LETTER XXV.] 



THE DESERT OF HA 14 All. 



my eyes always turning to the light on the top of Maun a Loa. 

 I know that the ascent is not feasible for me, and that so far 

 as I am concerned the mystery must remain unsolved ; but 

 that glory, nearly 14,000 feet aloft, rising, falling, " a pillar of 

 cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night," uplifted in its awful 

 loneliness above all human interests, has an intolerable fascina- 

 tion. As the twilight deepens, the light intensifies, and often 

 as I watch it in the night, it seems to flare up and take the 

 form of a fiery palm-tree. No one has ascended the mountain 

 since the activity began a month ago ; but the fire is believed 

 to be in " the old traditional crater of Mokuaweoweo, in a 

 region rarely visited by man." 



A few days ago I was so fortunate as to make the ac- 

 quaintance of Mr. W. L. Green (now Minister of Foreign 

 Affairs), an English resident in Honolulu, a gentleman of 

 wide scientific and literary culture,* one of whose objects 

 in visiting Hawaii is the investigation of certain volcanic 

 phenomena. He asked me to make the ascent of Mauna 

 Kea with him, and we have satisfactorily accomplished it 

 to-day. 



The interior of the island, in which we have spent the last 

 two days, is totally different, not only from the luxuriant wind- 

 ward slopes, but from the fiery leeward margin. The altitude 

 of the central plateau is from 5000 to 6000 feet, there is not a 

 single native dwelling on it, or even a trail across it, it is totally 

 destitute of water, and sustains only a miserable scrub of 

 mamane, stunted o/iias, fiukeawe, o/ie/os, a few composite, and 

 some of the hardiest ferns. The transient residents of this 

 sheep station, and those of another on Hualalai, thirty miles 

 off, are the only human inhabitants of a region as large as 

 Kent. Wild gOats, wild geese (Bernicla sandvicensis), and 

 the Melithreptes Pacifica, constitute its chief population. 

 These geese are web-footed, though water does not exist. 

 They build their nests in the grass, and lay two or three white 

 eggs. 



Our track from Waimea lay for the first few miles over light 

 soil, destitute of any vegetation, across dry, glaring, rocky beds 

 of streams, and round the bases of numerous tufa cones, from 

 200 to 1500 feet in height, with steep, smooth sides, composed 

 of a very red ash. We crossed a flank of Mauna Kea at a 

 height of 6000 feet, and a short descent brought us out upon 



* Author of a recent book, " The Molten Globe." 



