My departure from Ulupalakua illustrates some of the uncertainties
of island travelling. On Monday night my things were packed, and my
trunk sent off to the landing; but at five on Tuesday, Mr. Whipple
came to my door to say that the Kilauea was not in Lahaina roads,
and was probably laid up for repairs. I was much disappointed, for
the mild climate had disagreed with me, and I was longing for the
roystering winds and unconventional life of windward Hawaii, and
there was not another steamer for three weeks.
However, some time afterwards, I was unpacking, and in the midst of
a floor littered with ferns, photographs, books, and clothes, when
Mrs. W. rushed in to say that the steamer was just reaching the
landing below, and that there was scarcely the barest hope of
catching her. Hopeless as the case seemed, we crushed most of my
things promiscuously into a carpet bag, Mr. W. rode off with it, a
horse was imperfectly saddled for me, and I mounted him, with my
bag, straps, spurs, and a package of ferns in one hand, and my plaid
over the saddle, while Mrs. W. stuffed the rest of my possessions
into a clothes bag, and the Chinaman ran away frantically to catch a
horse on which to ride down with them.
I galloped off after Mr. W., though people called to me that I could
not catch the boat, and that my horse would fall on the steep broken
descent. My saddle slipped over his neck, but he still sped down
the hill with the rapid "racking" movement of a Narraganset pacer.
First a new veil blew away, next my plaid was missing, then I passed
my trunk on the ox-cart which should have been at the landing; but
still though the heat was fierce, and the glare from the black lava
blinding, I dashed heedlessly down, and in twenty minutes had ridden
three miles down a descent of 2,000 feet, to find the Kilauea
puffing and smoking with her anchor up; but I was in time, for her
friendly clerk, knowing that I was coming, detained the scow. You
will not wonder at my desperation when I tell you that half-way
down, a person called to me, "Mauna Loa is in action!"
While I was slipping off the saddle and bridle, Mr. W. arrived with
the carpet-bag, yet more over-heated and shaking with exertion than
I was, then the Chinaman with a bag of oddments, next a native who
had picked up my plaid and ferns on the road, and another with my
trunk, which he had rescued from the ox-cart; so I only lost my veil
and two brushes, which are irreplaceable here.
The quiet of the nine hours' trip in the Kilauea restored my
equanimity, and prepared me to enjoy the delicious evening which
followed. The silver waters of Kawaihae Bay reflected the full
moon, the three great mountains of Hawaii were cloudless as I had
not before seen them, all the asperity of the leeward shore was
softened into beauty, and the long shadows of bending palms were as
still and perfect as the palms themselves. But there was a new
sight above the silver water, for the huge dome of Mauna Loa, forty
miles away, was burning red and fitfully. A horse and servant
awaited me, and we were soon clattering over the hard sand by the
shining sea, and up the ascent which leads to the windy table-lands
of Waimea. The air was like new life. At a height of 500 feet we
met the first whiff of the trades, the atmosphere grew cooler and
cooler, the night-wind fresher, the moonlight whiter; wider the
sweeping uplands, redder the light of the burning mountain, till I
wrapped my plaid about me, but still was chilled to the bone, and
when the four hours' ride was over, soon after midnight, my limbs
were stiff with tropical cold. And this, within 20 degrees of the
equator, and only 2,500 feet above the fiery sea-shore, with its
temperature of 80 degrees, where Sydney Smith would certainly have
desired to "take off his flesh, and sit in his bones!"
I delight in Hawaii more than ever, with its unconventional life,
great upland sweeps, unexplored forests, riotous breezes, and
general atmosphere of freedom, airiness, and expansion. As I find
that a lady can travel alone with perfect safety, I have many
projects in view, but whatever I do or plan to do, I find my eyes
always turning to the light on the top of Mauna 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 fascination. 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 acquaintance of Mr.
W. L. Green (now Minister of The Interior), 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 windward
slopes, but from the fiery leeward margin. The altitude of the
central plateau is from 5,000 to 6,000 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 ohias, pukeawe, ohelos, a few compositae, 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 this vast tableland, which lies
between the bulbous domes of Mauna Kea, Mauna Loa, and Hualalai, the
loneliest, saddest, dreariest expanse I ever saw.
The air was clear and the sun bright, yet nothing softened into
beauty this formless desert of volcanic sand, stones, and lava, on
which tufts of grass and a harsh scrub war with wind and drought for
a loveless existence. Yet, such is the effect of atmosphere, that
Mauna Loa, utterly destitute of vegetation, and with his sides
scored and stained by the black lava-flows of ages, looked like a
sapphire streaked with lapis lazuli. Nearly blinded by scuds of
sand, we rode for hours through the volcanic wilderness; always the
same rigid mamane, (Sophora Chrysophylla?) the same withered grass,
and the same thornless thistles, through which the strong wind swept
with a desolate screech.
