do in the Eastern United States at so great an expenditure of time, money and patience in equalizing the temperature, summer and winter, is all done on an immense scale by nature in the Hawaiian Islands. A trade-wind blows for nine months in the year, coming over thousands of miles of ocean where it has washed itself clean and sweetened its breath so that it brings purity and health to all upon the land. The climate is highly recommended for persons affected with pulmonary complaints. The island of Mauai contains the largest extinct volcanic crater, and the island of Hawaii the largest constantly active volcano in the world. The famous, "Haleakala," is a hugh circular wall nineteen miles in circumference and ten thousand feet high. The scenery from the summit of this lofty mountain is grand and aweinspiring in the extreme. The traveler gazes off over the boundless expanse of cloud-land, which, dividing here and there, discloses the blue ocean and the green cane fields below. In the immediate foreground is the dead volcano, awful, majestic, silent. On every hand are the evidences of the tremendous forces that expended themselves long ages ago but that seem almost likely to break forth anew as we gaze upon their Titanic products. The ashes and lava lie scattered in fearful and fantastic contortions on the crater's floor. Three or four subsidiary cones in the bottom of the pit look as though their fiery hearts might burst forth again at any moment. The entire top of the mountain appears to have been blown off and the side in one place to have been rent by some tremendous explosion of by-gone ages. The fresh lava flowing out and cooling in the waters of the ocean has formed a new promontory in the sea. But there has been no activity in this volcano within the memory or tradition of man. As long as men have lived here this mighty crater has stood as a silent and majestic sentinel in the midst of the sea.

Kilauea, the great constantly active volcano of Hawaii, varies so perpetually that if it should be described as the writer saw it in 1877 the description would probably fail in many points to tally with that of any of the multitudes of travelers who have visited it since. It is not a terminal crater, that is, it is not, as the geographies have usually pictured volcanos to the school children, a mountain with the smoke ascending from a hole in the top like a hugh chimney, but it is situated on a plain about 4000 feet above the sea level on the side of Mauna Loa. At the summit of this

majestic mountain is a terminal crater of tremendous proportions, called Mokuaweoweo. On the whole this mountain, with its two awful craters, is the grandest and most impressive terrestrial object the writer has ever beheld. It is nearly three miles high and its base is one hundred and eighty miles in circumference. It rises right out of the sea, whose dead level brings out in contrast the vast height and dimensions of the mountain as the traveler approaches it on shipboard.

Kilauea is "a great pit on a rolling plain," nine miles in circumference and about a thousand feet deep. It has a floor of hardened lava which resembles the ice on a lake or pond. This lava-crust covers an area of about six square miles at its lowest depth. It is cracked here and there and is hot to the soles of the feet as one walks over it. Through the cracks comes the lurid glare and the sulphurous gases from the seething, moulten mass below. In the southern portion of the crater is Halemaumau, or the lake of perpetual fire. This is about one-half a mile in width and is in a state of continual and frightful ebullition. Dense clouds of smoke roll up from the pit below the awe-struck beholder. Hideous roarings, cracklings, hissings and groanings deafen his ears. Unbreathable gases and fumes of sulphur assail his nostrils. In momentary glimpses when he can open his eyes he beholds a wallowing mass of moulten matter, rolling and seething, spouting up in fiery fountains, subsiding again into unstable levels, the whole molten mass now converging into the centre and now separating under the influence of some mighty centrifugal force in parting streams and torrents and surges which roll and pitch and dash against each other and lash the sides of their immense cauldron as though they were so many angry imprisoned monsters. Once, in their adventuresome zeal, a party of visitors leaped a fissure a foot or two wide and of unknown depth, which divided a ledge or crag of lava overhanging the lake from the comparatively firm old lava crust, and essayed to look down from that vantage ground into the awful fires below. Suddenly as they gazed a dull sound as of a surge striking the foot of the crag caused them to leap back. Hardly had their feet left the ledge when the latter crumbled like so much melting snow and fell in, with hideous hissings and contortions and was swallowed up in the fiery mass below.

Kilauea is becoming celebrated as one of the great natural won

ders of the world. It is visited by an increasing number of tourists each year. The trip from San Francisco to Honolulu (2,080 miles) costs $75 for first cabin passage and about half as much for steerage. A round trip ticket, good for three months, can be had for $125. A round trip ticket to Honolulu and Kilauea, covering all expenses for five weeks, costs $225.

