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At last the ceaseless ripple of talk ceased, crew and passengers slept on the hot deck, and no sounds were heard but the drowsy flap of the awning, and the drowsier creak of the rudder, as the Kilauea swayed sleepily on the lazy undulations. The flag drooped and fainted with heat.

I feel able now to ride anywhere and any distance upon it, while Miss Karpe, who began by being much stronger than I was, has never recovered from the volcano ride, and seems quite ill. Last night Kilauea must have been tremendously active.

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.

He is the greatest authority on volcanoes on the islands, and his enthusiastic manner and illuminated countenance as he spoke of Kilauea, have raised my expectations to the highest pitch. We are prepared for to-morrow, having engaged a native named Upa, who boasts a little English, as our guide. He provides three horses and himself for three days for the sum of thirty dollars.

First of all, like all Polynesians, an ardent lover of nature, he found that earthquake and volcanic eruption were the things of which Alice lived in terror. The night before, a slight earthquake had shaken Honolulu and given Alice Akana insomnia. And the morning papers had stated that Mauna Kea had broken into eruption, while the lava was rising rapidly in the great pit of Kilauea.

After seeing a live or burning crater like Kilauea, Haleakala, I thought, would be but a dull sight; but it is, on the contrary, extremely well worth a visit. The islands have no sharp or angular volcanic peaks.

She is the granddaughter of the heroic Princess Kapiolani, who, when the worship and fear of the goddess Pélé were at their height, walked boldly up to the crater of Kilauea, in defiance of the warnings and threats of the high-priestess of the idolatrous rites, proclaiming her confidence in the power of her God, the God of the Christians, to preserve her.

All are intently watching me, but are as kind and good-natured as possible; and my guide from Waipio is discoursing to them about me. He knows a little abrupt, disjointed, almost unintelligible English, and comes up every now and then with an interrogation in his manner, "Father? mother? married? watch? How came?" "You" appears beyond his efforts. "Kilauea? Lunalilo?"

You get there in the little inter-island steamer Kilauea, named after the volcano, and which makes a weekly tour of all the Islands except far-off Kauai, which it visits but once a month. The charge for passage is fifteen dollars from Honolulu to Hilo, and twenty-five dollars for the round trip.

This melancholy, if gaudy, object was tied in a parcel and buried in some cave or cranny where no foeman would be likely to find it. Sometimes the bodies were sunk at sea, with rocks tied at the feet, and the hearts of Hawaiian kings were often flung into the molten lava of Kilauea. Kaulii was chief in Oahu in the seventeenth century.