The trail, which dips 1000 feet, again ascends, the country becomes
very wild, there are ancient craters of great height densely wooded,
wooded ravines, the great bulk of Mauna Kea with his ragged crest
towers above tumbled rocky regions, which look as if nature,
disgusted with her work, had broken it to pieces in a passion; there
are living and dead trees, a steep elevation, and below, a broad
river of most jagged and uneven a-a. The afternoon fog, which
serves instead of rain, rolled up in dense masses, through which we
heard the plaintive bleating of sheep, and among blasted trees and
distorted rocks we came upon Kalaieha.
I have described the "foreign residences" elsewhere. Here is one of
another type, in which a wealthy sheep-owner's son, married to a
very pretty native woman, leads for some months in the year from
choice, a life so rough, that most people would think it a hardship
to lead it from necessity. There are two apartments, a loft and a
"lean-to." The hospitable owners gave me their sleeping-room, which
was divided from the "living-room" by a canvass partition. This
last has a rude stone chimney split by an earthquake, holding fire
enough to roast an ox. Round it the floor is paved with great rough
stones. A fire of logs, fully three feet high, was burning, but
there was a faulty draught, and it emitted a stinging smoke. I
looked for something to sit upon, but there was nothing but a high
bench, or chopping-block, and a fixed seat in the corner of the
wall. The rest of the furniture consisted of a small table, some
pots, a frying-pan, a tin dish and plates, a dipper, and some tin
pannikins. Four or five rifles and "shot-guns," and a piece of raw
meat, were hanging against the wall. A tin bowl was brought to me
for washing, which served the same purpose for every one. The oil
was exhausted, so recourse was had to the native expedient of a jar
of beef fat with a wick in it.
We were most hospitably received, but the native wife, as is usually
the case, was too shy to eat with us or even to appear at all. Our
host is a superb young man, very frank and prepossessing looking, a
thorough mountaineer, most expert with the lasso and in hunting wild
cattle. The "station" consists of a wool shed, a low grass hut, a
hut with one side gone, a bell-tent, and the more substantial cabin
in which we are lodged. Several saddled horses were tethered
outside, and some natives were shearing sheep, but the fog shut out
whatever else there might be of an outer world. Every now and then
a native came in and sat on the floor to warm himself, but there
were no mats as in native houses. It was intolerably cold. I
singed my clothes by sitting in the chimney, but could not warm
myself. A fowl was stewed native fashion, and some rice was boiled,
and we had sheep's milk and some ice cold water, the drip, I think,
from a neighbouring cave, as running and standing water are unknown.
There are 9000 sheep here, but they require hardly any attendance
except at shearing time, and dogs are not used in herding them.
Indeed, labour is much dispensed with, as the sheep are shorn
unwashed, a great contrast to the elaborate washings of the flocks
of the Australian Riverina. They come down at night of their own
sagacity, in close converging columns, sleep on the gravel about the
station, and in the early morning betake themselves to their feeding
grounds on the mountain.
Mauna Kea, and the forests which skirt his base, are the resort of
thousands of wild cattle, and there are many men nearly as wild, who
live half savage lives in the woods, gaining their living by
lassoing and shooting these animals for their skins. Wild black
swine also abound.
The mist as usual disappeared at night, leaving a sky wonderful with
stars, which burned blue and pale against the furnace glare on the
top of Mauna Loa, to which we are comparatively near. I woke at
three from the hopeless cold, and before five went out with Mr.
Green to explore the adjacent lava. The atmosphere was perfectly
pure, and suffused with rose-colour, not a cloud-fleece hung round
the mountain tops, hoar-frost whitened the ground, the pure white
smoke of the volcano rose into the reddening sky, and the air was
elixir. It has been said and written that there are no steam-cracks
or similar traces of volcanic action on Mauna Kea, but in several
fissures I noticed ferns growing belonging to an altitude 4000 feet
lower, and on putting my arm down, found a heat which compelled me
to withdraw it, and as the sun rose these cracks steamed in all
directions. There are caves full of ferns, lava bubbles in reality,
crust over crust, each from twelve to eighteen inches thick, rolls
of lava cooled in coils, and hideous a-a streams on which it is
impossible to walk two yards without the risk of breaking one's
limbs or cutting one's boots to pieces.
While we breakfasted a young man in rags, without shoes or
stockings, but with the accent and address of a gentleman, came in,
a man of good family and education in England, but who had "gone to
the bad out here," and had joined a gang of bullock-catchers. Why
do people persist in sending "ne'er-do-weels" to such regions
without a definite occupation? It is certain ruin.
I will not weary you with the details of our mountain ascent. Our
host provided ourselves and the native servant with three strong
bullock-horses, and accompanied us himself. The first climb is
through deep volcanic sand slashed by deep clefts, showing bands of
red and black ash. We saw no birds, but twice started a rout of
wild black hogs, and once came upon a wild bull of large size with
some cows and a calf, all so tired with tramping over the lava that
they only managed to keep just out of our way. They usually keep
near the mountain top in the daytime for fear of the hunters, and
come down at night to feed. About 11,000 were shot and lassoed last
year. Mr. S--- says that they don't need any water but that of the
dew-drenched grass, and that horses reared on the mountains refuse
to drink, and are scared by the sight of pools or running streams.
