274 



HA WAIL 



[letter XXIX. 



and arrange my memories of Mauna Loa before the forty-eight 

 miles' ride to Hilo. 



This afternoon, we were sitting under the verandah talking 

 volcanic talk, when there was a loud rumbling, and a smart 

 shock of earthquake, and I have been twice interrupted in 

 writing this letter by other shocks, in which all the frame-work 

 of the house has yawned and closed again. They say that four 

 years ago, at the time of the great " mud flow" which is close 

 by, this house was moved several feet by an earthquake, 

 and that all the cattle walls which surround it were thrown 

 down. The ranchman tells us that on January 7th and 8th, 

 1873, there was a sudden and tremendous outburst of Mauna 

 Loa. The ground, he says, throbbed and quivered for twenty 

 miles ; a tremendous roaring, like that of a blast furnace, was 

 heard for the same distance, and clouds of black smoke trailed 

 out over the sea for thirty miles. 



We have dismissed our guide with encomiums. His charge 

 was $10 ; but Mr. Green would not allow me to share that, or 

 any part of the expense, or pay anything, but $6 for my own 

 mule. The guide is a goat-hunter, and the chase is very 

 curiously pursued. The hunter catches sight of a flock of goats, 

 and hunts them up the mountain, till, agile and fleet of foot as 

 they are, he actually tires them out, and gets close enough to 

 them to cut their throats for the sake of their skins. If I un- 

 derstand rightly, this young man has captured as many as 

 seventy in a day. 



Crater House, Kilauea, June gi/i. 



This morning Mr. Green left for Kona, and I for Kilauea 5 

 the ranchman's native wife and her sister riding with me for 

 several miles to put me on the right track. Kahele's sociable 

 instincts are so strong, that, before they left me, I dismounted, 

 blindfolded him, and led him round and round several times, 

 a process which so successfully confused his intellects, that he 

 started off in this direction with more alacrity than usual. They 

 certainly put me on a track which could not be mistaken, for 

 it was a narrow, straight path, cut and hammered through 

 a broad, horrible a-a stream, whose jagged spikes were 

 the height of the horse. But beyond this lie ten miles of pa- 

 hoehoe, the lava-flows of ages, with only now and then the 

 vestige of a trail. 



Except the perilous crossing of the Hilo gulches in Feb- 

 ruary, this is the most difficult ride I have had — eerie and im- 



