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Hilo, Dec. 21, 1940

Here I am at Kilauea Volcano. It is gray and cold. The lehua trees motionless and cold. There are several immense craters in the area, bleak and without color. The landscape stretches to the west to Mauna Loa, broad plateau, ascending by cloud shadow and light. Mauna Kea is a reddish mountain, with several peaks. Puna is east and I can imagine a green country with black stretches of lava. 

Yesterday: Honolulu with its dramatic background was beautiful  Punchbowl, Tantalus, Manoa, Palolo, all broken into cliffs and slopes of dark blue and gree and yellow. Diamond Head lay under a wide sky of yellow strom clouds. And Koko Head was m arched by a perfect double rainbow, one end of which was in the sea. 

The sea outside the channel is purple, with a glassy sheen. Waves rush toward the coral fringe. And the sky dominates the land; The line of land resting on water is uncompromising and the view presses toward it. 

From Pepeekeo point to Hilo la a vast tableland, broken at the sea's edge brown palisades. They have built their villages at the land's edge, on the ocean slopes of Mauna Kea. And they have planted the slopes with cane. 

Last night through the porthole I saw Lanai, a low hill that covered the stars for several miles in a low black arc. Kahoolawe was another black mound with a light flashing. I thought I wanted to live there for a month. 

The boat anchored off Lahaina for an hour and the lights of the town shone and flared in the calm water. They left the ship in little boats and landed on Maui, their home. Maui is so close, and Kauai so far away in the ocean. I saw Kuaui resting alone in the far Pacific./ when I saw Maui,