A long drive up into the mountains back of the town one morning, took us to Mt. Tantalus, two thousand or more feet high, from which there are splendid views of the plain below and the sea beyond and mountain ranges on each side. To-day there are many pretty summer villas built on its slopes. While we were looking down on the town and harbour far below us, we saw little puffs of white smoke, and long after could just hear the booming of the guns of the warships, American, English, and Japanese, saluting in honour of the President of this little island republic, who was visiting one of the vessels. Then we climbed higher yet, through woods of _koa_ trees, bordered by thickets of the lantana, with its many-coloured flowers, up till we could look down into the dead crater of Punchbowl and over Diamond Head, and far off across the sparkling ocean, while the steeply ravined and ribbed mountains seemed to fall away suddenly beneath our feet. Punchbowl, where in the early days the natives offered human sacrifices, "is for the most part as red as clay, though a tinge of green in its rain-moistened chinks suggests those bronzes of uncertain antiquity." On this mountain top a myth tells us how a human being was first made--a man to rule over this island. The gods molded him from the clay of the crater, and as they were successful and he came to life, they made from his shadow a woman to keep him company. Indeed, many of the natives still believe in gods and fairies, in shark men, owls, and ghosts, and they will tell you stories of the goddess of the crater even to-day. When we last visited this island thirteen years later with our Secretary of War, Mr. Dickinson, we saw many changes. We were taken to the Alexander Young Hotel in the center of the town, and to the great hotel at Waikiki. The old hotel, where we stayed years before, had changed hands and was sadly run down. How pretty and green everything was, and how marvelous were the flowers! Many new and rare species had been planted. The changes have been gradual, but to-day Honolulu is a modern, up-to-date American town, with business blocks of brick. The Makapuu Point Light is one of the largest in the world, and Diamond Head crater has been made into one of the strongest fortifications of modern times. Great men-of-war are to be seen off Honolulu, and Pearl Harbour has been dredged. The army quarters on this island are quite fine. There are good golf links, and on the polo field you see excellent players; the field is also used for aviation. The finely equipped Children's Hospital, the Normal School, and the McKinley High School were interesting institutions that had sprung up since our first visit.