tell you that Mr. Coan was bewildered, seeing no familiar object by
which to get his bearings, so that he exclaimed: ‘Where are we!’ you
will understand something of what destruction must have gone on there.
But unseen it can not be realized, the dreariness and desolation of a
little region that was so late one of Hilo’s prettiest suburbs. Not a
house standing on all that frontage. Waiakea bridge had been carried
a hundred rods or more from its abutments. Even the little church had
been set back some two hundred feet, tolling its bell as it went, while
the _luna’s_ house that before nestled under the shade of the pride of
India trees on the grassy bank had borne it company, and fallen into
shapeless ruin at the very side of the almost uninjured church.
“At this spot the people began to gather about us, so sorrowful in
their homelessness, that their voices and ours choked as we exchanged
‘alohas.’ Some of them led the way to a hut, too small to be a shelter,
but under whose low roof we found a mother sitting by the corpse of her
little one that the waters had not spared to her. Close on one side, an
old man lay groaning with the pain of fractured ribs and a broken leg,
and on the other side, a heap of something, I could hardly tell what at
first, lifted a battered head to tell us how he had been thrown upon
the rocks and they had bruised his skull.
“An Englishman’s escape from death seems wonderful. We visited him and
found him suffering greatly, but able between groans and gaspings for
breath to tell us something of his experience.
[Sidenote: _Losses of Life and Property._]
“‘I got caught, sir,’ he said. ‘I should have escaped if I hadn’t gone
back after my money; when I came down-stairs the roller had hit the
house, and before I could get out of the door, the house had fallen
upon me. I was dreadfully bruised, and you see, sir, as the wave took
the house inland, it kept surging about with me in it, and getting new
knocks all the while.’ ‘And what of the money--was it saved?’ ‘Oh,
no, sir, it all went, six hundred dollars. It was all I had, and I am
stripped now and I’m past working, seventy-seven years old.’ Kneeling
by the poor man, Mr. Coan offered an earnest prayer. We left him
feeling that he was very likely past working much longer.
“Five lives have been lost; twenty persons are more or less injured.
Forty-four dwellings are demolished, and one hundred and sixty-three
people left homeless, their means of procuring sustenance snatched from
them. Had the wave fallen in the darkness of the night, many more must
have perished. Daylight revealed the almost silent approach of the
danger, and most had time to flee. I am thankful, if it must happen,
that this has occurred before our going down to Honolulu, so that
Mr. Coan is among his people to comfort and direct them. Only a few
Sabbaths ago he preached a sermon on laying up treasure where thieves
could not break through and steal. Who thought then of _this thief_?”
Deep sympathy was awakened in our whole community for those who
suffered by this calamity. Food, clothing, blankets, were given in
abundance. The report of the disaster spread over the islands, and
help came from every quarter. His Excellency John Dominis, Governor of
Oahu, and Her Royal Highness Lydia Dominis, the king’s sister, were
commissioned to come to our aid with the donations from Honolulu. A
judicious distribution of money, clothing, lumber, etc., was made among
the people, and thus encouraged they went cheerfully to work, and in a
few months most of the losses were repaired; better houses were built,
and the sufferers seemed more prosperous than before.
They now annually commemorate the 10th of May by a religious festival
and a thanksgiving offering to the treasury of the Lord.
XXIII.
_The Eruption of 1880-1881--Hilo Threatened as Never Before--A
Day of Public Prayer--Visitors to the Lava-Flow--It Approaches
within a Mile of the Shore--Hope Abandoned--After Nine Months the
Action Suddenly Abates--The Deliverance--The Mechanism of a Great
Lava-Flow--An Idolater Dislodged--Conclusion._
On the 5th of November, 1880, our latest eruption from Mauna Loa broke
out at a point some 12,000 feet above sea-level, and a few miles north
of the great terminal crater, Mokua-weo-weo. The glare was intense,
and was seen at great distances. Brilliant jets of lava were thrown
high in the air, and a pillar of blazing gases mounted thousands of
feet skyward, spreading out into a canopy of sanguinary light which
resembled, though upon a larger scale, the so-called “pine-tree
appendage” formed over Vesuvius during its eruptions by the vertical
column of vapors with its great horizontal cloud.
