VOLCANO OF KILAUEA, Jan. 31.
Bruised aching bones, strained muscles, and overwhelming fatigue,
render it hardly possible for me to undergo the physical labour of
writing, but in spirit I am so elated with the triumph of success,
and so thrilled by new sensations, that though I cannot communicate
the incommunicable, I want to write to you while the impression of
Kilauea is fresh, and by "the light that never was on sea or shore."
By eight yesterday morning our preparations were finished, and Miss
Karpe, whose conversance with the details of travelling I envy,
mounted her horse on her own side-saddle, dressed in a short grey
waterproof, and a broad-brimmed Leghorn hat tied so tightly over her
ears with a green veil as to give it the look of a double spout.
The only pack her horse carried was a bundle of cloaks and shawls,
slung together with an umbrella on the horn of her saddle. Upa, who
was most picturesquely got up in the native style with garlands of
flowers round his hat and throat, carried our saddle-bags on the
peak of his saddle, a bag with bananas, bread, and a bottle of tea
on the horn, and a canteen of water round his waist. I had on my
coarse Australian hat which serves the double purpose of sunshade
and umbrella, Mrs. Thompson's riding costume, my great rusty New
Zealand boots, and my blanket strapped behind a very gaily
ornamented brass-bossed demi-pique Mexican saddle, which one of the
missionary's daughters had lent me. It has a horn in front, a low
peak behind, large wooden stirrups with leathern flaps the length of
the stirrup-leathers, to prevent the dress from coming in contact
with the horse, and strong guards of hide which hang over and below
the stirrup, and cover it and the foot up to the ancles, to prevent
the feet or boots from being torn in riding through the bush. Each
horse had four fathoms of tethering rope wound several times round
his neck. In such fashion must all travelling be done on Hawaii,
whether by ladies or gentlemen.
Upa supplied the picturesque element, we the grotesque. The morning
was moist and unpropitious looking. As the greater part of the
thirty miles has to be travelled at a foot's-pace the guide took
advantage of the soft grassy track which leads out of Hilo, to go
off at full gallop, a proceeding which made me at once conscious of
the demerits of my novel way of riding. To guide the horse and to
clutch the horn of the saddle with both hands were clearly
incompatible, so I abandoned the first as being the least important.
Then my feet either slipped too far into the stirrups and were cut,
or they were jerked out; every corner was a new terror, for at each
I was nearly pitched off on one side, and when at last Upa stopped,
and my beast stopped without consulting my wishes, only a desperate
grasp of mane and tethering rope saved me from going over his head.
At this ridiculous moment we came upon a bevy of brown maidens
swimming in a lakelet by the roadside, who increased my confusion by
a chorus of laughter. How fervently I hoped that the track would
never admit of galloping again!
Hilo fringes off with pretty native houses, kalo patches and mullet
ponds, and in about four miles the track, then formed of rough hard
lava, and not more than 24 inches wide, enters a forest of the
densest description, a burst of true tropical jungle. I could not
have imagined anything so perfectly beautiful, nature seemed to riot
in the production of wonderful forms, as if the moist hot-house air
encouraged her in lavish excesses. Such endless variety, such
depths of green, such an impassable and altogether inextricable maze
of forest trees, ferns, and lianas! There were palms, breadfruit
trees, ohias, eugenias, candle-nuts of immense size, Koa (acacia),
bananas, noni, bamboos, papayas (Carica papaya), guavas, ti trees
(Cordyline terminalis), treeferns, climbing ferns, parasitic ferns,
and ferns themselves the prey of parasites of their own species.
The lianas were there in profusion climbing over the highest trees,
and entangling them, with stems varying in size from those as thick
as a man's arm to those as slender as whipcord, binding all in an
impassable network, and hanging over our heads in rich festoons or
tendrils swaying in the breeze. There were trailers, i.e.,
(Freycinetia scandens) with heavy knotted stems, as thick as a
frigate's stoutest hawser, coiling up to the tops of tall ohias with
tufted leaves like yuccas, and crimson spikes of gaudy blossom. The
shining festoons of the yam and the graceful trailers of the maile
(Alyxia Olivaeformis), a sweet scented vine, from which the natives
make garlands, and glossy leaved climbers hung from tree to tree,
and to brighten all, huge morning glories of a heavenly blue opened
a thousand blossoms to the sun as if to give a tenderer loveliness
to the forest. Here trees grow and fall, and nature covers them
where they lie with a new vegetation which altogether obliterates
their hasty decay. It is four miles of beautiful and inextricable
confusion, untrodden by human feet except on the narrow track. "Of
every tree in this garden thou mayest freely eat," and no serpent or
noxious thing trails its hideous form through this Eden.
