S--- said, that I am a "high chief," and related to
Queen Victoria, and he was doubtlessly imposing this fable on the
people. In spite of their poverty and squalor, if squalor is a term
which can be applied to aught beneath these sunny skies, there was a
kindliness about them which they made us feel, and the aloha with
which they parted from us had a sweet friendly sound.
From this grove we travelled as before in single file over an
immense expanse of lava of the kind called pahoehoe, or satin rock,
to distinguish it from the a-a, or jagged, rugged, impassable rock.
Savants all use these terms in the absence of any equally expressive
in English. The pahoehoe extends in the Hilo direction from hence
about twenty-three miles. It is the cooled and arrested torrent of
lava which in past ages has flowed towards Hilo from Kilauea. It
lies in hummocks, in coils, in rippled waves, in rivers, in huge
convolutions, in pools smooth and still, and in caverns which are
really bubbles. Hundreds of square miles of the island are made up
of this and nothing more. A very frequent aspect of pahoehoe is the
likeness on a magnificent scale of a thick coat of cream drawn in
wrinkling folds to the side of a milk-pan.
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