RECEPTION AT HILO. 313 Frequently there were to be seen three or four of these garlands on the stock of the same tree, one above another, at intervals of three or four feet. Birds, too, made the wood vocal, when the rain was not pattering upon the leaves; and they never warbled finer their sweet philosophy, Flee from doubt and faithless sorrow: First impressions of Hilo are always pleasant. The gentle rise of the land up to the domes of Mauna Kea and Loa; the numerous and large oak-green breadfruit trees, and spiral pandanus, with the dense undergrowth of shrubs and grass springing from a deep and always moistened soil, interspersed with lagoons and fish-ponds of fresh water, strike the eye of the stranger very agreeably. There are also several native houses of uncommon neatness and beauty, the posts being morticed into sills, furnished with verandas on two sides, and surrounded with neat green hedges of the ki plant. The three mission-houses have verdant and ample yards adjoining, in which are the Oriental lilac, mimosa, tamarind, mango, guava, coffee, lime, and figtrees, and other shrubs and flowers, inclosed by stone walls. A cordial greeting at Mr. Coan's, warm bathing, and change of apparel dispelled half my weariness, while the luxury of a bed and sleep, scarcely known for four nights, proved greatly restorative to overworn and excited nature. I was at the sanctuary in the morning on the following Sabbath, where Mr. Coan preached, a neat frame structure, one hundred and twenty feet long and sixty wide, thatched with grass on the roof and sides, unceiled, and without glass windows. It has a wide veranda all round, made by the overhanging eaves, and is altogether a very handsome specimen of a native grass meeting-house. But the labor of preaching in such a structure can be little less than that of speaking in the open air, under the disadvantage, too, of an atmosphere fetid with the exhalations of palm-oiled kanaka bodies and poi-made lungs. Mr. Coan's Sabbath labors are the care of his Sunday school at nine in the morning, preaching immediately after, then a meeting for persons under censure and seeking admission to the Church. After a short intermission, the afternoon sermon, and then, when ships are in port, an English sermon to seamen and such of the foreign residents as choose to attend. After supper, a religious exercise with the girls of Mrs. Coan's household school. These exercises are far too much for the well-being and endurance of the pastor, who can not sustain such excessive labors many years more.. Were it not for his frequent absences on tours, which, laborious as they are, and sometimes fraught with peril, yet prove invigorating, it would be impossible to hold out as he does. Sabbaths, when the pastor is away, Rev. Mr. Lyman, of the boys' boarding school, supplies the desk. In the afternoon, it being the first Sabbath of the year, the sacrament was administered to about eight hundred communicants; but a small part of this huge Church of six thousand now coming to communion THE SABBATH AT HILO. 315 at the station, the elements being administered, in Mr. Coan's quarterly tours, at several other places The usual Sabbath audience present one would judge to be about eight or nine hundred. The girls of Mrs. Coan's school, to the number of twenty-five, sit on benches directly opposite the desk. The boys of Mr. Lyman's school, about eighty, in raised seats within a box on the right. The singing is done by the two schools conjointly, a youth of about fourteen leading the choir and playing a viol, on which he has instructed himself, with help from Mrs. Lyman. The singing is altogether the best I have heard at the Islands; the voices of the girls, together with their bright, happy faces, are truly pleasing. They sing a verse before each meal, as well as at their morning and evening prayers, and at the opening and close of school; and a visitor will be hearing some of their merry voices all the time, "From morn to noon, from noon to dewy eve, A summer's day." Their dormitory, dining-hall, and school-room is all one grass building, situated a few yards from the house, about thirty-five feet long and twenty wide. The school-room is at one end, furnished with desks and benches, having a single window on each side, and raised up about two feet above the ground floor of the dining-hall and dormitory. The sleeping nests are little recesses on the two sides of the dining-hall, and are made by mere partitions of mats, just large enough each for two; there they bestow themselves and live happier than so many queens. The school has no appropriation from the mission treasury; but friends in America have been kind, and their donations are yearly needed, and could hardly be better bestowed. This interesting school, from its establishment in 1839, as well as that for boys under Mr. and Mrs. Lyman, has had the signal blessing of God. Its pupils have been preserved from sickness and death, and, as it is believed, from Hawaiian immoralities. I suppose they are the elite of Puna and Hilo, some among them being truly beautiful; and surely no Christian visitor can help becoming deeply interested in the welfare of these warbling Hawaiian girls, and offering in their behalf many earnest prayWould that their virtue, and youthful spirits, and buoyant, singing hearts might be kept always! ers. O! MAY THEY KEEP IN TUNE WITH HEAVEN TILL GOD, CHANGEFUL VOLCANIC PHENOMENA. 317 CHAPTER XV. COMPARISON OF NOTES ON THE VOLCANO. Such a boiling and broiling, Such a whacking and thwacking, That which end we stood on was doubtful, E. O HALL. It will be perceived, in what has gone before, that I have put down first impressions of the great Hawaiian volcano, taken at sight, its present phenomena being, as it were, arrested and Daguerreotyped as they passed before my eyes. But these phenomena are ever-varying, so that no two visitors at different times ever found them alike, or the aspect of the crater unchanged at two several visits. At this time of my seeing it, its fires were uncom. monly low and quiescent, and the crater almost su pernaturally still. Thus my companion, who had been there twice before within two years, had never |