THE MUSEUM. 



167 



failure of his show when you learn 

 that he has spent the last thirty years 

 at the crater. But he, familiar with 

 volcanic habits, assures you that there 

 never is anything to see until after 

 breakfast, and tells you the story of 

 the ohelo berry, which used to be 

 sacred to the Goddess Pelo in the old 

 days before Chieftess Kapiolani — not 

 Kalakaua's Queen, but an ancestress 

 — stood on the crater lip and defied 

 the goddess and all her infernal pow- 

 ers, and the "kapus" of the ancient 

 and bloody paganism were broken, 

 and Hawaii accepted the Christianity 

 that had been sent out from Massa- 

 chusetts to prepare the eight islands 

 in the fullness of time to become 

 American. You can eat some of the 

 berries for breakfast, he says. So 

 you can, for breakfast and every meal 

 besides, while you tarry on the crater 

 edge, to say nothing of picking your 

 fill as you explore the patches of soil 

 which have gathered in between the 

 lava sheets for the encouragement of 

 a stunted mountain vegetation. The 

 story interests, but nothing can re- 

 move the sense of disappointment at 

 the way in which the expected grand- 

 eur of the volcanic spectacle sneaks 

 under its white blanket. But break- 

 fast comes on and there are bowls of 

 the ohelo berries, good to eat, satis- 

 factory to a pagan goddess in a fire 

 pit, and satisfactory to a modern 

 sightseer in cooler surroundings; like a 

 cranberry grafted on a« huckleberry 

 bush, some one says, the red size of 

 the one and the sweetness of the oth- 

 er. 



Then the horses are brought around 

 from a line of grass-thatched huts, 

 which prove to be the stables, for it is 

 three miles to the mouth of the pit of 

 fire to the Halema'uma'u, about 

 which scholars in the languages may 

 wrangle without end as to whether it 

 has apostrophes in its spelling or not, 

 and dependent on that point whether 

 the same means the house of ferns or 

 the house everlasting. The journey 

 is fairly out of sight. You go a hun- 



dred feet to the brink of the white 

 lake; at that jumping off place you 

 make a vertical descent of 500 feet, 

 and the rest of the distance is to be 

 ridden over the lava crust of the crat- 

 er itself. Before you begin to be 

 nervous at the prospects of groping in 

 the white depths of that vapor lake, 

 for you doubt Peter Lee since break- 

 fast is past and still there is nothing 

 to see, a new problem arises. The 

 Volcano House stables have but one 

 sidesaddle, and that is already occu- 

 pied by an elderly lady who may not 

 be dislodged. Every other woman 

 must ride Hawaiian fashion, that is 

 man fashion, astride, or else must 

 walk. 



"How am I ever going to ride on 

 that kind of a saddle.'" a woman asks 

 "Must I really ride astride.' I neve 

 can do it in the world." 



But Peter Lee's two buxom daugh- 

 ters have heard that complaint many 

 a time before. and they are used to it. 

 One has the stirrup ready and the 

 other stands ready to attend to other 

 little problems as to which there ex- 

 ists an unexpressed but none the less 

 uncomfortable doubt. You spring du- 

 biously into the air and without your 

 knowing exactly how it is done those 

 skirts are adjusted satisfactorily, al- 

 though you do feel like a collection of 

 bundles. There is little doubt as to 

 your ability to make these arrange- 

 ments for yourself, for you learn that 

 at a certain point far down in the 

 depths of the crater you have to leave 

 the horse. But the youngest Lee 

 girl hops into the saddle to show you 

 how it is done and whispers to you, 

 "Albert knows how;" whereat you 

 look rather doubtfully at the Hawaiian 

 who is to guide the party. 



Now you revise your ideas of the 

 veracity of Peter Lee and of the 

 grandeur of Kilauea as well. While 

 you have been worrying over the in- 

 troduction to horsemanship after the 

 Hawaiian fashion the sun has brought 

 its beams to bear on the vapor lake, 

 and it has vanished except for a mist 