Unlike horses I saw at Waikiki, which shut their eyes and plunged
their heads into water up to their ears, in search of a saltish weed
which grows in the lagoons.
The actual forest, which is principally koa, ceases at a height of
about 6000 feet, but a deplorable vegetation beginning with mamane
scrub, and ending with withered wormwood and tufts of coarse grass,
straggles up 3000 feet higher, and a scaly orange lichen is found in
rare pitches at a height of 11,000 feet.
The side of Mauna Kea towards Waimea is precipitous and
inaccessible, but to our powerful mountain horses the ascent from
Kalaieha presented no difficulty.
We rode on hour after hour in intense cold, till we reached a height
where the last stain of lichen disappeared, and the desolation was
complete and oppressive. This area of tufa cones, dark and grey
basalt, clinkers, scoriae, fine ash, and ferruginous basalt, is
something gigantic. We were three hours in ascending through it,
and the eye could at no time take in its limit, for the mountain
which from any point of view below appears as a well defined dome
with a ragged top, has at the summit the aspect of a ridge, or
rather a number of ridges, with between 20 and 30 definite peaks,
varying in height from 900 to 1400 feet. Among these cones are
large plains of clinkers and fine gravel, but no lava-streams, and
at a height of 12,000 feet the sides of some of the valleys are
filled up with snow, of a purity so immaculate and a brilliancy so
intense as the fierce light of the tropical sun beat upon it, that I
feared snow-blindness. We ascended one of the smaller cones which
was about 900 feet high, and found it contained a crater of nearly
the same depth, with a very even slope, and lined entirely with red
ash, which at the bottom became so bright and fiery-looking that it
looked as if the fires, which have not burned for ages, had only
died out that morning.
After riding steadily for six hours, our horses, snorting and
panting, and plunging up to their knees in fine volcanic ash, and
halting, trembling and exhausted, every few feet, carried us up the
great tufa cone which crowns the summit of this vast fire-flushed,
fire-created mountain, and we dismounted in deep snow on the crest
of the highest peak in the Pacific, 13,953 feet above the sea. This
summit is a group of six red tufa cones, with very little apparent
difference in their altitude, and with deep valleys filled with red
ash between them. The terminal cone on which we were has no cavity,
but most of those forming the group, as well as the thirty which I
counted around and below us, are truncated cones with craters
within, and with outer slopes, whose estimated angle is about 30
degrees. On these slopes the snow lay heavily. In coming up we had
had a superb view of Mauna Loa, but before we reached the top, the
clouds had congregated, and lay in glistening masses all round the
mountain about half-way up, shutting out the smiling earth, and
leaving us alone with the view of the sublime desolation of the
volcano.
We only remained an hour on the top, and came down by a very
circuitous route, which took us round numerous cones, and over miles
of clinkers varying in size from a ton to a few ounces, and past a
lake the edges of which were frozen, and which in itself is a
curiosity, as no other part of the mountain "holds water." Not far
off is a cave, a lava-bubble, in which the natives used to live when
they came up here to quarry a very hard adjacent phonolite for their
axes and other tools. While the others poked about, I was glad to
make it a refuge from the piercing wind. Hundreds of unfinished
axes lie round the cave entrance, and there is quite a large mound
of unfinished chips.
This is a very interesting spot to Hawaiian antiquaries. They
argue, from the amount of the chippings, that this mass of phonolite
was quarried for ages by countless generations of men, and that the
mountain top must have been upheaved, and the island inhabited, in a
very remote past. The stones have not been worked since Captain
Cook's day; yet there is not a weather-stain upon them, and the air
is so dry and rarified that meat will keep fresh for three months.
I found a mass of crystals of the greenish volcanic glass, called
olivine, imbedded in a piece of phonolite which looked as blue and
fresh as if only quarried yesterday.
We travelled for miles through ashes and scoriae, and then descended
into a dense afternoon fog; but Mr. S. is a practised mountaineer,
and never faltered for a moment, and our horses made such good speed
that late in the afternoon we were able to warm ourselves by a
gallop, which brought us in here ravenous for supper before dark,
having ridden for thirteen hours. I hope I have made it clear that
the top of this dead volcano, whether cones or ravines, is deep soft
ashes and sand.
To-morrow morning I intend to ride the thirty miles to Waimea with
two native women, and the next day to go off on my adventurous
expedition to Hilo, for which I have bought for $45 a big, strong,
heavy horse, which I have named Kahele. He has the poking head and
unmistakable gait of a bullock horse, but is said to be "a good
traveller."
I.L.B.