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Updated: May 18, 2025
Indeed, bunting to my mind never looked so well as when floating and fainting among cocoa-nut palms and all the shining greenery of Hilo, in the sunshine of a radiant morning. It was bright and warm, but the cool bulk of Mauna Kea, literally covered with snow, looked down as winter upon summer.
In the afternoon we availed ourselves of the five or six miles of narrow-gauge railway, the only one on the island, to go from Paia to Wailuku, where we were met by another automobile, which hurried us to Lahaina, where we were to meet the steamer that was to convey us to Hilo, on Hawaii.
But the mournful looking trees along the coast and all about Hilo are mostly the Pandanus odoratissimus, a spreading and branching tree which grows fully twenty-five feet high, supports itself among inaccessible rocks by its prop-like roots, and is one of the first plants to appear on the newly-formed Pacific islands.
Such questions suggested themselves as they nightly watched the nearing glare, till the fiery waves met with obstacles which piled them up in hillocks, eight miles from Hilo, and the suspense was over. Only gigantic causes can account for the gigantic phenomena of this lava- flow. The eruption travelled forty miles in a straight line, or sixty, including sinuosities.
Mark Twain is authority for saying that the two great active volcanoes, Mauna Loa and Kilauea, on the island of Hawaii, are the most interesting in the world. Certainly they are the most unique. Mauna Loa is 14,000 feet above sea level. Every six or seven years there is an eruption from its sides and several times the flow of lava has threatened the ruin of the town of Hilo, thirty miles away.
In 1867 the old church at Hilo was divided into seven congregations, six of them with native pastors. To meet the wants of the widely-scattered people, fifteen churches have been built, holding from 500 up to 1000. The present Hilo church, a very pretty wooden one, cost about $14,000. All these have been erected mainly by native money and labour.
He might tell you five or ten dollars; but if you pay him seventy-five cents for yourself and your guide, he will be abundantly and thoroughly satisfied. Hilo, as you will perceive on the map, lies on the eastern or windward side of the Island of Hawaii.
That old Kilauea has just come in, and has brought the English mail, and a United States mail, an event which sets Hilo agog.
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.
Whether the steady heat of Honolulu, the languid airs of Hilo, the balmy breezes of Onomea, the cool bluster of Waimea, or the odorous stillness of Kona, it is always the same. The grim gloom of our anomalous winters, the harsh malignant winds of our springs, and the dismal rains and overpowering heats of our summers, have no counterpart in the endless spring-time of Hawaii.
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