Meanwhile a raging river of lava, about three-fourths of a mile wide
and from fifteen to thirty feet deep, rushed down the north-east flank
of the great dome, and ran some thirty miles to the base of Mauna Kea.
This stream was composed mostly of _aa_ or scoria. Its terminus was
visited and well described by our townsman, David Hitchcock, Esq. This
flow hardened and ceased; but a stream of _pahoehoe_ or field lava was
now sent off to the south-east, toward Kilauea. The roaring furnace on
Mauna Loa remained in full blast. Down came a third river of lava, in
several channels, flowing in the direction of Hilo. This divided itself
in places and reunited, leaving islands in the forest. This stream
crossed the flow of 1855-56, followed its south-east margin, and fell
into our great upland forest in a column from one to two miles wide.
There was the sound as of a continuous cannonading as the lava moved
on, rocks exploding under the heat, and gases shattering their way
from confinement. We could hear the explosions in Hilo; it was like
the noise of battle. Day and night the ancient forest was ablaze, and
the scene was vivid beyond description. By the 25th of March the lava
was within seven miles of Hilo, and steadily advancing. Until this
time we had hoped that Hilo would not be threatened. But the stream
pursued its way. By the 1st of June it was within five miles of us, and
its advance, though slow, was persistent. It had now descended nearly
fifty miles from its source, and the action on Mauna Loa was unabated.
The outlook was fearful; a day of public humiliation and prayer was
observed, as during the eruption of 1855. But still the lava moved
onward, heading straight for Hilo. One arm of the stream was now easily
accessible on its northern margin, and two more were moving in the deep
jungle so far to the south that visitors had not the time or patience
to penetrate to them. It now began to appear that should these streams
unite no trace of Hilo, or of Hilo harbor, would remain. Some of our
people were calm; others were horror-stricken. Some packed up their
goods and sent them to Honolulu or elsewhere, and some abandoned their
houses.
[Sidenote: _The Eruptions of 1880-81._]
Visitors to the stream were now frequent; and the crater on Mauna Loa
was reached, on a third attempt, by the Rev. Mr. Baker, of Hilo. Were I
twenty years younger, I should have been on the mountain-top also, but
my time to climb such rugged heights is past.
The northerly wing of the stream now hardened, clogging the channel
in which the lava was taking its way toward the center of our town.
But this check gave additional power to the south-east wing, so that
on the 26th of June, a fierce stream broke out from the great lava
pond and came rushing down the rocky channel of a stream with terrific
force and uproar, exploding rocks and driving off the waters. Hilo was
in trouble. We were now in immediate danger. The lava, confined in
the water-channel of from fifty to a hundred feet wide, advanced so
rapidly that by the 30th of June it was not more than two and a half
miles from us, threatening to strike Volcano Street about a quarter
of a mile from Church Street, on which I live, and to fall into our
harbor about midway of the beach. The stream was fearfully active, and
the danger was now close upon us. From the town we could walk up to
the living lava in forty minutes, and back again in thirty. A hundred
people would sometimes visit it in a day. Its roar, on coming down
the rough and rocky bed of the ravine, was like that of our Wailuku
River during a freshet, but a deeper and grander sound. Explosions and
detonations were frequent; I counted ten in a minute. The glare of it
by night was terrific. The daily progress of the flow was now from one
hundred to five hundred feet.
When I visited the stream on the 18th of July, I saw a scene like this:
Troops of boys and girls, young men and women, were watching the flow.
They plunged poles into the viscid lava as it urged itself slowly
onward; drawing out small lumps of the adhering fusion, they moulded
it, before it had time to cool, into various forms at will. They made
cups, canes, vases, tubes, and other articles out of this molten clay,
and these they sold to visitors and strangers at from twenty-five cents
to a dollar or more for a specimen. All went away with fresh spoils
from the spoiler. An artist was there, who had taken sketches in oil;
and the photographer has been upon the spot. Our town was now crowded
with visitors from all parts of the Islands, from our Princess Regent,
sister of the king, then absent, to the least of his subjects. Many
spent entire nights upon the banks of the lava river.
