high cliffs, deep valleys and canyons, and
stupendous craters that have vomited great floods of lava. A little way
from shore the Pacific has some of its deepest beds. If the sea could be
removed the island of Hawaii would be a great dome five miles high.

The coral polyps have added their mite to the building of these islands,
and coral reefs are the foundation of the coast plain that surrounds a
considerable part of the girth of each.

An equable climate throughout the year, a soft and balmy air, brilliant
coloring on bush and tree, magnificent pictures of sea and sky, and of
mountain and plain, make the islands a veritable paradise.

It is thought that these islands were peopled by Samoan natives about
the year 600, and that subsequently their number was augmented by
emigrants from the Fiji and other southern islands. At first there was
plenty of land for all, but as their number increased, quarrels arose.
Each island had its king or chief and some of the larger islands had two
or more. The result was a condition very much like the feudal system;
each king had petty chiefs, and these, in turn, their retainers, who
were little better than slaves. Priests, who ranked equal to the petty
chiefs, directed their pagan worship and occasionally made human
sacrifices.

The kings were pretty apt to be at war with one another most of the
time, but, about forty years before the American Revolution, there came
a great soldier and leader, Kamehameha I. By the aid of European weapons
and the counsel of foreign friends, he overcame his rivals and brought
all the islands under his sway.

The Hawaiian Islands were made known to the rest of the world when that
plucky English sailor, Captain James Cook, was making his third and
last great voyage of discovery, in which he had set out to find the
famous and tragic northwest passage. On a roundabout way to Bering
Strait, he called at the islands which seemed very attractive to him.
Perhaps it is not quite right to say that he discovered them, for it
seems very probable that the Spanish explorer Gaetano discovered them in
1555.

[Illustration: General view of Volcano House, Kilauea, Hawaii]

It was 1789 when Cook first visited the islands, and after he had
continued his voyage through Bering Strait, and had failed to find the
northwest passage, he turned about and sailed for the islands. While
ashore with a part of his crew at a landing that is now the village of
Kealakekua, one of