The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1906-01-07

It was a happy inspiration that led
the Volcano House party of nine, as
sembled on the night of Decemer 81,
1905, to resolve upon watching the
old year out and the new year ill.," on
the verge of Kilauea's crater.
We had made the descent before, but
Madame Pele yelled her face in clouds
of mist. and was deaf to our en-
treaties to shine forth. But, surely, a
second pilgrimage, and on New Years
eve, would meet with better results!
Further, to propitiate the lady, it was
proposed that a DO tie Of champagne
should be broken at the crater ir her
honor.
The sun set in a nfmbus Of glory,
and the moon swung out, a silver
lamp shedding a flood of radiance over
mountain, valley and sea. The guests
of the Volcano House, circled about
the big fireplace in the coy raftered
room of the ''old house, waited the
hour of departure.
All at once the still night air became
vocal with melody; the mellow strains
of Hawaiian folk songs, sung to the
tinkling accompaniment of guitar ana
ukulele, drew us to the door. band
of Hawaiian singers, their brown faces
smiling under holiday leis, were sere-
nading their friends, and the friends
of their friends.
They were persuaded with some diff
ffculty, to enter. and sitting in awk-
ward constraint on stiff parlor chairs,
played waltzes and two-steps for the
''Haole" folk to dance by. When this
pastime paled, they went back, with
evident relief, to the moonlight and
the cool night air; and in gratitude for
their escape broke into song, ending
with that witching, haunting melody, |
aloha De-"
Ten o'clock, and the horses were at
the door With the suddenness known /
only to tropical chimes. the mood of the |
night had changed. A fleet of clouds,
and white-winged, sailed |
up out of the west; and there was |
general scamper for the five raincoats, |
it being a case of 'the hindmoSt gets
left"
The cavalcade filed into the path that
led by devious windings to the lava |
plain, Host Lycurgus, bearing the
champagne anu SdlluWlCASS, LII
solemn procession of one on foot.
Down and still down, the night dark
ening as we advanced, until, when we
reached the lava beds, the trail be-
yond was lost in shadows. Single file,
with their noses to the ground, the pa
lent horses picked their steps by Ian
tern-light, the guide. marching ahead,
sending back an occasionally Hello
o bring up the stragglers in the rear.
Henry, are you tn -ere?" was heard
n an anxious feminine voice 1 can
,nly see your lantern"
That's all there is left of me-" came
,aintly, mournfully on the night winds,
rom the invisible Henry.
At the corral the party dismounted,
and tumbling over the broken lava,
sometimes on the path, sometimes off,
he nine made a Decline for the crater,
smoking propitiously half-mile
thead. Twenty minutes after eleven!
Gould we make it by twelve?
1t was a breathless scramble in the
the lanterns. dancing like
iref1ies. seeming to intensity the
gloom. But at last, with fifteen min
ties of the old year left to u.s. we stood
IN the brink of the pit, gasping and
in the clouds of sulphurouS
moke that enveloped US.
There was a hurried unpacking of
bottles, a chorus of pop
,ing corks, and with glasses held aloft,
We toasted Madame Pele on the tick of
welve, casting bottles and glasses into
he depths below.
AS if in response to the toast, the
nists of the pit lifted, and we, crouch
ng on the crumbling brim of the era
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