[Sidenote: _The Lava within Half a Mile of Hilo._]
Just in front of one of its branches a stone wall five feet high was
built, in hope of protecting the great Waiakea sugar-mill, for which
this arm of the flow was heading. It was not a broad or heavy arm, but
it was followed up by a column of fusion which no engineering could
turn aside. This small advance stream came within a yard or two of the
wall, paused there, and fell asleep in its shadow. At a single point
the viscid mass, about two feet deep, struck the wall. There it rested
a little, until, being supplied with fresh lava from behind, it heaped
itself up against the barrier, poured over it, and then stiffened and
solidified. It now hangs there, a sheet of vitreous drapery, marking
the limit of the flow in that direction. Judge Severance dug a moat
around the Hilo prison, with an embankment seven or eight feet high,
hoping to avert the necessity of a general jail-delivery; but any
considerable body of lava of course defies every obstruction. We made
no preparations, however, for quitting our house.
The flood came on until all agreed that in two or three days more
it would be pouring into our beautiful bay. On the 10th of August it
was but one mile from the sea, and half a mile from Hilo town. On
that day, nine months and five days from the outbursting of the great
eruption, when hope had perished in nearly every heart, the action
began to abate. The raging flood, the steam, the smoke, the noise of
the flow were checked; and in a day or two the great red dragon lay
stiffened and harmless upon the borders of our village. The relief was
unspeakable.
On the 13th of August I visited the flow for the fifth time, and felt
radiating heat, but saw no more liquid lava. But the great pall of
the eruption lay upon the land for fifty miles. I estimate that the
lava-stream covered a hundred square miles of mountain, forest, and
farm land, to an average depth of twenty-five feet--enough to cover the
State of Connecticut to a depth of six inches. No exact measurements,
however, have yet been made.
I may add a word upon the curious process by which this lava flow, like
others, has made its way over so great a distance from its source.
The average slope of Mauna Loa is seven degrees; but this is made up
of secondary slopes, varying from one to twenty degrees. As the lava
first rushes down the steeper inclinations it flows uncovered; but its
surface soon hardens, forming a firm, thick crust like ice on a river,
and under this crust the torrent runs highly fluid, and retaining
nearly all of its heat. In this pyroduct, if I may so call it, the
lava stream may pour down the mountain-side for a year or more, flowing
unseen, except where openings in the roof of its covered way reveal it.
[Sidenote: _How the Lava-Stream Makes Progress._]
When the molten river reaches the more level highlands at the base of
the mountain, it moves more slowly, and sometimes spreads out into
lakes of miles in diameter. The surface of it soon hardens; the lavas
below are sealed within a rigid crust that confines them on every side.
Their onward progress is thus checked for hours or days. But as the
tremendous pressure of the stream behind increases, the crust is rent,
and the liquid lava bursts out and gushes forward or laterally for a
hundred, five hundred, or a thousand feet or more, as the case may be.
The surface of this extruded mass cools and stiffens in turn, again
confining the living lava; then, with the pressure from behind, there
is a fresh rupture in the confining shell. While the lava is held in
check as I have described, the uninitiated visitor will pronounce the
flow to have ceased. But it is only accumulating its forces. The lava
presses down from the source, until suddenly the hardened crust is
ruptured with a crash, the lava moves forward again, and a new joint
is added to the covered way. Thus overcoming all obstacles, the fusion
is kept under cover, and moves forward or laterally in its own ducts
for an indefinite distance. It may flow at white heat in this way for
thirty or forty miles and reach the sea at a distance of more than
fifty miles from the mountain source.
By virtue of this pressure from behind, and of its own viscidity, the
lava may even be propelled _up-hill_ for a certain distance, if the
outbursting rush of lava be directed upon an upward slope. The lava
thus grades its own path as it goes seaward.
Five or six miles inland from our town there nestled, some twenty
years ago, a quiet hamlet. There was a school-house in the place; and
the land produced taro, potatoes, bananas, and other fruit-trees. The
scenery was of enchanting beauty. But the population passed away;
and of late years only one house remained on this lovely spot. Its
occupant was reputed an inveterate heathen. He belonged to the ancient
class of native physicians or medicine-men. When the burning flood
struck the forest behind his house, he is said to have hoisted his
flag in front of the slowly advancing lava, and to have forbidden it,
in the name of the ancient gods of his race, to pass that flag. But
onward came the flood, regardless of the edict. From time to time the
heathen doctor was compelled to remove his flag to the rear, planting
it nearer and nearer to his house; and at last the lava expelled him
and his friends, and rolled over house, garden, and field, leaving
a grisly pile of black lava over all. One circumstance in the case
was curious. The lava stream surrounded a single kalo-plant, growing
on an islet of eighteen inches in diameter, and on another one twice
as broad, a single banana plant. They have survived the heat and are
growing finely, the only green things left in the garden from which the
idolater was driven.
