At the top, should suffer anything worse
than the inconveniences which are inseparable from nocturnal cold at
a high elevation.
My preparations are completed to-night, the last good wishes have
been spoken, and we intend to leave early tomorrow morning.
I.L.B.
LETTER XXIX. {381}
CRATER HOUSE, KILAUEA. June 4th.
Once more I write with the splendours of the quenchless fires in
sight, and the usual world seems twilight and commonplace by the
fierce glare of Halemaumau, and the fitful glare of the other and
loftier flame, which is burning ten thousand feet higher in lonely
Mokua-weo-weo.
Mr. Green and I left Hilo soon after daylight this morning, and made
about "the worst time" ever made on the route. We jogged on slowly
and silently for thirty miles in Indian file, through bursts of
tropical beauty, over an ocean of fern-clad pahoehoe, the air hot
and stagnant, the horses lazy and indifferent, till I was awoke from
the kind of cautious doze into which one falls on a sure-footed
horse, by a decided coolness in the atmosphere, and Kahele breaking
into a lumbering gallop, which he kept up till we reached this
house, where, in spite of the exercise, we are glad to get close to
a large wood fire.
