The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1905-07-20
A NATURAL LAUNDRY.

A NATURAL LAUNDRY.
There is perfectly splendid forest
of fern trees, and if you are of an OBJ
serving mind you will notice, on your
way to visit this, that the Jap woman
of the house is of an economical turn
and has set her sheet iron tubs of soiled
table linen over the hot cracks in the
earth and that it takes but a few
minutes to boil the water, even at that
elevation. George Lycurgus, it is true,
does not use the heat from these cracks
for cooking. He cooks, and heats his
big sitting room, too, with koa logs,
like the generous host that he is-but
he might cook for the hotel in this
natural furnace if he saw fit. Alex
Lancaster. the guide, will do it for you
coffee and hroiling steak and frying
ham in the fire that nature has made
to remodel the world. For man is a
little thing, just like that. Which
may be why nature sometimes gets
angry at him and sweeps him out of
existence by wholesale. 1 fancy that
1 would 10 the same thing, if 1 were
nature-and I have no doubt whatever
that you yourself have seen times when
people so aggravated you that you have
felt, if you have not expressed, the
wish to make the whole thing over
|again.
But, while there are no springs about
the Volcano House, some predecessor
of Lycurgus there has walled up a
place right infthe center of one of the
great hot assures, and this has become
filled with water. And the present
manager uses this as a frog pond. 1t
is full of great big fat fellows, who
hot steam so permeates the earth
about there that the Volcano House
gardens have become a wonder, pro-
ducing more than enough vegetables to
supply the hotel table. and of size
and flavor that are amazing.
THE SIX CRATERS.
Kilauea. as everybody knows, lies
high up on the slope of Mauna Loa
which yet reaches above it into the
clouds. The slope is gentle, so gentle
that you hardly realize a the Volcano
House that you are on a mountain and
realize with more difficulty the tremen-
dous elevation of Mauna Loa itself The
big mountain, which embraces in it's
bulk the greater part of the island of
Hawaii, seems just a great round HILL
and in the clear air it looks as though
you could walk to the summit of it
without any trouble at ALL But, you
couldn't. You could not ride to the
summit. without almost killing a
horse. They charge you the price of a
horse to go up there. in fact because
they figure that afterwards the horse
that you have ridden will be played
out.
And you cannot see the summit of
Mauna Loa at all from the Volcano
House, nor from anywhere near its
base. You just see a great. gently
| swelling dome that looks like it is the
summit. The mountain, still rising. is
SO nearly fiat in its contour that the
real top is lost to the eye before your
| gaze can get up there. And for the
same reason. you cannot get any
broad, sweeping view from the summit
of the mountain.
L did not go up there. but this in
formation is upon the authority OF L.
A. Andrews, formerly sheriff of Hawaii
And 1 should fancy if the great crater
of Mauna Loa We're active when you
got to the top, that you would not
want any sweeping view. You would
want TO go away from there. and by
some road not likely to be followed by
a flow of lava. or hot mud. Because
the flows that lie along the sides of
! the mountain, all the sides, are most