Mr. Green and I left Hilo soon after daylight this morning, and made
about "the worst time" ever made on the route. We jogged on slowly
and silently for thirty miles in Indian file, through bursts of
tropical beauty, over an ocean of fern-clad pahoehoe, the air hot
and stagnant, the horses lazy and indifferent, till I was awoke from
the kind of cautious doze into which one falls on a sure-footed
horse, by a decided coolness in the atmosphere, and Kahele breaking
into a lumbering gallop, which he kept up till we reached this
house, where, in spite of the exercise, we are glad to get close to
a large wood fire. Although we are shivering, the mercury is 57
degrees, but in this warm and equable climate, one's sensations are
not significant of the height of the thermometer.
It is very fascinating to be here on the crater's edge, and to look
across its deep three miles of blackness to the clouds of red light
which Halemaumau is sending up, but altogether exciting to watch the
lofty curve of Mauna Loa upheave itself against the moon, while far
and faint, we see, or think we see, that solemn light, which ever
since my landing at Kawaihae has been so mysteriously attractive.
It is three days off yet.
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