and the deafening thunder of a royal salute from sixty-three guns of
heavy calibre, the popular descendant of seventy generations of
sceptred savages stepped on board the flag-ship's deck. No higher
honours could have been paid to the Emperor "of all the Russias." I
have seen few sights more curious than that of the representative of
the American Republic standing bare-headed before a coloured man,
and the two mightiest empires on earth paying royal honours to a
Polynesian sovereign, whose little kingdom in the North Pacific is
known to many of us at home only as "the group of islands where
Captain Cook was killed." Ah! how lovely this Queen of Oceans is!
Blue, bright, balm-breathing, gentle in its supreme strength,
different both in motion and colour from the coarse "vexed
Atlantic!"

STEAMER KILAUEA, Jan. 29th.

I was turning homewards, enjoying the prospect of a quiet week in
Honolulu, when Mr. and Mrs. Damon seized upon me, and told me that a
lady friend of theirs, anxious for a companion, was going to the
volcano on Hawaii, that she was a most expert and intelligent
traveller, that the Kilauea would sail in two hours, that unless I
went now I should have no future opportunity during my limited stay
on the islands, that Mrs. Dexter was anxious for me to go, that they
would more than fill my place in my absence, that this was a golden
opportunity, that in short I MUST go, and they would drive me back
to the hotel to pack! The volcano is still a myth to me, and I
wanted to "read up" before going, and above all was grieved to leave
my friend, but she had already made some needful preparations, her
son with his feeble voice urged my going, the doctor said that there
was now no danger to be apprehended, and the Damons' kind urgency