[Sidenote: _Conclusion._]
* * * * *
It is time to bring these imperfect sketches to a close. The foregoing
pages have been written among interruptions and anxieties, but they
make some partial record of a life preserved by its Giver in many
scenes of danger and crowned with many blessings. And among its chief
blessings I would recognize God’s goodness in granting me precious
partners in my life-work. My second marriage, October 13, 1873, was
to Miss Lydia Bingham, daughter of the Rev. Hiram Bingham. This
faithful helpmeet is the strength and support of my age. But for her
suggestions, and her patient labors in copying the manuscript of this
volume, I should not have undertaken, at my time of life, the task of
writing it.
As I lay aside the pen, our anxieties have passed away. If again, while
I remain, the rocks should melt and flow down at the presence of the
Lord, again we “will look unto the hills whence our help cometh.”
+Hilo+, _15th August, 1881_.
INDEX.
Adams, John, 227
Agriculture, Hawaiian, 123, 231, 234, 248
Alexander, William P., 162, 186
Andrews, Lorrin, 232
Anderson, Rufus, 136
Armstrong, Richard, 162, 186, 234, 243
Atuona Valley, 204
Auburn Seminary, 13
Austin, Judge, 114
Bachelot, John Alexius, 93
Baker, Mr., 329
Baldwin, Dwight, 231
Baptism in Puna, 90
Bicknell, James, 181, 183, 192, 198, 202
Bingham, Hiram, 95, 242, 244
Bingham Jr., 192
Bishop, Artemas and Sereno, 233
Bond, Elias, 224
Brown, J., 164, 168
Brown, Lydia, 19
Byron, Lord George Anson, 25
Callao, visit to, 22
Canoe, the sacrificial, 206
Canoe voyages in Hawaii, 37
Carpenter, Helen, 235
“Carysfort,” visit of, 106-109
Catholic missionaries, 93, 95-101, 120
Catholics in the Marquesas, 163
Catholics, reformed, 104-106
Chapin, Alonzo, 231
Cheeseman, Lewis, 14
Chicago, visit to, 214
Children of missionaries, 114
Chinese in Hawaii, 123
Church-building, 82
Church organization, 90
Churches, the Hawaiian, 223, 248
Clark, E. W., 232, 234, 243
Coan, Fidelia Church, 9, 18, 61
Coan, Gaylord, 1
Coan, Titus:
parentage and childhood, 1-5;
youth, 6-9;
studies for the ministry, 13;
prison work, 15;
trip to Patagonia, 16;
marriage, embarkation for Hawaii, 18;
arrival in Honolulu, 22;
in Hilo, 24;
foot-tours, 31, 42;
canoe voyaging, 37;
schools, 63, 115;
patients, 63;
Sunday work, 64;
labored with by Mormons, 101;
organized churches under native pastors, 136;
first visit to the Marquesas Islands, 164;
second visit, 192;
visits to various parts of the Hawaiian Islands, 223;
visit to the eruption of 1840, 76;
of 1852, 281;
of 1855-56, 290, 297, 302, 304, 306;
of 1880-81, 330;
on the angle of descent of flowing lavas, 310;
visit to the United States, 213
Colossal images, Marquesan, 177
Conde, Daniel T., 233
Crook and Harris, Messrs., 161
Crossing the torrents, 33
Damon, S. C., 241
Dana, James D., 68;
quoted, 69
Darling, M., in Tahuata, 162
Darwin, Charles, quoted, 184
Decrease of population, 121, 258
Dibble, Sheldon, 64, 232
Diell, S. C., 241
Dimond, Henry, 19
Diseases, epidemic, 81, 198, 202, 239, 259-261
Disputant, a Marquesan, 209
Dole, Daniel, 247
Dominis, John and Lydia, 326
Douglass, David, 225
DuPont, Samuel Francis, 149
