The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-06-12
BY WALTER CLIFFORD SMITH.

| one Hawaiian doing anything and he
was falling off house.) Along about
| II a. m. / entered a store on the main
/ street to make small purchase and
| was reminded of the man who Went
into an Arkansaw grocery for quart
of molasses. The Arkansaw merchant
| got up slowly and then sat down,
shaved off a chew Of tobacco and
droned out, Say amt there no other
place in this yer town where you can
get those molasses?" Even the Chi
| namen who have brought the blight of
| Asia to Hilo's principal street are
| drowsy and so must be the mosquitoes,
! for didn't see but one and he was so
tired he could hardly present his bill.
! In a. restaurant I had to stand and ring
a bell to get anyone to come and be
paid. There is no hotel in Hilo; enter
prise is so dead that they leave the
entertainment of strangers to a lodg-
ing house and cafe. There isn't
horse-car in the place and the hacks
I saw had not yet acquired rubber
tires. The telephones are those ancient
things you turn with crank. But for
sleep Hilo beats Ephesus or the place
where Rip Van Wrinkle met the dwarfs.
Except for the movement about the
FOlcdNO STUDIES, IS Tic OilC AA1iO
place where something is doing, you
don't hear a sound to disturb you from
9 D. m. to about $3.50 a. m. except the
soft boom of the surf, the cries of
distant seabirds and the jingle of gold
twentfesaas Admiral Beckley counts his
money. 3Hilo, in fact, is a shady and
tolerant Rest Cure. You can, in fact.
get rid Of all the bad effects of the
Hurry Burly by stay of twentyfour
hours. They don't even kick there
any more; it's too much like work.
Somebody told me that a Hilo man
wrote to Claus Spreckels suggesting
that if he would repair his hotel build
ing there it could be opened to the pub
lie. The reply was: Il wont do thing.
I hope to live long enough to see Hilo
a rotting pile of lumber
e q e
Mauna Loa is a titanic mass of soft
honey-combed rock, with deep galleries
and bubble-chanhbers, fathomless sinks,
crooked chimneys, cracks and fume-
| roles, as full of airholes as a sponge and
containing in it's depths a fiend's Ia
| boratory where molten granite is mixed
with birthstone. When an earthquake
shakes the island you may hear sounds
| in the abysses of the mountain as if a
gale was rushing about through cav
! erns measureless to man." Then when
| too much molten rock has been stored
| up it rises and, following the line of
! least resistance, comes out-perhaps
| from the top or sides of the mountain,
perhaps from the fearsome pit of XII
| lauea, perhaps from your back yard.
By certain signs you generally know
/
liberty to guess all round the mountain
as to where it will appear. Invariably
| during the past century white people
have been lucky enough to get out of
| the way.
The scenic point for tourists is XII
| lauea, on the far outer rim of which
| is the hotel. Standing on the front
| portico of this pleasant hosiery you
| look down over the tops of small, red
aigretted trees, to a black arena such
| as Satan might employ for the Satur-
day afternoon field sports of a hundred
thousand devils. This arena is paved
| with twisted lava, on which may be
| seen, especially when the air is cold,
| jets and puffs of steam. Away off in
the center is the Pit from which sui
+, phuretted clouds are almost ever rising:
and about the vast outer circle are
precipitous cliffs from four to six hun
dred feet high, destitute of vegetation
and showing steam for space back of
their Drinks, but not usually from their
steep sides. It is precisely such a place
as Dante saw and as Dore pictured;
and one may easily understand after
looking down the awful well of XII
lauea how the early theologians got
their physical idea of a place of ever
lasting torment. There is the brim-
stone lake, the bottomless pit, the fire
that never dies and all the other access
series save the gentlemen with horns
and hoofs. MomentariIy you expect
them to emerge and look about for lots
of people you know.
There you stand on the edge of an
abyss that goes straight down for over
a thousand feet to a hot floor of which
you have glimpses through the whirling
vapor-a floor covered with small
hillocks, each with a tiny crater of it's
own which may. at any moment, pour
out a stream of liquid rock. You are
poised on a ledge of cracked lava
cracked in a semf-circle about you, and
ready, il would seem. to fan in and
carry YOU along. Perha0e the cliff bo-
low is u07s-r, nod IT a~v rate. far IN
the --,'7s v0u hear landeldes and
draw back in alright. Nobody ever
gets hurt there but everybody wonders
why
People go from the Volcano House to
point near the crater on horseback
The wiry little nags they ride are put
in a lava stone corral and the rest Of
the trip is made o. f-r BEFORE reach
ing the bri1h or 10 a hot sr0+
where the elemental fs~r1 $
the surface that you car 81
cook meal. While you are resting o.
that handy bench rock an asbestos
cushion might come in we'll Further
along is hole in the cola lava, opening