If one is always on the move, even very vivid impressions
are hunted out of the memory by the last new thing. Though I am not
unduly tired, even had it not been Sunday, I should have liked a day
in which to recall 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 severe 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.
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