled very freely, as did the abraSions
inflicted on the horses heels by contact
with the rough lava. The surface of the
lava, if broken by the horses hoOfS,
presents no new appearance, and an at
tempt by one of the party to trace, for
even a few rods, the apparent track
ended invariably in ignominious fail
are. At such times an amused express
sion fitted across the shrewn counte-
nance of our guide, as he, without a
hesitation, moved into the
trail" and we quietly followed. / say
quietly advisedly, for all our faculties
were now concentrated in the occu-
patton of breathing and looking toward
the ever distant summit smoke. At last
after five hours of toll we rode through
a rude gateway formed by two gigantic
masses of upheaved lava rock, and
reached the edge of a rough pail, from
which we looked out upon
The Summit.
Before us lay a rugged plain about two
miles in diameter, of black lava, over
laid in many places with fields of brown
IA, and everywhere torn into unheard-
of shapes by the fierce power that had
upheaved the whole. To our right rose
a remarkable monument or pillar show
ing black against the sky. On every
hand yawned deep crevices, and spent
waves of lava had dashed together in
d myriad shapes and so CONCEALED. Hur-
rying on as we'll as we were able, we
finally reached a cul-de-Sac formed by
a branching IA flow, and here we dis
mounted and tethered our animals for
the night. This done, we took our way
500 yards over a narrow strip of rugged
lava, and all at once stood upon the
edge of the
Crater of NTokuaweoweo.
There before us at our feet, as it were,
yawned a terrific chasm, with black
perpendicular walls carrying the eye
down some 500 feet, to where, in the
inky blackness of the lower BASIN there
sprung up in glorious sparkling, light,
a mighty fountain of clear
molten lava.
heI0fFlHS 10 the uldSEdn puplIShSu
herewith, the reader will find that we
reached the crater's edge on the eastern
side at the point marked by the outline
Of a tent. The ancient walls that en-
circle the pit, marked A, on our side
fell perpendicularly about five hundred
feet, while on the opposite or western
side they ran down nearer eight hun
dred, to where the plateau marked B
formed floor to the crater. broken
down again to form the pit marked G.
The general shape of the central crater,
was an irregular elipse, .
rather more than three-quarters of
mile through the shorter axis, by about ,
a mile and quarter from the dividing
wall marked by dotted line on the left .
that separated it from F, the crater -,
known as Pohaku Hanalei, to similar :,
though not so we'll defined partition :
II on the right hand fhaf - |