The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1905-07-20
pen to a man who had the misfortune
not to get out of the way.

S.s..-s.s-s-s-sIe-sI.-s..-s
pen to man who had the misfortune
not to get out of the way.
AGAIN THE SIX CRATERS.
Well. 1 am coming to them. They
are not to be reached without some eff
fort, particularly if you are no more
accustomed to riding on horseback
than l am. 1t is a ride of twenty-six
miles to see the Six Craters, and if
you have not been on the hurricane
deck of a horse for five or six years.
that is not a joke. But you go down
Through beautiful forest of fern and
lehua trees at a sweeping gallop, after
you have gained a little confidence i'll
your horse, and in the sweet morning
air of the mountain side that is de-
lightful experience. Your horse knows
the road, too, and has a lot more
| faith in you than you have in him.
You see, "a horse has no perspective.
! All men look alike to him-unless they
happen to be women. And then the
difference is that they wear divided
skirts, and have a tendency to clutch
at his name and to shrek if he stops
suddenly in a bad place to pick his
steps However the horse does not mind
| if he had been educated in the tourist
| business.
! The first of the Six Craters, properly
! speaking, is Khauea-ilSi. but that does
not come in the grand tour of them.
/ 1t lies close to the Volcano House, so
close that it is the proper thing to walk
down to it from the hotel, stopping for
a new and unique view of the main
crater as you go at a spot called
Lovers Leap" 1 do not know that
any lovers ever leaped there. They
We're fools if they did. because they
could not have picked out a worse place
to light. Sheer thousand feet the
cliff falls away into the main crater,
above the trail that leads down to the
black lava through the fern and lehua
| trees, and at the bottom is the tumbled
sea of stone that is the crater. Be
! yond, over the black and Jagged
masses the Pits mouth is seen with
the smoke crawling up lazily if of an
cry color, and still beyond towers the
swelling crest of Mauna Loa. 1t is a
great sweep that will take your breath
as you gaZe-and maybe there is a
tradition of some lovers that leaped
there, once upon a time. If there is
not. you can invent one that is better
/ than the name of the place, anyhow.
Because "Loverss Leap is really trite
and altogether unworthy
THE LITTLE KILAUEA.
1t has been supposed that the Pit of
Kilauea-iki is not crater at all, but a
! place into which lava has run from the
main crater of Kilauea, but in view of
all things L am not inclined to accept
| that theory. Neither am / inclined to
advance one Of my own. But Kilauea-
| Xxi is a pit, as the Pit of Halemaumau
/ is, and l fancy gives you something
! of an idea of what the other may be
at some time in the far distant future
provided there is no great CONFUSION
in the meantime. 1t looks a thou and
! feet sheer to the lava ii the floor of the
| little crater and the stuff seems to lie
smooth there, as though it had been
leveled with a roller while it still held
heat enough to be plastic. 1t is seam
ed and cracked in every direction, but
without disturbing this effect of
smoothness. However, it is only an
effect. That lava in the bed of XII
lauea-iki is much like the lava in the
bed of the main crater
At least, that is what those energetic
persons say who have climbed down the
precipitous trail into the place l did
not go down, myself, being too busy
sitting on the brink to enjoy the view
But I observed one thing. which OBJ
servation I afterwards verified in the
wall of the main crater of Kilauea,
oil, t,at ~, vi. I,
sides of the pit the rough lava, or "a,
seemed to have broken right out
through the soil and run down into
the sides towards the bottom. And
that, somehow, seems to fit in with the
theory that there never was much of
an explosion at Kilauea, but that the
hot lava just ate its way through the
earth's crust. and flowed out to fill
depression in the mountain.
! SOME VERY OLD PITS.
After Kilauea-iki. the others. And
then comes that long horseback ride.
/ The experience, however, is we'll worth
it. All the island of Hawaii seems
much more picturesque than Oahu.
perhaps because world in the making
/ is more Scenic than one already com
pleted. The first of the craters, the
Twins" so called or Hahoi, lie in the
! trees at but a few miles distance
from the hotel. and the wayfarer is apt
| TO pass them altogether if the guide
is not at hand to point them out. They
have grown up with trees and ferns
and vines, and are in effect now but
little more than depressions in the for
est-but still in line with that crack
that seems TO run from the summit of
Mauna Loa down to the sea through
Puma. There is a story that once a
lava flow followed that line from XII
lauea under the ground. and emptied
the Pit of Halemaumau itself into the
sea with a mighty moaning and great
commissions of the entire island