It was quite intoxicating, so new, wonderful, and solemn withal,
that I was sorry when we emerged from its shady depths upon a grove
of cocoanut trees and the glare of day. Two very poor-looking grass
huts, with a ragged patch of sugar-cane beside them, gave us an
excuse for half an hour's rest. An old woman in a red sack, much
tattooed, with thick short grey hair bristling on her head, sat on a
palm root, holding a nude brown child; a lean hideous old man,
dressed only in a malo, leaned against its stem, our horses with
their highly miscellaneous gear were tethered to a fern stump, and
Upa, the most picturesque of the party, served out tea. He and the
natives talked incessantly, and from the frequency with which the
words "wahine haole" (foreign woman) occurred, the subject of their
conversation was obvious. Upa has taken up the notion from
something Mr. S--- said, that I am a "high chief," and related to
Queen Victoria, and he was doubtlessly imposing this fable on the
people. In spite of their poverty and squalor, if squalor is a term
which can be applied to aught beneath these sunny skies, there was a
kindliness about them which they made us feel, and the aloha with
which they parted from us had a sweet friendly sound.
From this grove we travelled as before in single file over an
immense expanse of lava of the kind called pahoehoe, or satin rock,
to distinguish it from the a-a, or jagged, rugged, impassable rock.
Savants all use these terms in the absence of any equally expressive
in English. The pahoehoe extends in the Hilo direction from hence
about twenty-three miles. It is the cooled and arrested torrent of
lava which in past ages has flowed towards Hilo from Kilauea. It
lies in hummocks, in coils, in rippled waves, in rivers, in huge
convolutions, in pools smooth and still, and in caverns which are
really bubbles. Hundreds of square miles of the island are made up
of this and nothing more. A very frequent aspect of pahoehoe is the
likeness on a magnificent scale of a thick coat of cream drawn in
wrinkling folds to the side of a milk-pan. This lava is all grey,
and the greater part of its surface is slightly roughened. Wherever
this is not the case the horses slip upon it as upon ice.
Here I began to realize the universally igneous origin of Hawaii, as
I had not done among the finely disintegrated lava of Hilo. From
the hard black rocks which border the sea, to the loftiest mountain
dome or peak, every stone, atom of dust, and foot of fruitful or
barren soil bears the Plutonic mark. In fact, the island has been
raised heap on heap, ridge on ridge, mountain on mountain, to nearly
the height of Mont Blanc, by the same volcanic forces which are
still in operation here, and may still add at intervals to the
height of the blue dome of Mauna Loa, of which we caught occasional
glimpses above the clouds. Hawaii is actually at the present time
being built up from the ocean, and this great sea of pahoehoe is not
to be regarded as a vindictive eruption, bringing desolation on a
fertile region, but as an architectural and formative process.
There is no water, except a few deposits of rain-water in holes, but
the moist air and incessant showers have aided nature to mantle this
frightful expanse with an abundant vegetation, principally ferns of
an exquisite green, the most conspicuous being the Sadleria, the
Gleichenia Hawaiiensis, a running wire-like fern, and the exquisite
Microlepia tenuifolia, dwarf guava, with its white flowers
resembling orange flowers in odour, and ohelos (Vaccinium
reticulatum), with their red and white berries, and a profusion of
small-leaved ohias (Metrosideros polymorpha), with their deep
crimson tasselled flowers, and their young shoots of bright crimson,
relieved the monotony of green. These crimson tassels deftly strung
on thread or fibres, are much used by the natives for their leis, or
garlands. The ti tree (Cordyline terminalis) which abounds also on
the lava, is most valuable. They cook their food wrapped up in its
leaves, the porous root when baked, has the taste and texture of
molasses candy, and when distilled yields a spirit, and the leaves
form wrappings for fish, hard poi, and other edibles. Occasionally
a clump of tufted coco-palms, or of the beautiful candle-nut rose
among the smaller growths. To our left a fringe of palms marked the
place where the lava and the ocean met, while, on our right, we were
seldom out of sight of the dense timber belt, with its fringe of
tree-ferns and bananas, which girdles Mauna Loa.
The track, on the whole, is a perpetual upward scramble; for, though
the ascent is so gradual, that it is only by the increasing coolness
of the atmosphere that the increasing elevation is denoted, it is
really nearly 4,000 feet in thirty miles. Only strong, sure-footed,
well-shod horses can undertake this journey, for it is a constant
scramble over rocks, going up or down natural steps, or cautiously
treading along ledges. Most of the track is quite legible owing to
the vegetation having been worn off the lava, but the rock itself
hardly shows the slightest abrasion.