Dwight, S. G., 238
Earthquakes of 1868, 86, 313
“Embuscade,” visit of, 94
Epidemic diseases, 81, 198, 202, 239, 259-261
Eruption of 1840, 70;
of 1843, 270;
of 1852, 279;
of 1855-56, 289;
of 1868, 313;
of 1880-81, 327
Ewa station, 245
Fatuiva, 169
Finney, Charles, 14, 49
Forbes, A. O., 238, 243
Forbes, Cochran, 42, 229
Franklin, Lady, 146
Frear, Walter, 242
French in the Marquesas, 163, 165, 191, 200, 202, 210
“Galatea,” visit of the, 85
General meetings, 27, 59
Golett, Captain, 168
Goodrich, Joseph, 26, 64
Green, Jonathan, 64, 234
Gulick, L. H., 243
Gulick, O. H., 245
Gulick, Peter G., 229
Halley, Edouard Michel, 165
Hana station, 232
Hanahi Valley, 181
Hanatita Valley, 182
Hanavave Valley, 173-178, 207
Hawaiian character, 79, 250, 252
Hawaiian government, old and new, 30, 124-126
Hawaiian mission, work of closed, 249
Hawaiian pastors, 136-138
Hawaiian population diminishing, 121, 258
Hakahekau Bay, 195
Haleakala crater, 235
Hall, Edwin O., 19
Hanamenu Valley, 202
Heteani Valley, 185
High-priest of the volcano, 44
Hilo, village and district described, 24, 31;
churches of, 42, 55, 135, 139;
their trials, 67, 97;
buildings, 82;
contributions, 85, 118-121;
statistics of, 57;
methods, 87;
boarding-school, 27;
girls’ school, 61;
volcanic waves at Hilo, 51, 316, 320
Hitchcock, David, 328
Hitchcock, E. M., 19
Hitchcock, H. R., 238
Hivaoa Island, 202, 204
Honolulu, 22, 239
House of Keawe, 226
Hopuku, 204, 205
Hapa (“Happar”) Valley, 200
Hoopili, 231
Hunt, T. D., 229
Hyde, C. M., 251
Images, Stone, at Puamau, 177
Jarves, J. J., history by, 59
Johnson, Edward, 247
Jones, Ap Catesby, 84
José, David, 201
Judd, G. P., 125
Kaivi, 170
Kalakaua, King, 134
Kamehameha I., 127
Kamehameha II. (Liholiho), 127
Kamehameha III. (Kauikeaouli), 124, 127-130
Kamehameha IV. (Alexander Liholiho), 130
Kamehameha V. (Lot), 131
Kaneohe station, 245
Kapohaku Paul, 183
Kauai, 246
Kaukau, A., 182
Kauwealoha, 169, 171, 195, 202, 205, 210
Kekai, 281
Kekela, James, 176, 178, 202, 205, 207-210
Kekuanaoa, 130
Kilauea compared with Vesuvius, 69;
action in, 263, 295;
eruption of 1840, 70;
of 1868, 313;
visitors to, 269
Killingworth revisited, 219
Kinau, 130
King, Asa, 5, 7
Kinney, Henry, 229
Kuaihelani, 174
Kuakini, 227
Lafon, Thomas, 247, 264
Lahaina, 230
Lahainaluna, 231
Laioha, 201
Land-slips in Kau, 315
Laplace’s visit, 93
“La Poursuivante,” visit of, 94
Lava chimneys, 78;
streams, how supplied, 310;
angles of descent in flowing, 309;
Hilo threatened by, 328;
mechanism of their progress, 312, 332
Lee, William L., 131, 143
Lepers, settlement of on Molokai, 239, 260
Lima, visit to, 22
Lincoln, President, sends a gift to Kekela, 179
Lunalilo, King, 132-134
Lyman, Chester S., 144
Lyman, David B., 23-28, 30, 60, 64
Lyons, Lorenzo, 224
Mallet, Captain, 94
Marquesas Islands described, 159, 169;
mission to, 154, 161-164;
its decline, 211;
fighting of the clans, 165, 169, 173;
feudal government in, 180;
tattooing, 181;
physique of the Marquesans, 181;
tabu system, 187;
ancient stone images in, 177;
scenery of, 183, 197;
offering of the sacrificial canoe, 206
Mauna Kea, 225
Mauna Loa, average slope of, 332;
