CHAPTER XXI

SPOUTING HORN, GOLGOTHA, AND BARKING

SANDS

ON the afternoon of our arrival in Koloa, Dr. Goodhue proposed an expedition to the "Spouting Horn," one of the natural curiosities of Kauai. The doctor, his wife, Dr. Crane, and myself formed the party.

On the way from the village, we passed a large frame house, the birthplace of President Dole. There are nearly as many stories about Dole's boyhood as there were of Washington. In fact Dole is regarded as the Washington of Hawaii. A weathervane in the form of a fish, whittled out of koa wood, on one of the buildings is said to have been made by the president when he was only seven years old.

Shortly after passing the Dole house, we turned to the right and went up the coast. The rocks lay scatsloping hillside, and

tered in wild profusion over the along the beach to the sea. Lava in great broken chunks seemed to have been rained down on the whole sloping landscape to the water's edge. The last few rods of the journey in the carriage, the ground was so stony that there was danger at times of the vehicle

being upset. The great lava-rocks lay piled and tossed as the fiery sea had left them ages ago.

When it was impossible to proceed farther in the carriage, we got out to walk the remainder of the distance. Far up the beach we saw the water suddenly burst from the lava-covered landscape, leap upward to the height of from forty to sixty feet, and fall in a cloud of spray upon the stones and lava. We hurried across the barren, rugged rocks, and soon reached this great natural curiosity of Kauai. The Spouting Horn is made by a cave that is partly under ground and partly under water. The waves, driven into the cavern with great force, burst upward through an orifice in the lava rock, and make an intermittent fountain. When the sea is high, as it was on this afternoon, and the waves attain unusual force in seeking egress through the rock, the spouting is accompanied by a bursting roar. The air expelled from an aperture near the Spouting Horn produces a sound which gives it the name of the “Roaring Rock." Not many paces from the Spouting Horn is a large stone twelve or fifteen feet in height and ten square, which from its resemblance to a pulpit is called the "Pulpit Rock." About forty paces from the rock in an opposite direction there is a great hole in the lava rock. The surging billows rushing in and out through many subterranean chambers seem to meet in currents at this hole, giving it the appearance of a boiling kettle.

This opening in the lava has two names,-the "Devil's Kettle," and the" Witches' Caldron"; either of which seems appropriate.

Long we stood on the gnarled and rugged rocks, gazing on the roaring sea and dashing spray, while our thoughts wandered back thousands of years to the time when all that mass of stone was in the form of molten lava pouring down into the raging billows. The traditions of the natives always presented two sets of gods and goddesses. These were the elements fire and water incarnated, and their old legends are full of the long warfare between them. In all the islands save one, Hawaii, the water-gods have conquered, and the fires of Pele now burn in Kilauea only.

As it was growing late, we wandered slowly over the lava-strewn hill to the carriage. Before leaving the seaside Dr. Goodhue pointed out an old house which was the residence of a princess, a daughter of one of the Kamehamehas. The poor creature was insane, and stoned all who came near her. The princess was gaunt, bony, and black, clothed in a dirty "mother-hubbard" of a skirt, sitting on the ground near an old grass house talking to herself. At our approach she seemed seized with a sudden fury, and with strange cries seized stones and hurled them at us. This was my first visit to a princess, and I was not favorably impressed with the reception.

It was quite dark when we returned to Koloa, and after supper I retired, glad to know that there was one spot in the paradise of the Pacific almost free from mosquitoes. I was awakened next morning, just in time for breakfast, and for a while was amused by Mrs. Goodhue's experience in training a green Jap in the mysteries of the cuisine. The fellow was a willing pupil and quick to comprehend, but knowing very little English, he made many amusing mistakes. He could not comprehend the difference between the words "boil" and "broil," and when she told him to roast yams, he brought in baked taro. She said that she had grown tired of talking “pig Latin," a mixture of English, Japanese, and Hawaiian, to the new cook. But Yamamoto was faithful, industrious, and promised to become a jewel.

During the forenoon we visited the Koloa sugarmill. It is famous as being the first sugar-mill ever erected on the islands, One of the old stone rollers first used to crush the cane is still at the mill, while its mate has been transported to the Bishop museum in Honolulu.

That afternoon our party went to the stretch of beach about two miles from Koloa called the "Golgotha," or place of skulls. There is a tradition that a great battle was fought here about five hundred years ago. The troops under the king of Hawaii landed in their canoes on the beach, and the king of

Kauai, being apprised of the intended attack, set a trap for them into which they fell. With a naval force he attacked them from the sea, and with a land force assailed them from the land. No quarter was asked or given, and they fought until the invaders were completely annihilated. The sands are to this day covered with human bones, and countless skeletons lie hidden away beneath them. One company exhumed sixty skeletons for the museums and medical colleges of the United States from this battle-field. As every tourist who visits the Golgotha brings away a skull, I set to work to discover a perfect one myself. Tho the surface is thickly strewn with bones, the perfect skulls lie hidden beneath the sands. As the beach is often washed by the waves and storms, the sand covers the sleeping dead to the depth of several inches, and the finding of a skeleton is more by luck than skill. With a femur for a shovel, I began to prospect, and dug many holes without being rewarded. At last Dr. Goodhue came upon the round cranium of a sleeping warrior, and called me to it. Aided by the doctor's wife, we excavated the skeleton, which we found almost perfect. Every bone was in its place and it seemed as if the dead man had not been disturbed since he fell, long ago in the days of chivalry, half a century before Columbus was born.

There is one tradition that this field was an ancient burying-ground, but some historians say it is unrea