CHAPTER XI
Mauna Loa
In the year 1880 Miss Helen Aldrich of Berkeley, Cal., made me a visit. She was the daughter of Mr. W. A. Aldrich, a banker, who had married a first cousin of my husband, Elizabeth, the child of Mr. R. W. Holt. Shortly after her arrival we took a trip to the largest of our islands, Hawaii, on which is situated that volcano called with truth one of the greatest natural wonders of the modern world. I was attended by my retainers, and after a short and pleasant voyage we arrived at the port and chief city, Hilo. As though to illuminate in honor of my visit, on the night preceding our ascent of the mountain a bright glow was seen on the top of Mokuaweoweo. This was the portent which preceded that great flow of lava which soon commenced from Mauna Loa, and took its course down the sides of that mountain towards the city of Hilo. We were thus witnesses from the very beginning of one of the most extensive and long-continued eruptions which has ever been recorded in history, for it was protracted over a period of eleven months. Early on the morning following we started on horseback on our journey to the crater of Kilauea, where we arrived about five o’clock the same evening. This is not, as some strangers suppose, a mountain by itself,
