Our halting place was a well-built thatched dwelling, planted on a little mound of lava, and fenced in by a living hedge of ti, whose bare stems rose four feet from the ground, and then branched out in spreading leaves, like plumes. Inside the building was a raised platform, running the entire length of the room, resembling the pleasant structures used as beds by soldiers in guard-rooms. Clean mats and pillows were strewn upon it, and the remaining space of the apartment was plentifully provided with tables, chairs, and crockery; the whole being especially tabooed, and guarded by a native chief for the accommodation of tourists. It was situated in the midst of a little hamlet of huts, and on leaving the precincts of our domicile, to take a general survey of the country, we found ourselves stormed, as it were, by troops of tawny kanakas, and loosely-attired wyheenees—young ladies,—who had called to have a chat with the houri-man-a-wars. They were quite sociable, squatted beside us on lava ridges, laughed and chatted, took the cigars from our teeth, blew a whiff themselves, passed them around the circle, returning them again to the original puffers, which being interspersed with pokes and pinches, they made themselves very friendly and at home. Our staid chaplain, too, became well-nigh captivated, before they were made to comprehend that he was a mikonaree! then these dusky nymphs became mute as mice, and very demure in his presence.
The rain came on presently, and we sought shelter, took a nap, and at sunset sat down to dinner. Apart from sundry palatable dishes prepared by our own major-domo, there was a luau turkey, after the Sandwich mode of cooking, which, as I witnessed, I shall here take the liberty of describing the process.
It was a large gobbler, who, upon being knocked down by a billet of wood, was stripped of his plumes, cleaned, dressed, and stuffed with a green, cabbage-looking vegetable, called luau; then carefully swathed like a mummy in damp banana leaves, he was laid on a native oven of red-hot stones, all covered thickly over with more leaves, until there was not a chink or cranny for the escape of heat or steam. How long he remained undergoing this operation I do not exactly remember, but on sitting down to table, he was ushered in, on a huge platter, in his green winding-sheets, and after removing the outer coatings, he presented a whitish, parboiled appearance, half-drowned in a pulpy mass of luau; and fell to pieces at the first touch: he was steamed to death. I experimented on him, and truthfully declare he had not a taste of the turkey flavor, and we thought it the worst possible use he could have been put to; albeit the vegetable was delicious, and made amends for the tasteless gobbler.
Early the next morning we arose, breakfasted and mounted; the route was over the same swelling hillocks and mounds of lava, the view bounded far and near by the same dense growth of ferns, and a dull, unbroken solitude reigned around—uninterrupted by chirping of birds, or even the wheetling of lizards or crickets. Slowly we ambled along—the weather was lowering and gloomy; there was not a trickling rill of water, nothing but dull sky above, and lava, always lava below!
My horse, too, was a monster of his species—never shall I forget that brute; had he been provided with a cocoanut column on each leg, by way of stilts, he could not have come down harder—ugh! at every other step on coming to some narrow crevice of the rocks, he would raise his fore hoofs, and let himself fall, at it were, with a jar that made my jaws rattle like cracking walnuts with my teeth; it makes me shudder even at this late day to think of it. I tried to coax him into a gallop with lash, spur and pen-knife, that he might break his neck, and gratify my revenge! but no! it was his maiden visit to the crater, and so far as a letter of future recommendation, he was resolved never to go again.
We journeyed on during seven tedious hours—the great dome-like mountain of Mauna Loa appearing even to recede as we approached—its smooth, oval base and sides sloping so easily from the frosted summit as to induce the belief of the practicability of a coach and horses going up, without let or hindrance. Almost imperceptibly we had attained an elevation of four thousand feet, when we came upon a broad plain, extending nearly twenty miles to the base and flanks of Mauna Loa. Shortly after, a few light wreaths of steam were blown from the rocky crevices around, and in a moment we stood on the brink of Kilauea!
"For certain on the brink
I found me of the lamentable vale
The dread abyss that joins a thundrous sound."
We were on the rim of a mighty, depressed circus, walled about without a break, by precipitous masses of brown and reddish basaltic rocks, and looking down hundreds of feet, aye, more than a thousand! we beheld with a bird's-eye glance, a vast frozen black lake, once a huge sea of fire—now a congealed surface of lava, where you may place Paris, reserve a nook for New York, and not be pushed for space either!