Ellsworth American. [volume] (Ellsworth, Me.) 1855-current, 1901-08-14
UNCLE SANS VOLCANO.
ONE WE GOT WHEN WE AN
NEXED HAWAII.
NOT A DEAD AND COLD AFFAIR, BUT
A REAL, LIVE, SMOKING, sPUTTER-
ING, VOMITING VOLCANO.
From the y. Y. SUM-.

From the n. Y. SUM-.
so FAR IL had been necessary to take the
volcano for granted. The ticket for the
trip called for a visit to Kilauea, and the
an IA Honolulu who sold it had spoken
OF tue volcano as an existing geographical
aud geological fact. Even the sight board
OF the hotel read: "Voleano House,, SO
there must be such thing In the neigh
berhood. Yet there was not the faintest
vestige OF the boiling lakes OF flame and
tile crash OF nature In hottest commissions
which we're written about, page after page,
by people who had seen Kilauea and given
1t puff in the visitors book at which the
traveller glanced before going to bed the
night before.
All the day before had been given to
thirty odd miles of staging steadily up
the mountain There had been a sight OF
dense jungle where guavas grew along the
roadside, where every great trunk seemed
to serve as botanical hotel tor a lodging
population of ferns aud orchids, where
the ferns themselves were trees ten and
twenty feet high.
Just out OF Hilo the road began In
the cane fields, where every breath
OF the trade wind showers sitting
haze of golden-brown pollen, better
TO look at than to breathe. Then 1t
led into the clainmy dampness OF the
jungle, splced with the odors OF the wild
ginger and score of blooms known
hitherto only by learned names in hot
house setting. How the senses reel where
choice exotics are the weyside weeds!
Here was group of cabins with queer
red daubs trailing snakewise above the
door and probably conveying interesting
Asiatic informal ion-homes OF the small
Japs, whom one passes staggering along
the way, and making clear that the fu-
ture OF Hawaii, IL not American, would
surely be Japanese. More modestIy set in
hooks OF the forest, richer in local color,
here and there was a grass house OF the
native Hawaiian.
Then came the lands where fortunes are
looked for in the cultivation OF coffee.
The planters come to meet the volcano
stage, for 1t carries their mail. AT every
stop before each OF these trim little
orchai ds OF fifty or a hundred acres, the
planter bids you "Iook ut those cherries;
did you ever see anything fiueI? aud you
learn that there is a stage OF the coffee
when it is cherry. Or from his pocket he
brings out a handful OF something Thar
has the coffee shape but the silvery drso
OF a gentle Quakeress, aud ss ne talks
about the bean in the parchment SKIN, you
come to know that coffee has Its own Dis
tory before 1t comes even to be roasted,
and the history begins very prettily indeed
on both sides OF the road with the cream
and red OF the cherries aud the two
shades OF green on the leaves. And all
these young planters speak so confidently
OF the estates they are building up IN the
finest and most W holesome climate III the
world, that you try to forget the SAD MS
tory OF those other young planters VINO
were just as confident in Ceylon until
they met their troubles.
NEARING THE VOLCANO.
Beyond the coffee he road plunges again
into the Jungle, but you begin to notice
that you can see further along the Vis'as'
and that the ferns are getting less Tree
like and the brake Is peeoniins NoAe
bushy. Soon you pass out of the forest
and find yourself on barrens OF Drake anu
gaunt streaks OF bare rock, and the driver
points his whipssh at it and says Lava
and you begin to wonder that you can
discern nothing of the volcano when you
have travelled thousands OF miles to see'
And that lave, too-it looks ike any
other wayside rock; surely nobody out
mineralogist could see any difference
Now that you are high up on the iefn
barrens. YOU can see the eternal SHOWS Vi
Mauna Kea, which looks SO out OF piace
within the torrid zone; you can see 'he
crest OF Mauna Loa, and possibly w"
struggle to be glib about the prohuh
citation of the summit crater OF MO
kuaweoweo, which the guidebook spehS
for you and leaves you without assistance
in getting finished when once you ha''
started to speak about 1t.
And when the sun goes down penine
the great mountain, the eye can se9
nothing ahead but a smooth and barren
slope with nothing to indicate tina. you
are within five miles OF "the giant hiuueA
forces NJ nature. % "the central fires OF the
In cases of cough or Group give ing Them