The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1909-09-13
HAWAII VISIT
MUCH ENJOYED
Congressional Party Meets
With Royal Welcome on
Big Island.

(otdu correspondence OF ADVERTISER
HIL0, September 11.-Hilo's SPLEEN
did hospitality to the Congressional
party was ended Saturday evening at
ten o'clock by the call to board the
steamer for Maui, the last island over
which the party will roam before re-
turning to Honolulu Tuesday morning.
Hilo's hospitality has been unbounded.
members of the Congressional party in
their homes.
The trip to the volcano was full of
deep interest, and some members ex-
pressed their belief that the neighbor
ing country should be turned into a
national park. The spectacle which
Madam Pele offered them on the two
nights of the visit was wonderfully
impressive, for the lake was seething
ealdTon, with mighty fountains playing,
and the elements all at work to awe
the visitors.
A gay eavalcade filed down the
slopes of the outer rim of Kilauea from
the Volcano House to the pit of Hale
maumau on Thursday, but it was very
bedraggled and forlorn looking crowd
of Congressman which returned over
the lava path, by night, in rainstorm.
After hours of enjoyment at the brink
of the pit, the party turned toward the
Volcano House.
Explicit directions as to the distri-
button of the lanterns among the long
file of men and women were given by
w. O. Smith, who was solicitous for
the welfare of the visitors, fearing
that without lights, and being I'M
familiar with the almost indiscernible
pathways, some might go astray and
become lost in the lava fields. At the
corral the horses were brought out and
found to be one short, and later it was
discovered that one of the guides had
takengthis animal and gone post haste
to the Volcano House to get milk for
the coffee boiled over hot lava crack.
Then came the long trudge back
along the mysterious trail. Lanterns
looked like firefies, so often did they
become lost to view as they passed out
of sight behind hummock. For the
first few hundred feet the visitors were
solicitous about the presence of Ian
terms, but as they went on they discov-
cred that the best light was afforded
by the reflection from the volcano
itself The glare shot high in the air,
lighting up clouds of smoke which rose
above the crater. But the way was well
marked, because of the occasional
whitewashed stones on the right of the
path. which Mrs. Hollyday, wife OF
Admiral Hollyday, Z. S. N, declared
looked like the "jag-line" at naval
station or army post roadway.
Then came drizzle and presently a
heavy fall of rain. The rain drove
through clothing and wet the lightly
clad ones to the skin. The cavalcade
looked like bedraggled exodus OF a
lost tribe wandering in the waste OF
a desert, or flying from burning city
anxious to get anywhere away from
the great blaze behind.
Now and then group from the rear
would catch up with another, to lind
that woman riding a horse was
alighting to give foot passenger a
lift And so they trudged on, and
when the foot of the cliff upon which
the Volcano House stands was reach
ed. shout went up as if the promised
land were just in sight. Up the steep
trail they climbed and finally drifted
into the house, weary, wet, bedraggled
and all eagerness to dine
In the famous old fireplace room
of the House, one in which many men
and women prominent in the affairs of
many nations have sat during the long
cold evenings, a wholesale dryingout
of clothing began. There were some
who had no change of clothing,
and these went to bed and sent
their clothes to the fireplace to be
dried out for use the following day.
The start for the crater was made
at. $3.50, Representatives Dawson and
Scott being among the first to lead
off on foot Their first view of the
fires of Halemaumau caused them to
become enthusiastic and they walked
Continued on Page Four.l