To Kilauea, at last, at last—my first volcano, albeit a more or less disappointing Kilauea these days, without visible fire, the pit, Halemaumau, only vouchsafing an exhibition of sulphurous smoke and fumes. But living volcano it is, and much alive or little, does not greatly matter. Besides, one may always hope for the maximum since Kilauea is notoriously capricious.
For eighteen miles the track up from Hilo slants almost imperceptibly, so gradual is the ascent through dense forest, largely of tree ferns, and, latterly, dead lehua overspread sumptuously with parasitic ferns and creepers. There seems no beginning nor end to the monster island. Despite the calm, vast beauty of many of its phases, one cannot help thinking of it as something sentient and threatening; of the time when it first heaved its colossal back out of the primordial slime. And it is still an island in the making.
The carriage, sent up the day before from Hilo, was driven by one Jimmy, a part-Hawaiian, part-Marquesan grandson of Kakela, a Hawaiian missionary to the Marquesas group, whose intervention saved Mr. Whalon, mate of an American vessel, from being roasted and eaten by the cannibals of Hiva-oa. Jimmy’s grandfather was rewarded by the personal gift of a gold watch from Abraham Lincoln, in addition to a sum of money from the American Government. “And don’t forget, Mate,” Jack reminded me, “your boat is next bound to the Marquesas!”
It was a hearty crowd that sat at dinner; and imagine our smacking delight in a boundless stack of ripe sweet corn-on-the-cob mid-center of the bountiful table! Among all manner of Hawaiian staples and delicacies, rendered up by sea and shore, we found one new to us—stewed ferns. Not the fronds, mind, but the stalks and stems and midribs. Served hot, the slippery, succulent lengths are not unlike fresh asparagus. The fern is also prepared cold, dressed as a salad.
The father of his flock rode in late from one of the headquarters of his own great cattle ranch, PuuOO, on Mauna Kea. These estates, in the royal manner of the land, often extend from half the colossal height of one or the other of the mountains, bending across the great valley to the nether slope of the sister mount, in a strip the senses can hardly credit, to the sea. This enables a family to enjoy homes from high altitudes, variously down to the seaside.
The flock as well as its maternal head rose as one to make their good man comfortable after his long rough miles in the saddle. In a crisp twilight, the men smoked on the high lanai, and the rest of us breathed the invigorating mountain air. It was hard to realize the nearness of this greatest of living volcanoes. Presently Jack and I became conscious of an ineffably faint yet close sound like “the tiny horns of Elfland blowing.” Crickets, we thought, although puzzled by an unwontedly sustained and resonant note in the diminutive bugling. And we were informed, whether seriously I know not, that the fairy music proceeded from landshells (Achatinella), which grow on leaves and bark of trees, some 800 species being known. Certainly there are more things in earth and heaven—and these harmonious pixie conches, granting it was they, connoted the loftier origin. Jack’s eyes and mouth were dubious:
“I ha’e ma doots,” he softly warned; “but I hope it is a landshell orchestra, because the fancy gives you so much pleasure.”
September 8.
Kilauea, “The Only,” has a just right to this distinguished interpretation of its name, for it conforms to no preconceived idea of what a volcano should be. Not by any stretch of imagination is it conical; and it fails by some nine thousand feet of being, compared with the thirteen-odd-thousand-foot peak on the side of which it lies, a mountain summit; its crater is not a bowl of whatsoever oval or circle; nor has it ever, but once, to human knowledge, belched stone and ashes—a hundred and fifty years ago when it wiped out the bulk of a hostile army moving against Kamehameha’s hordes, thus proving to the all-conquering chief that the Goddess Pélé, who dwells in the House of Everlasting Fire, Halemaumau, was on his side.
Different from Mauna Loa’s own skyey crater, which has inundated Hawaii in nearly every direction, Kilauea, never overflows, but holds within itself its content of molten rock. It has, however, been known to break out from underneath. The vertical sides, from 100 to 700 feet high, inclose nearly eight miles of flat, collapsed floor containing 2650 acres, while the active pit, a great well some 1000 feet in diameter, is sunk in this main level.