eruption of 1843, 270;
of 1852, 279;
of 1855-56, 289;
of 1880-81, 327
Measles, epidemic of, 259
Meeting of the American Board for 1870, 217
Melville, Herman, 190, 199, 200
Meto, death of, 193
Mineral smoke, 310
Missionaries’ children, 114
Mokuaweoweo crater, 295
Molokai, 238
Molokai, Leper settlement on, 239
Mormons, 101-103, 120, 213
“Morning Stars,” the three, 155, 158, 196
Morse, Captain, 156
Mountain climb in the Marquesas, 183
Munn, Bethuel, 238
Nettleton, Asahel, 1, 7, 13, 49
Nettleton, Tamza, 1
Norton, Helen, 244
Nuuhiva Island, 170, 199
Ogden, Maria, 334
Oleson, W. B., 28
Olinda, 236
Omoa Valley, 163, 169, 174, 204
Paris, John D., 57, 150, 229, 270
Parker, Benjamin W., 162, 186, 192, 208, 245
Paulet, Lord George, 106
Paumotu Archipelago, The, 194
Pearson, Admiral, 149
Pele, high-priest of, 9, 44
Pele’s hair, 267
Pogue, John F., 229
Population, Hawaiian, diminishing, 121, 258
Porter, Joseph, 187, 199
Puamau Valley, 176, 179, 207-210
Puna district described, 39;
a trip in, with Prof. Lyman, 144
Punahou school, 244
Pyrometer, the lost, 264
Reformed Catholics, 104-106
Resolution Bay, 164
Revival of 1836-37, 43-51, 59
Rice, W. H., 147
Richards, William, 230
Road across Hawaii, attempted, 311
Rodgersons, the, in Tahuata, 162
Rogers, Edmund H., 19
Sacraments, how dispensed, 90
Salt Lake City visited, 213
Santiago, visit to, 21
Shipman, W. C., 229
Small-pox in Hawaii, 81
Small-pox in the Marquesas Islands, 198, 202
Smoke, mineral, 310
Smith, J. W., 247
Smith, Lowell, 238, 243
Spaulding, Ephraim, 231
Staley, Bishop, 104
Stallworthy, M., in Tahuata, 162
Statues, colossal, in the Marquesas Islands, 177
Streams in Hilo, crossing the, 33
Sugar culture, 123, 231, 234, 248
Tabu system in Hawaii
Tabu system in the Marquesas, 187
Taiohai Bay, 186, 189
Taipi (“Typee”) Valley, 190, 199, 201
Thompson, Frank, 135
Thouars, Du Petit, 163
Thunderstorm on Mauna Loa, 272
Thurston, Asa, 227
Tromelin, Admiral de, 94
“Typee” (Taipi) Valley, 190, 199, 201
Uahuna Island, 201
Uapou Island, 195
United States Exploring Expedition, 66
Valparaiso, visit to, 21
Vaitahu Bay, 164
Van Duzee, William S., 229
Visit to the United States, 212
Visitors to Kilauea, 269
Volcanic chimneys, 78
Volcanic eruptions, 70, 270, 279, 289, 313, 327
Volcanic waves, 51, 316, 320
Voyaging in the Hawaiian Islands, 23, 111-114
Waialua Station, 245
Wailuku, 234
Waimea, visits to, 224
Waipio Valley, 224
Washington City, visit to, 217
Wetmore, Charles H., 63, 281
Whalon, mate, escapes the cannibals, 177
Whitney, Samuel, 247
Whittlesey, Eliphalet, 233
Wilcox, Abner, 64, 247
Wild bull confronted, the, 287
Wilkes, Charles, 66, 195
Transcriber’s Notes
For possible printer’s errors in punctuation, hyphenation, spelling,
etc., only the changes listed below were made.
_Italics_, +Small Caps+, and +ALL SMALL CAPS+ were converted as so.
Descriptive text in the page header--exclusively on odd pages--was
formatted as sidenotes. These were then moved to the beginning of the
nearest paragraph break, depending on context.
Ditto marks within tables and the Index were replaced with the words
they represent for consistency across page breaks.