From there by steamer to Gibraltar, stopping at Ceuta on the way. At Gibraltar a friend, Capt. B——, took me all over the rock, the galleries, and certain fortifications. A meeting of hounds near Algeciras was attended. Thence by train to Granada to visit the marvellously lovely Alhambra, and of course to meet the King of the Gipsies; Ronda, romantic and picturesque; Cordova and its immense mosque and old Roman bridge; and so on to Madrid by a most comfortable and fast train; but the temperature all through Central Spain is extremely cold in winter. The country is inhospitable-looking, and the natives seem to have abandoned their picturesque national dress. One must now go to Mexico to see the cavalier in his gay and handsome costume. In Madrid I of course visited the splendid Armoury; also the National Art Gallery with its Velasquezs and Murillos. From Madrid to San Sebastian, the season not yet begun, and Biarritz. Here I spent a most enjoyable month: dry, bracing climate, good golf-course, good hotels, etc. It was the English season; the Spanish season being in summer. On King Edward's arrival with his entourage and fashionable followers golf became impossible, so I went on to Pau and played there. From Pau a short run took me to Lourdes, with its grotto, chapel, etc. From Pau to Bordeaux, a handsome, busy town. Then Paris and home.
CHAPTER XII
THIRD TOUR ABROAD
Salt Lake City—Canada—Vancouver—Hawaii—Fiji—Australia—New Zealand—Tasmania—Summer at Home.
The fall of 1908 saw me off on a tour which finally took me round the world. Space will only permit of its itinerary and a few of my impressions and experiences. From Amarillo I trained north to Salt Lake City, passing through the wonderful gorge of the Arkansas River and the cañon of the Grand; scenery extremely wild and impressive. At Salt Lake found a large, busy, up-to-date city. Visited the tabernacle, and heard the great organ, the largest in the world; and a very fine choir. The acoustics of this immense and peculiarly-shaped building are most perfect. The Temple Gentiles are not allowed to enter. Outside the irrigation limits the country has a most desolate, desert, hopeless aspect. What nerve the Mormons had to penetrate to such a spot.[3]
It may be noted here that one Sidney Rigdon was the compiling genius of Mormonism; and it was he who concocted the Mormon Bible, not Joe Smith. And what a concoction! No greater fraud was ever perpetrated.
Hence by Butte, Montana, the great copper-mining city, to Great Falls, where we crossed the Missouri River, there 4000 miles from the sea, yet twice as large as the Thames at Windsor. On entering Canadian territory a remarkable change in the character of the people, the towns and the Press was at once noticeable. From Calgary by the C.P.R. the trip through the Selkirk range to Vancouver was one of continuous wonder and delight—noble peaks, dense pine forests, rushing rivers and peaceful lakes. Arrived at Vancouver city, a city of illimitable ambition and bright prospects. I there met in the lobby of the hotel two very old friends whom I had not seen for many years. They dined with me, or rather wined and dined, and we afterwards spent a probably uproarious evening. I say probably, because the end was never evident to me till I woke up in my bed, whither someone had carried me, with my stockinged foot burning in a candle; another such illuminant had been lighted and placed at my head. My waking (and I was "waked" in two senses) endangered, and at the same time prevented, the probable burning down of the building. Next morning I was taken suddenly ill, but not due to the evening's carousal, so went across the bay to Victoria and hunted up a doctor, who immediately ordered me into hospital (the Victoria Jubilee) and operated on me the very same day. The operation was the most painful that I have ever undergone but was entirely successful, though it detained me in the hospital for over a month.
From Victoria I trained to San Francisco, passing through lovely Washington and Oregon States, and Northern California; and from San Francisco took steamer to Honolulu. San Francisco was rising from its ashes, but still presented a terrible aspect, and gave a good idea of how appalling the catastrophe must have been. At Honolulu I spent a most enjoyable two weeks, golfing a little, surf riding, etc. The climate is ideal, hotels are good, parts of the islands lovely. They are all volcanic, and indeed some are nothing but an agglomeration of defunct craters.
On one of the islands, Maui, is the largest crater on earth (unless perhaps a certain one in Japan), its dimensions being 2000 feet in depth, eight miles wide, and situated on the top of a mountain, Haleakala, 10,000 feet high. Its surface, seen from the rock-rim, exactly resembles that of the moon. I of course also visited the largest island of the group—Hawaii—passing en route Molokai, the leper settlement. Hawaii has two very high volcanic mountains, Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, some 13,000 feet. The land is very prolific, the soil consisting of pulverized lava and volcanic dust, whose extreme fertility is due to a triple proportion of phosphates and nitrogen. On the slope of Mauna Loa is the crater of Kilauea, and in its centre the "pit," called Haleamaumau, the most awe-inspiring and in other ways the most remarkable volcano in the world. Landing at Hilo, by train and stage we went to see it. My visit was made at night when the illumination is greatest. Traversing the huge crater, four miles in diameter, the surface devoid of all vegetation, seamed and cracked, and in places steam issuing from great fissures, we suddenly arrived at the brink of the famous pit, and what an astonishing sight met our gaze! The sheer walls of the circular pit were some 200 feet deep: the diameter of the pit one quarter of a mile: the contents a mass of (not boiling, for what could the temperature be!) restless, seething, molten, red-hot lava, rising from the centre and spreading to the sides, where its waves broke against the walls like ocean billows, being a most brilliant red in colour! Flames and yet not flames. Now and then geysers of fire would burst through the surface, shoot into the air and fall back again. The sight was to some people too awful for prolonged contemplation, myself feeling relieved as from a threat when returning to the hotel, but still with a desire to go back and again gaze into that awful maelstrom. The surface of the pit is not stationary, at one time being, as then, sunk 200 feet; another time flush with the brim and threatening destruction; and again almost disappearing out of sight. At any time and in whatever condition it is an appalling spectacle and one never to be forgotten.