There is a charge of one dollar for a special guide into the crater, which is made in your bill, and you will do well to promise this guide, when you go in, a small gratuity--half a dollar, or, if your party is large, a dollar--if he gives you satisfaction.

He will get you specimens, carry a shawl for a lady, and make himself in other ways helpful.
[Illustration: THE VOLCANO HOUSE.] When you get on your horse at Hilo for the volcano, leave behind you all hope of good roads.

You are to ride for thirty miles over a lava bed, along a narrow trail as well made as it could be without enormous expense, but so rough, so full of mud-holes filled with broken lava in the first part of the journey, and so entirely composed of naked, jagged, and ragged lava in the remainder, that one wonders how the horses stand it.

A canter, except for two or three miles near the Volcano House, is almost out of the question; and though the Hawaiians trot and gallop the whole distance, a stranger will scarcely follow their example.
You should insist, by-the-way, upon having all your horses reshod the day before they leave Hilo; and it is prudent, even then, to take along an extra pair of shoes and a dozen or two horse-nails.

The lava is extremely trying to the horse's shoes; and if your horse casts a shoe he will go lame in fifteen minutes, for the jagged lava cuts almost like glass.
Moreover, do not wait for a fine day; it will probably rain at any rate before you reach the Volcano House, and your wisest way is to set out resolutely, rain or shine, on the appointed morning, for the sun may come out two or three hours after you have started in a heavy rain.