Show THE GREAT HAWAIIAN VOLCANO what a contrast what a wonder was suddenly opened to our gaze mr thurston spoke truly when he be called this country the paradise of the pacific and the inferno of the world the house sat securely on the cliff mowers flowers bloomed and the trees treba grew about it yet from every crack and seam in the earth there issued sulphurous vapor and hissing steam those subterranean fires one Is t timid C about approaching the great crater at 91 first sight but after a nights rest in the volcano house and assurances from the guide that there was no danger he ventures to follow him in the path that goes winding wander ing down from the beetling crags to the scorched and chasm riven crater floor here the tourist finds himself in a vast valley circular in form and twenty five miles in circumference across the hard blistered lava which crunches and grinds beneath the iron shoes of the horses our party started toward them the great column of smoke and flame in the distance prom from every crack and seam of the craters floor there issued steam sa sometimes so hot as to forbid a near approach when within a fourth of a mile of eternal fires we halted at a paddock of lava chunks left our horses and proceeded on foot up the slight ascent to this wonder of the world in my hand I 1 carried a green al garaha garol stick natick which 1 held for a moment over one of the seams from which tips of fire could be seen and in a moment it was in a blaze we lit our cigars at fires and proceeding edin up the slight wicent ascent stood on the b brank of that lake of fire and aad brimstone oh what wonder gondert erT some g gave ari utterance to sharp cries of alarin abid shrank back but the remainder stood silenced by the sublime awe which the wonderful inspires below like I 1 6 vast caldron the boiling hissing Z andrear noirl ing fires of molten lava seemed an aft ocean in a storm it waa a jbea IM 4 of bt flame an awful lake choate ff ares ate are never quenched bubbling his hissing hidding ding boiling and tossing it only needed the writhing figures to be an incarnation of dantes wonderful dreams dream jets and d fountains of flame played fretfully over the surface of the boiling mass frequently a crust gathered over the surface and through throng h it the glow of those eternal fires dimly shone then some wild eternal upheaval would shatter chatter this crust into fragments fragment and plunge it below to be again melted by the deluge of fire from four months inaam in paradise in godels god ays eys magazine for november |