Page:Under Dewey at Manila.djvu/36

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
16
UNDER DEWEY AT MANILA

by the natives shortly after the missionaries arrived and prevailed upon them to give up idolatry.

Then had come the chance to sail to Hilo, a town situated upon the eastern coast of Hawaii, the largest of the group of islands. Arriving there, he had had time enough to travel on horseback with a small party to the great volcano. It was a two days' journey, and at night the party slept in a native hut, under kapas, or bark cloths, and in the morning Larry had his first taste of the great national dish, poi, which did not suit him at all, although the natives and some others eat it with great relish.

The journey to the volcano was a hard one, but once arriving at the top, the youth felt himself well repaid for his trouble. He was nearly forty-five hundred feet above sea-level, and before him was stretched the grand crater of Kilauea, nine miles in diameter, with the active portion, called Halemau-mau, or House of Everlasting Fire, occupying one portion of it. Nearly a day was spent here, and Larry went down into the silent depths of the crater, approaching so closely to the terrible fires that his shoes were burnt from the heat of the lava beds upon which he trod.