at least the Hawaii National Park has the advantage over the
Alaskan park because it involves the life and scenery of the tropics. We
can find snow-crowned mountains and winding glaciers at home, but not
equatorial jungles, sandalwood groves, and surf-riding.

Enormous as this element of charm unquestionably is, this is not the
place to sing the pleasures of the Hawaiian Islands. Their palm-fringed
horizons, surf-edged coral reefs, tropical forests and gardens,
plantations of pineapple and sugar-cane are as celebrated as their
rainbows, earthquakes, and graceful girls dancing under tropical stars
to the languorous ukelele.

[Illustration: MAP OF HAWAII NATIONAL PARK]

Leaving these and kindred spectacles to the steamship circulars and the
library shelf, it is our part to note that the Hawaii National Park
possesses the fourth largest volcanic crater in the world, whose aspect
at sunrise is one of the world's famous spectacles, the largest active
volcano in the world, and a lake of turbulent, glowing, molten lava,
"the House of Everlasting Fire," which fills the beholder with awe.

It was not at all, then, the gentle poetic aspects of the Hawaiian
Islands which led Congress to create a national park there, though these
form its romantic, contrasted setting. It was the extraordinary volcanic
exhibit, that combination of thrilling spectacles of Nature's colossal
power which for years have drawn travellers from the four quarters of
the earth. The Hawaii National Park includes the summits of Haleakala,
on the island of Maui, and Mauna Loa and Kilauea, on the island of
Hawaii.

Spain claims the discovery of these delectable isles by Juan Gaetano, in
1555, but their formal discovery and exploration fell to the lot of
Captain James Cook, in 1778. The Hawaiians thought him a god and loaded
him with the treasures of the islands, but on his return the following
year his illness and the conduct of his crew ashore disillusioned them;
they killed him and burned his flesh, but their priests deified his
bones, nevertheless. Parts of these were recovered later and a monument
was erected over them. Then civil wars raged until all the tribes were
conquered, at the end of the eighteenth century, by one chieftain,
Kamehameha, who became king. His descendants reigned until 1874 when,
the old royal line dying out, Kalakaua was elected his successor.

From this time the end hastened. A treaty with the United States ceded
Pearl Harbor as