HILO. June 1.
Mr. and Mrs. Severance and I have just returned from a three-days'
expedition to Puna in the south of Hawaii, and I preferred their
agreeable company even to solitude! My sociable Kahele was also
pleased, and consequently behaved very well. We were compelled to
ride for twenty-three miles in single file, owing to the extreme
narrowness of the lava track, which has been literally hammered down
in some places to make it passable even for shod horses. We were a
party of four, and a very fat policeman on a very fat horse brought
up the rear.
At some distance from Hilo there is a glorious burst of tropical
forest, and then the track passes into green grass dotted over with
clumps of the pandanus and the beautiful eugenia. In that hot dry
district the fruit was already ripe, and we quenched our thirst with
it. The "native apple," as it is called, is of such a brilliant
crimson colour as to be hardly less beautiful than the flowers. The
rind is very thin, and the inside is white, juicy, and very slightly
acidulated. We were always near the sea, and the surf kept bursting
up behind the trees in great snowy drifts, and every opening gave us
a glimpse of deep blue water. The coast the whole way is composed
of great blocks of very hard black lava, more or less elevated, upon
which the surges break in perpetual thunder.
Suddenly the verdure ceased, and we emerged upon a hideous scene,
one of the many lava flows from Kilauea, an irregular branching
stream, about a mile broad. It is suggestive of fearful work on the
part of nature, for here the volcano has not created but destroyed.
The black tumbled sea mocked the bright sunshine, all tossed,
jagged, spiked, twirled, thrown heap on heap, broken, rifted,
upheaved in great masses, burrowing in ravines of its own making,
full of broken bubble caves, and torn by a-a streams. Close to the
track crystals of olivine lie in great profusion, and in a few of
the crevices there are young plants of a fern which everywhere has
the audacity to act as the herald of vegetation.
Beyond this desert the country is different in its features from the
rest of the island, a green smiling land of Beulah, varied by lines
of craters covered within and without with vegetation. For thirty
miles the track passes under the deep shade of coco palms, of which
Puna is the true home; and from under their feathery shadow, and
from amidst the dark leafage of the breadfruit, gleamed the rose-
crimson apples of the eugenia, and the golden balls of the guava. I
have not before seen this exquisite palm to advantage, for those
which fringe the coast have, as compared with these, a look of
tattered, sombre, harassed antiquity. Here they stood in thousands,
young as well as old, their fronds gigantic, their stems curving
every way, and the golden light, which is peculiar to them, toned
into a golden green. They were loaded with fruit in all stages,
indeed it is produced in such abundance that thousands of nuts lie
unheeded on the ground. Animals, including dogs and cats, revel in
the meat, and in the scarcity of good water the milk is a useful
substitute.
Late in the afternoon we reached our destination, a comfortable
frame house, on one of those fine natural lawns in which Hawaii
abounds. A shower at seven each morning keeps Puna always green.
Our kind host, a German, married to a native woman, served our meals
in a house made of grass and bamboo; but the wife and children, as
is usual in these cases, never appeared at table, and contented
themselves with contemplating us at a great distance.
The next afternoon we rode to one of the natural curiosities of
Puna, which gave me intense pleasure. It lies at the base of a cone
crowned with a heiau and a clump of coco palms. Passing among
bread-fruit and guavas into a palm grove of exquisite beauty, we
came suddenly upon a lofty wooded cliff of hard basaltic rock, with
ferns growing out of every crevice in its ragged but perpendicular
sides. At its feet is a cleft about 60 feet long, 16 wide, and 18
deep, full of water at a temperature of 90 degrees. This has an
absolute transparency of a singular kind, and perpetrates wonderful
optical illusions. Every thing put into it is transformed. The
rocks, broken timber, and old cocoa nuts which lie below it, are a
frosted blue; the dusky skins of natives are changed to alabaster;
and as my companion, in a light print holuku, swam to and fro, her
feet and hands became like polished marble tinged with blue, and her
dress floated through the water as if woven of blue light.
Everything about this spring is far more striking and beautiful than
the colour in the blue grotto of Capri. It is heaven in the water,
a jewelled floor of marvels, "a sea of glass," "like unto sapphire,"
a type, perhaps, of that on which the blessed stand before the
throne of God. Above, the feathery palms rose into the crystalline
blue, and made an amber light below, and all fair and lovely things
were mirrored in the wonderful waters. The specific gravity must be
much greater than that of ordinary water, for it did not seem
possible to sink, or even be thoroughly immersed in it. The mercury
in the air was 79 degrees, but on coming out of the water we felt
quite chilly.
I like Puna. It is like nothing else, but something about it made
us feel as if we were dwelling in a castle of indolence. I
developed a capacity for doing nothing, which horrified me, and
except when we energised ourselves to go to the hot spring, my
companions and I were content to dream in the verandah, and watch
the lengthening shadows, and drink cocoa-nut milk, till the abrupt
exit of the sun startled us, and we saw the young moon carrying the
old one tenderly, and a fitful glare 60 miles away, where the solemn
fires of Mauna Loa are burning at a height of nearly 14,000 feet.