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Signs of volcanic activity are present all the time throughout the depth of the molten mass in the form of steam, cracks, jets of sulphurous smoke and blowing cones. The crater itself is constantly rent and shaken by earthquakes. Nearly all tourists go to see the marvelous eruptions on Mauna Loa and Kilauea.
In 1859 lava fountains 400 feet in height, and with a nearly equal diameter, played on the summit of Mauna Loa. This eruption ran fifty miles to the sea in eight days, but the flow lasted much longer, and added a new promontory to Hawaii.
You see I'm a Hawaiian princess " She paused, gazing aloft. "Yes, yes, Miss Montague an Hawaiian princess. Go on, go on!" "Oh, excuse me; I was thinking how I'd dress her for the last spool in the big fire scene. Well, anyway, I'm this Hawaiian princess, and my father, old King Mauna Loa, dies and leaves me twenty-one thousand volcanoes and a billiard cue " Mr. Henshaw blinked rapidly at this.
The Civil Guards and the officials of the town preceded them and cleared the way. His Excellency had been invited to witness the procession from the house of the gobernadorcillo, in front of which a platform had been erected for the recitation of a loa, or religious poem, in honor of the Patron Saint.
Even across the mighty shoulders of Mauna Loa from Kona and Kailua and down the rugged Hamakua Coast from Waipio they came, and from the other islands as well. It was hard, laboring over the tapa every day, and especially hunting for the olona which Hina sometimes used. But she used also the bark of the mamake and wauke trees, which were more plentiful and very good for tapa.
But it is true that even in the winter and the darkness they were happy, for they made fishing nets and baskets and cloth together, Jon and Loa and their father and mother, and the children were taught to read in the books, and were told the sagas, and given instruction in the part singing. "They did not know there was such a thing as sorrow in the world, for no one had ever mentioned it to them.
The mountain itself is over 10,000 feet high, and forms a great dome-like mass of 90 miles circumference at base. The crater on its summit has a length of 7 1/2 and a width of 2 1/4 miles, with a total area of about sixteen square miles. The only approach in dimensions to this enormous opening exists in the still living crater of Kilauea, on the flank of Mauna Loa.
Meteors are called, fetū ati afi, or stars going to fetch a light; and comets are called pusa loa, or an elongated smoke. Tradition in Samoa, as in other parts of the world, has a good deal to say about the moon. We are told of the visit to it by two young men, the one named Punifanga and the other Tafaliu.
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.
Just below the edge of the plateau was a forest, and, on rising above it, the vast dome of Mauna Loa, of a bronze hue, rose before them, against the deep blue of a tropical sky.
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