Much has been written about the lepers of Molokai. This terrible disease was undoubtedly introduced by dissolute sailors who visited the islands before modern methods of communication had brought them near to the rest of the world. Someone has pointed out the significant fact that civilized nations send the heathen their vices and their diseases before they send them their virtues and their civilization. The natural tendencies of the Hawaiian race toward sensuality, and the customs and habits common to all tribes who live in a perpetually warm climate, combined with a certain insensibility to the danger of contagion, have made these people the ready and easy victims of this loathsome disease. The government has made an earnest effort to segregate the lepers and with this end in view has established a leper settlement on the island of Molokai, in a broad and fertile plain shut in by impassable mountains and a harborless shore. Here are gathered about 1000 men and women, doomed to this horrible, lingering disease with which science in despair has almost ceased to grapple.

Yet there is some relief to the dark picture. There is a sort of apathy which goes with the disease. The victim often lives several years, and after the first pangs of homesickness have passed away the lepers of Molokai put a cheerful face on the matter and settle down to their new conditions of life with a considerable degree of contentment and grace. The disease is hardly more contagious than consumption or cancer if one leads a clean and decent life.

The key to the right understanding of recent political events is found in the patent fact that the Hawaiians are a race of grown-up children and are unfitted for self-government. The missionaries landed in April 1820. The natives had just cast off their idolatry in consequence of a natural reaction against the enormities and abuses involved in the old order of things. They readily embraced Christianity and the rudiments of civilization. Their language was reduced to writing and they learned to read and write. But they have not developed to any considerable extent the

deeper qualities of mind and character. For years they obediently followed the advice of their leaders and teachers who were chiefly from the United States, and a distinctly American tone was given to all their institutions. But in the last ten or a dozen years, feeling their numerical majority and becoming more or less. affected by the desires and ambitions awakened by an era of great financial prosperity, they have become more or less restive and impatient of restraint. In this juncture adventurers and unprincipled men have gained influence with the rulers and fomented jealousies and suggested wild and extravagant schemes. This has resulted in an uprising of the sober, diligent, influential and property-holding citizens who have abrogated the monarchy, and, in order that there may be a stable and permanently peaceful government, are seeking a close alliance with the United States. This revolution is simply a triumph of righteousness over ignorance, selfishness and flagrant and open sin. The party overthrown is the free-opium, free-rum and lottery-license party. Those who have taken charge of affairs are men of character who are in no sense adventurers and who have at heart the real good of the Hawaiians as much as their own interests. They have the support of all the best classes in the community including the more intelligent Hawaiians. The importance of these islands to the United States grows out of their strategic position in the commerce of the Pacific. North of the equator and between America and Asia they are the only land in that vast expanse, the only port at which a ship can touch. They have a harbor capable of protecting the navies of the world, and, in case of war, would be indispensable for a coaling and supply station. On the completion of the Nicaraugua canal, if not before, a Pacific cable is inevitable. The Hawaiian islands will then make the only break in the tremendous stretch of 7690 miles between Nicaraugua and Japan. The objection to their annexation which is founded on the supposed policy of our country not to annex foreign territory, seems to be answered by the fact that we have annexed Alaska, which is farther from us than Hawaii and from which we are separated by British possessions, while only an unobstructed ocean divides. us from these fair islands that hold so many important relations to our growing national life.

COLUMBIA INSTITUTION FOR THE DEAF and

THIS

DUMB.

HELEN U. SAMNIS, BRIDGEPORT, CONN.

HIS is one of the noted government institutions, having been sustained by Congress since its incorporation in 1857. Here the deaf-mute children of the District of Columbia and of the army and navy receive free education if their parents are unable to pay tuition.

In 1864 a collegiate department was organized by Congress, and named the National Deaf-Mute College, where both girls and boys receive a thorough education in the higher branches. It is the only college of its kind in the world. The building is one of the many imposing structures in the District of Columbia, it is built. upon a high bluff near the northern terminus of Seventh Street, East, and commands a fine view of the surrounding country. In honor of Amos Kendall, who, when Postmaster General of the United States from 1835-'40, occupied this site as his home, and later gave the grounds for the present purpose, it is called Kendall Green.

In 1872 ground was added to the original amount until now it comprises one hundred acres. The handsome edifice, the gift of the government and dedicated in 1871, which adorns these grounds, is of Gothic architecture of the fourteenth century. It is of Connecticut brown-stone and white Ohio sand-stone with roof of red and blue slate. The entrance, in the centre of the building, opens from the black and white marble tiled porch into a vestibule and thence into the chapel lighted by the stained glass windows. Over the porch is carved in half-relief a figure of the American eagle with the stars and stripes on the shield over its breast. Adjoining the chapel is the lecture room, and in one wing of the building the dining room for the primary pupils, with kitchen, storeroom and dormitories above, and the other wing is correspondingly arranged for the students of the college. Beside the class-rooms, there is a fine library and room containing collections of objects of natural history.