The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1907-11-30

I II Is all true MS people went 10 hid
! wall. I ask him then why they named
/ one Of the islands Maui. he replies that
! in Samoan, Maui means place to go
and live in. Kauai he tells me means
/ lin Samoan), Distant place. or ex-
! IRENE land" and SO it goes as I re-
/ call Hawaiian names.
The baked cocoanut I eat is called a
! luAu, because it is served cooked in
taro leaves.
To visit the volcano that has been
erupting for two years I start from
| Paia, and strange to say, it was at
Paia, on Maui, that I bought at the
plantation store a pair of shoes to
climb Haleakala, and at Paia, Savaii.
these parted from my feet and l am
compelled to consecrate a new pair
to the climbing Of Savaii's still active
crater.
I believe that turn about is fair
play. Samoa has given many names
10 places in Hawaii, I was determined
that Hawaii should give at least one
name to a place in Savaii so I prepared
accordingly. No one has ever named
the active crater of Savaii. I carried
up the mountain with me-by proxy,
for my Samoan boy bore the sign
had painted board with the legend
''Fale Tatenoh on one side and on the
other the same name in Hawaiian.
IF becomes H in Hawaiian and T be-
comes K.) There is no one whose
name is more closely identified with
Hawaii's great volcano than that of
''Tateno" 1 explained to the Samoans,
and I told them how he had stood
godfather for the Goddess Pele for 10
these many years, and that when the
Congressman from Washington dined
on the edge of tie crater, It was
'Tateno' who responded 10 the toast
TO the goddess and acted as historian
of the Hawaiian volcano. con my
rturn to Apia, the governor of Samoa
remembered well the man who had
not only made the fame of Kilauea
known to the world, but had been one
of Kalakaua's ministers, and later Ha-
waiian Minister to Washington, so he
approved the naming of the Samoan
crater most heartily.)
The eruption in Samoa became
violent about the time Kilauea became
inactive; Pele doubtless leaving Hale
maumau for "Fale Tateno.'' In less
than two years a valley has disap-
peared-as did the valley where XII
lauea now erupts-and in it's place is
lava hundreds of feet in depth, from
which rises a cone, and in this cone
the boiling lake of fire.
1t was night time when reached the
edge of the lava bed. For twelve miles
to the sea stretched the black mass of
rock. The glare from the crater made
a bright light, and miles away another
cloud of fire assembled from where the
molten lava was pouring into the sea
after passing for twelve miles
through a self-formed tunnel. Beneath
these fifty square miles of barren
black rock, two years ago grew the
finest cocoa and cocoanuts in all the
world. Along the seashore more than
a dozen of Samoa's wealthiest villages
were completely burned-the great
lagoon was filed with lava to the outer
reef, and there the lava made dry land
for two miles out into the OCEAN
and the end is not yet. About tho
crater, for a distance of eight miles
the forests have been killed, for many
miles more the bananas and cocoanuts
ceased to bear fruit; so that the suf-
fering on the island Of Savaii has been
such that their distant relatives on
Hawaii can sympathize with them. !,
I climbed up to the edge of the crater
and peeped into the yawning abyss of
fire. Fale Tateno was Halemaumau
all over again. There, 300 feet below,
was the lake of fire sending up it's
iridescent fountains, boiling, splut-
tering, swirling and dashing waves OF
red molten lava high up the sides of
the crater. / should say that this
crater is somewhat larger than that of
Halemaumau, in appearance it is
much the same. save that there is a
climb of perhaps a hundred or more
feet from the lava to the edge of the
crater, but this may yet adjust itself
a-Ia-Kilauea
From this gigantic caldron the lava
dashed with roaring turbulence into
two tunnels, one at either end, that
evidently connected, for there is but
the one great tunnel of molten rock to
the sea. At present the display at the
waters edge is picturesque. not long
ago it was sublime, when for twelve
miles of ocean front Niagara of fire
poured into the sea. Now, however,
one column of steam rises steadily and
in this the lightning plays. At night
the sight is aweinspiring, the cascade
of fire falling into the sea, and beyond
the great red glare of the crater-and
yet in all it's splendor / doubt If the
volcano at Savaii was ever so superbly
sublime as is Haleakala when the sun
rises and the clouds pour in like an
ocean into earth's greatest crater.
I planted my staff with its legend
on the edge of the crater-but alas I
discovered that my sign placed in posi-
ton, while the hand on one side of the
board pointed down. the other point
ed up. Approaching from the "FaIe
Tateno" side everything was as it
should be, the hand pointed downward
to where the forces of hell were still
active-but approach from the Hale
Kakeno" side and you are directed
upward. However the governor of Sa-
moa understands that both names be-
long to the crater. In a split in the
staff I left letter for the governor,
who was on his way to visit the crater,
to him that I had christen-
ed the crater with a bottle of Rhine
wine, proposing the toast to the god