[Illustration:  THE VOLCANO HOUSE.]

When you get on your horse at Hilo for the volcano, leave behind you all hope of good roads.  You are to ride for thirty miles over a lava bed, along a narrow trail as well made as it could be without enormous expense, but so rough, so full of mud-holes filled with broken lava in the first part of the journey, and so entirely composed of naked, jagged, and ragged lava in the remainder, that one wonders how the horses stand it.  A canter, except for two or three miles near the Volcano House, is almost out of the question; and though the Hawaiians trot and gallop the whole distance, a stranger will scarcely follow their example.

You should insist, by-the-way, upon having all your horses reshod the day before they leave Hilo; and it is prudent, even then, to take along an extra pair of shoes and a dozen or two horse-nails.  The lava is extremely trying to the horse’s shoes; and if your horse casts a shoe he will go lame in fifteen minutes, for the jagged lava cuts almost like glass.

Moreover, do not wait for a fine day; it will probably rain at any rate before you reach the Volcano House, and your wisest way is to set out resolutely, rain or shine, on the appointed morning, for the sun may come out two or three hours after you have started in a heavy rain.  Each traveler should take his water-proof clothing upon his own saddle—­it may be needed at any time—­and the pack-mule should carry not only the spare clothing, well covered with India-rubber blankets, but also an abundant lunch to be eaten at the Half-way House.

India-rubber or leather leggings, and a long, sleeveless Mackintosh seemed to me the most comfortable and sufficient guards against weather.  Ladies should ride astride; they will be most comfortable thus.  There are no steep ascents or abrupt descents on the way.  Kilauea is nearly four thousand feet higher than the sea from which you set out; but the rise is so gradual and constant that if the road were good one might gallop a horse the whole distance.

You should set out not later than half-past seven, and make up your mind not to be hurried on the way.  There are people who make the distance in six hours, and boast about it; but I accomplished it with a party of ladies and children in ten hours with very little discomfort, and did not envy the six-hour people.  There is nothing frightful, or dangerous, or disagreeable about the journey, even to ladies not accustomed to riding; and there is very much that is new, strange, and wonderful to Americans or Europeans.  Especially you will be delighted with the great variety and beauty of the ferns, which range from minute and delicate species to the dark and grand fronds of the tree-fern, which rises in the more elevated region to a height of twenty feet, and whose stalk has sometimes a diameter of three or four feet.  From a variety of this tree-fern the natives take a substance called pulu, a fine, soft, brown fuzz, used for stuffing pillows and mattresses.