amateur photogra

it a favorite object for the amateur

pher.

In Hilo, as in Honolulu, the American element predominates. The Americans there as elsewhere favor annexation to the United States. The most enthusiastic and sincere annexationist I found on the islands was Mr. J. A. Martin, a merchant of Hilo.

"Look at this," he said, taking from behind his counter an American flag. "I made this several months ago, my flagstaff is ready, and she will go up the next minute after I hear that we are annexed."

I believe that American people living abroad come to love their country more than those at home.

"You must go abroad a while, just to learn what a glorious country we have," said Mr. Furneaux, United States Consul at Hilo.

Contrasting the free, independent, liberty-loving American with a class of haughty, aristocratic Europeans, and the flunkies who truckle to them, who can wonder that the American abroad becomes more than ever enamored of the benign institutions of his own beloved country?

CHAPTER XIV

THE VOLCANO

THE Puna district which joins the district of Hilo on the south is one of the most interesting in Hawaii. The general appearance from the road is sterile, especially the southern part, where there are considerable tracts covered with lava-rock, supporting only the scantiest vegetation. The northern part of the district is covered with dense lauhala forest and is thinly inhabited. About eighteen miles from Hilo the country begins to improve, and away from the main road, upon the slope of the mountain, there are many acres of excellent land suitable for coffee-growing. The southeastern part of Puna is celebrated for its groves of coconuts. In 1840 the lava-flow from the volcano, after pursuing an underground course for many miles, suddenly burst forth in the woods and rushed down to the sea, overwhelming small villages in its course. The lava-flows have left many strange figures in the forest. Trees of lava can be seen. They are supposed to have been made by the molten lava rushing down the hill with such velocity that it splashed up the sides of the trees, and congealed

before the wood was burned away.

These lava-trees

or columns are hollow, and some are supposed to be a hundred years old. Hundreds of these monuments of ancient eruption are to be seen, some fifteen or twenty feet in height. These memorials of a perished forest are both curious and instructive. There is a warm spring about a mile from Kapoho Ranch. toward the sea, which is a charming spot. It is situated at the foot of a cliff some eighty feet high, while on the side it is approached by a somewhat abrupt slope, clothed with grass and shaded by trees, conspicuous among which are the tall coconuts with their long, slender trunks and umbrella-shaped tops. The water is warm but not hot, just comfortable for bathing-and gives the skin of the bather an alabaster whiteness.

In 1868 the southern coast of Puna was lowered by the effect of a terrible earthquake. As a result of this earthquake, stumps of coconut-trees may still be found sticking up in the midst of the roaring surf. Puna is one of the great coffee-producing districts of Hawaii. The coffee grown there is not excelled anywhere in the world. Some of the plantations contain from twenty-five to sixty thousand trees.

After a few days in Hilo and a journey through Puna, I boarded the stage for the volcano. In order to have a better view along the route, I took an out

side passage, being the only outside passenger, with but three inside passengers, on the journey.

The volcano road abounds in picturesque and beautiful scenery. No road has so many shady little nooks hidden away among the ferns, ohias, and hous. Tho it is a continual ascent from Hilo to the volcano, a height of four thousand feet, the road is admirable, the grade being so gradual that the horses go in a sweeping trot nearly the entire distance. We found convicts in gangs of ten to twenty-five, most of them naked to the waist, mending the road, while an armed guard stood over them.

The driver of the stage was a mail-carrier, routeagent, and traveling postmaster. He had a bag filled with letters and papers, and if he met persons on the road who were expecting mail by the stage they held him up, and he went through what he had and brought out what was for them. There were many queer little houses like ground-bird's nests, half hidden away among the ferns and bananas at the roadside. These were usually occupied by the Japanese. The homes of the coffee-planters were more imposing, comfortable, and some of them almost elegant. All were cozy, unique, and picturesque in their setting of eternal green, with deep jungles in the background which no human being had ever penetrated, and which