r66 



THE MUSEUM 



I 



the estates they are building up in the 

 finest and most wholesome climate in 

 the world that you try to forget the 

 sad history of those other young plant- 

 ers who were just as confident in Cey- 

 lon until they met their troubles. 



Beyond the coffee the road plunges 

 again into the jungle, but you begin 

 to notice that you can see further 

 along the vistas, and the ferns are get- 

 ting less treelike and the break is be- 

 coming more bushy. Soon you pass 

 out of the forest and find yourself on 

 barrens of brake and gaunt streaks of 

 bare rock, and the driver points his 

 whiplash at it and says "Lava," and 

 you begin to wonder that you can dis- 

 cern nothing of the volcano which you 

 have travelled thousands of miles to 

 see. And that lava, too — it looks like 

 any other wayside rock; surely nobody 

 but a mineralogist could see any dif- 

 ference. Now that you are high up 

 on the fern barrens you can see the 

 eternal snows of Mauna Kea, which 

 looks so out of place within the torrid 

 zone; you can see the crest of Mauna 

 Loa, and possibly you struggle^ to be 

 glib about the pronounciation of the 

 summit crater of Mokuaweoweo, which 

 the guidebook spells for you and 

 leaves you without assistance in get- 

 ting finished when once you have 

 started to speak about it. And when 

 the sun goes down behind the great 

 mountain the eye can see nothing 

 ahead but a smooth and barren slope 

 with nothing to indicate that you are 

 within five miles of "the giant hidden 

 forces of nature," "the central fires of 

 the earth;" odd isn't it, how the old 

 phrases of the school books cling in 

 the memory.' Ask the driver where is 

 Kilauea and he answers "Why that's 

 where I'm a taking yer," and the dis- 

 appointment continues. Now you 

 feel at intervals upon your cheeks a 

 breath of warm and clammy vapor 

 with the reek of brimstone, and there 

 is some comfort in knowing that the 

 stories of the volcanos hereabouts 

 have at least that much of foundation. 

 In the dark of the evening the stage 



draws up at the Volcano House and 

 even before the question is put Peter 

 Lee answers it by saying: 



"You can't see the volcano at night 

 'cause there's a 'wapor' there every 

 night. " 



It is rather unsatisfactory to know 

 that a great volcano is within thirty 

 yards and yet invisible. The trouble 

 is that everybodj has hammered into 

 his mind in early school days an ideal 

 volcano, a smooth and pointed cone, 

 a shaft of smoke, and a monstrous 

 cloud filling half the sky; Vesuvius in 

 fact. Now Kilauea does not rear its 

 head an inch above the surface; it is a 

 place where for many square miles 

 the bottom has dropped out of things 

 and has sunk 500 feet. No wonder 

 that it is vain to look for it on the 

 road. But both our newly naturaliz- 

 ed volcanos on Mauna Loa, Kilauea 

 on the slope and Mokuaweoweo on 

 the summit, are greater than Vesuv- 

 ius or ^tna, and when they are boil- 

 ing their enormous lakes of flaming 

 lava they seem to be doing something 

 bigger than coughing up ashes and 

 pumice and such light stuff and 

 making a sulphurous fuss about it, 

 which is about the limit of the powers 

 of the Italian craters. 



With earliest dawn you look out of 

 your window, and still the evasive 

 crater is hiding itself, and the mighty 

 forces of nature keep themselves hid- 

 den. The view is a stretch of dun 

 mountain slope; not a tree in sight, 

 not a single precipice or crag, nor yet 

 a boulder large enough to attract the 

 gaze — a smooth slope of fern and low 

 bush. Before the Volcano House is 

 a garden with flowers of America of 

 the temperate zone. A hundred feet 

 away the hedge of roses poises at the 

 edge of a lake of white fog. For miles 

 the eye traces the shore of that white 

 and motionless lake. There is surely 

 Peter Lee's "wapor," and somewhere 

 in that pond is the volcano, leisurely 

 beginning its daily exhibition. You 

 are disposed in the chill morning air 

 to hold Peter Lee responsible for the 



