This inn is a unique and interesting place. Its existence is
strikingly precarious, for the whole region is in a state of
perpetual throb from earthquakes, and the sights and sounds are
gruesome and awful both by day and night. The surrounding country
steams and smokes from cracks and pits, and a smell of sulphur fills
the air. They cook their kalo in a steam apparatus of nature's own
work just behind the house, and every drop of water is from a
distillery similarly provided. The inn is a grass and bamboo house,
very beautifully constructed without nails. It is a longish
building with a steep roof divided inside by partitions which run up
to the height of the walls. There is no ceiling. The joists which
run across are concealed by wreaths of evergreens, from among which
peep out here and there stars on a blue ground. The door opens from
the verandah into a centre room with a large open brick fire place,
in which a wood fire is constantly burning, for at this altitude the
temperature is cool. Some chairs, two lounges, small tables, and
some books and pictures on the walls give a look of comfort, and
there is the reality of comfort in perfection. Our sleeping-place,
a neat room with a matted floor opens from this, and on the other
side there is a similar room, and a small eating-room with a grass
cookhouse beyond, from which an obliging old Chinaman who
persistently calls us "sir," brings our food. We have had for each
meal, tea, preserved milk, coffee, kalo, biscuits, butter, potatoes,
goats' flesh, and ohelos. The charge is five dollars a day, but
everything except the potatoes and ohelos has to be brought twenty
or thirty miles on mules' backs. It is a very pretty picturesque
house both within and without, and stands on a natural lawn of
brilliant but unpalatable grass, surrounded by a light fence covered
with a small trailing double rose. It is altogether a most magical
building in the heart of a formidable volcanic wilderness. Mr.