The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-08-05

NbAfiNNAHAN' ASA0oGN u IJG dDeDdSGu Wlll her usual sacrifice of a red hen or a black pig and bunch of ohelo berries, when she could be pacified only by something that gave despairing scream when tossed into the fire lake in which Pele lived. Cruel days of heathendom! It is we'll that they have passed away that Kapiolani made an end of the last of Kilauea's "kapus;" we order things so much better nowa- days. Still you may happen to see the Hawaiian guide, Albert, as he helps you down the slide, pick twig of ohelo and slip it into his pocket, and you may chance to see a little sprig of green flowing down through the hot air into the pit where Pele once lived, the Ha- lema' uma'u, and though Albert walks almost thirty miles every Sunday to go to church and sing hymns, you feel a stray wonder as to whether the old gods are after all quite dead.
 At last and out of breath you have scrambled down to the floor of the crat- CT, and with the assistance of a rock you find that the Lee girl was right when she told you Albert knew how.
 
 the brink of the precipice you find that now it has its ridges and its hollows, and rarely can you see far ahead At the very beginning Is a bridge across a deep gorge in the rock, 8 split in the lava reaching to warm depths below, of which you get whip as you ride over. Here begins the string of lava blocks which have, been set up to mark the path across the lava surface, where in the dull sameness 1t is easy to get lost and hard to find oneself or to be found when astray. There is not level spot anywhere; the surface shivers under the horses hoof in glassy splinters with a crunching sound as though one were going to split sugar. At every turn the lava seems frozen stiff in a wild rush to ingulf the incautious trespasser here in such wierd shapes as Niagara takes on in winter, there twisted like ropes and cables. Everywhere are cracks and crevases. Besides the strange shapes of the lava. underfoot which hold the eye, there is yet nothing to see but the next slope of the lava, the next little valley into which the string of the guide blocks show the path to de- scend, and the wider view is bound by the line of cliffs quivering through the hot emanations of the crater You feel the heat, the glassy surface reflects the sun, no breeze dips down into that hole as it sweeps overhead about it's own better business, and there is a con- stantlyN growing impression that the internal fires are smoldering not so far under that crusted surface. At last the corral, beyond which the horses may not go, is reached. Here is water, a. need well appreciated for the last mile or so over the torrid plain. In vents pulling out fatale, ecomes. g5s-' 'ew Kilauea the well borer would tap, not water, and springs are replaced but vents pulling out steam and birthstone
 But sheets of corrugated iron set on slant serve to condense the vapor which settles down at nightfall and to | drip it drop by drop into a bucket in 1 the shade so that it may be trife less uoInuo ol os ol seum 6lIIul lsouIIe warm for the tourist and horse.
 | Beyond the corral the surface is more rent and torn and twisted and l jagged. The lava is hot underfoot; al- I most every little crack in the field Is | edged with a crust of dirty yellow from 1 the birthstone deposit; as you step l across a rift a .sweltering gust of sul- phur and fused chemicals stings the eyes and chokes the breathing. To the suns heat in that breathless depth the
 earth is surely now contributing from it's own hot store You step from the l f,,,.. ,t,t oti i from a glazed surface The moments s glance down that shaft shows trem- bling chasm of hot and sulphurous rock. The guide puts his stick into a | rift in the lava or drives it anywhere through the glassy crust and brings 1t out ablaze after just touching the fer vent heat over which you are walking with no more than five or six inches of slag between. Of course it's hot as you draw near the shaft whereby the earth
 makes a safety valse for it's pent-up forces at work far below in the center
 of the globe. It Is all very well to re- assure oneself with the statement there is no danger, but even the men in the party have ceased to wander off for It. tie lateral trips of exploration and are seemingly content to let Albert pioneer this part of the path if that is to be called path which is merely hot rock and a string of guide stones.
 There is a throb and a qciver and a fever dancing in the air ahead, and seen through it the encircling cliff in | the rdistance seems to reel and bow. It is not quite certain that the lava un- | derfoot Is shaking, but there is trem- ble unmistakable and a grumbling be- | low There is more sulphur in the | heated air; the air Is hotter than it has 1 been. Suddenly we are standing at the
 baked verge of deeper abyss within
 the pit, place of evil vapors of metals reduced to a steam that sears and l scorches, a place of dread subterranean
 noises, and Albert announces Hale ma'umau." It is then that one may notice little bit of green dropping into | the inferno of swirling vapors, perhaps | a twig of ohelo such as pagan Hawaii l dropped into Pele's home of terror. Any way you chanced to see Albert put l such a twig into the pocket of his blouse far away back in that distant <, world where the soil was cool and green l things grew, long before you came into l this plaie of torments, this limbo and | Gehenna and place of burnings. Well, what if he did? If you were a Hawaii an, and no longer ago than in your | fathers boyhood. this Pele was a god