limate is
ideal, hotels are good, parts of the islands lovely. They are all
volcanic, and indeed some are nothing but an agglomeration of defunct
craters.

On one of the islands, Maui, is the largest crater on earth (unless
perhaps a certain one in Japan), its dimensions being 2000 feet in
depth, eight miles wide, and situated on the top of a mountain,
Haleakala, 10,000 feet high. Its surface, seen from the rock-rim,
exactly resembles that of the moon. I of course also visited the largest
island of the group--Hawaii--passing _en route_ Molokai, the leper
settlement. Hawaii has two very high volcanic mountains, Mauna Kea and
Mauna Loa, some 13,000 feet. The land is very prolific, the soil
consisting of pulverized lava and volcanic dust, whose extreme
fertility is due to a triple proportion of phosphates and nitrogen. On
the slope of Mauna Loa is the crater of Kilauea, and in its centre the
"pit," called Haleamaumau, the most awe-inspiring and in other ways the
most remarkable volcano in the world. Landing at Hilo, by train and
stage we went to see it. My visit was made at night when the
illumination is greatest. Traversing the huge crater, four miles in
diameter, the surface devoid of all vegetation, seamed and cracked, and
in places steam issuing from great fissures, we suddenly arrived at the
brink of the famous pit, and what an astonishing sight met our gaze! The
sheer walls of the circular pit were some 200 feet deep: the diameter of
the pit one quarter of a mile: the contents a mass of (not boiling, for
what could the temperature be!) restless, seething, molten, red-hot
lava, rising from the centre and spreading to the sides, where its waves
broke against the walls like ocean billows, being a most brilliant red
in colour! Flames and yet not flames. Now and then geysers of fire would
burst through the surface, shoot into the air and fall back again. The
sight was to some people too awful for prolonged contemplation, myself
feeling relieved as from a threat when returning to the hotel, but still
with a desire to go back and again gaze into that awful maelstrom. The
surface of the pit is not stationary, at one time being, as then, sunk
200 feet; another time flush with the brim and threatening destruction;
and again almost disappearing out of sight. At any time and in whatever
condition it is an appalling spectacle and one never to be forgotten.

Sugar and pineapples are the main products of the islands; but one
shou