There have been various exciting occasions upon the island whereon is Honolulu. There have been some great volcanic explosions there, and earthquakes and tidal waves. It is to be doubted, however, if upon that charming island ever occurred anything more complete and alarming and generally spectacular, in a small way, than followed the moment when the first cracker exploded of that string of thirty-seven and one-half feet attached to the tail of Julius Caesar. Cocoanut had expected one cracker to go off, but had anticipated nothing further. He was correct in his view, only as regarded the mere going-off of the cracker. What followed was a surprise to him and to all the adjacent world. There was a rattle and roar; the first two or three feet of small crackers went off; and then, as the first cannon cracker was reached with a thunder and blast of smoke, Cocoanut went over backward and away off into the grass, while Julius Caesar simply launched himself into space. It was all down-hill before him. He started for Australia. Anybody could see that. You couldn't tell whether he was going for Sydney or Melbourne, but you knew he was going for Australia in a general way. His leaps, assisted by the down-hill course, were something to witness. Cocoanut has since estimated them at forty feet a jump, while Billy says sixty--for both boys, it is good to say, are still alive--but then Billy was on the jackass and may have been excited; probably somewhere, say about fifty feet, would be the correct estimate. Talk about your horrifying comets with their tails of fire! They were but slight affairs, locally considered, for terrific explosions accompanied every jump of Julius Caesar, and comets don't make any noise. It was all swift, but the noise and awful appearance of Billy and Julius Caesar sufficed in a minute to startle such of the populace of Honolulu who were already awake, and there was a wild rush of scores of people in the wake of where Billy and Julius Caesar went downward to the sea. The extent of the leap of Julius Caesar when he finally reached the shore has never been fully decided upon, but it was a great leap. Billy, jackass, and fireworks went down like a plummet, and very soon thereafter Billy and jackass, but no fireworks, came to the surface again, and then swam vigorously toward the shore, for everybody and everything in Hawaii can swim like a duck. They were received by a brown and wildly applauding crowd of natives, and a minute or two later by Cocoanut, who had run like a deer to see the end of the vast performance he had inaugurated. An hour or two later two boys and a little jackass were all together upon the hill again, the boys excited and jubilant and saying that they'd had a Fourth of July, anyhow, and the jackass in a doubtful and thoughtful mood. The boys have grown amazingly since. The jackass seems to be about the same. But about the Fourth of July next at hand the boys won't have the same trouble they had in 1897.