Upa had indicated that we were to stop for rest at the "Half Way
House;" and, as I was hardly able to sit on my horse owing to
fatigue, I consoled myself by visions of a comfortable sofa and a
cup of tea. It was with real dismay that I found the reality to
consist of a grass hut, much out of repair, and which, bad as it
was, was locked. Upa said we had ridden so slowly that it would be
dark before we reached the volcano, and only allowed us to rest on
the grass for half-an-hour. He had frequently reiterated "Half Way
House, you wear spur;" and, on our remounting, he buckled on my foot
a heavy rusty Mexican spur, with jingling ornaments and rowels an
inch and a half long. These horses are so accustomed to be jogged
with these instruments that they won't move without them. The
prospect of five hours more riding looked rather black, for I was
much exhausted, and my shoulders and knee-joints were in severe
pain. Miss K.'s horse showed no other appreciation of a stick with
which she belaboured him than flourishes of his tail, so, for a
time, he was put in the middle, that Upa might add his more forcible
persuasions, and I rode first and succeeded in getting my lazy
animal into the priestly amble known at home as "a butter and eggs
trot," the favourite travelling pace, but this not suiting the
guide's notion of progress, he frequently rushed up behind with a
torrent of Hawaiian, emphasized by heavy thumps on my horse's back,
which so sorely jeopardised my seat on the animal, owing to his
resenting the interference by kicking, that I "dropped astern" for
the rest of the way, leaving Upa to belabour Miss K.'s steed for his
diversion.
The country altered but little, only the variety of trees gave place
to the ohia alone, with its sombre foliage. There were neither
birds nor insects, and the only travellers we encountered in the
solitude compelled us to give them a wide berth, for they were a
drove of half wild random cattle, led by a lean bull of hideous
aspect, with crumpled horns. Two picturesque native vaccheros on
mules accompanied them, and my flagging spirits were raised by their
news that the volcano was quite active. The owner of these cattle
knows that he has 10,000 head, and may have a great many more. They
are shot for their hides by men who make shooting and skinning them
a profession, and, near settlements, the owners are thankful to get
two cents a pound for sirloin and rump-steaks. These, and great
herds which are actually wild and ownerless upon the mountains, are
a degenerate breed, with some of the worst peculiarities of the
Texas cattle, and are the descendants of those which Vancouver
placed on the islands and which were under Tabu for ten years. They
destroy the old trees by gnawing the bark, and render the growth of
young ones impossible.
As it was getting dark we passed through a forest strip, where tree-
ferns from twelve to eighteen feet in height, and with fronds from
five to seven feet long, were the most attractive novelties. As we
emerged, "with one stride came the dark," a great darkness, a cloudy
night, with neither moon nor stars, and the track was further
obscured by a belt of ohias. There were five miles of this, and I
was so dead from fatigue and want of food, that I would willingly
have lain down in the bush in the rain. I most heartlessly wished
that Miss K. were tired too, for her voice, which seemed tireless as
she rode ahead in the dark, rasped upon my ears. I could only keep
on my saddle by leaning on the horn, and my clothes were soaked with
the heavy rain. "A dreadful ride," one and another had said, and I
then believed them. It seemed an awful solitude full of mystery.
Often, I only knew that my companions were ahead by the sparks
struck from their horse's shoes.
It became a darkness which could be felt.
"Is that possibly a pool of blood?" I thought in horror, as a rain
puddle glowed crimson on the track. Not that indeed! A glare
brighter and redder than that from any furnace suddenly lightened
the whole sky, and from that moment brightened our path. There sat
Miss K. under her dripping umbrella as provokingly erect as when she
left Hilo. There Upa jogged along, huddled up in his poncho, and
his canteen shone red. There the ohia trees were relieved blackly
against the sky. The scene started out from the darkness with the
suddenness of a revelation. We felt the pungency of sulphurous
fumes in the still night air. A sound as of the sea broke on our
ears, rising and falling as if breaking on the shore, but the ocean
was thirty miles away. The heavens became redder and brighter, and
when we reached the crater-house at eight, clouds of red vapour
mixed with flame were curling ceaselessly out of a huge invisible
pit of blackness, and Kilauea was in all its fiery glory. We had
reached the largest active volcano in the world, the "place of
everlasting burnings."
Rarely was light more welcome than that which twinkled from under
the verandah of the lonely crater-house into the rainy night. The
hospitable landlord of this unique dwelling lifted me from my horse,
and carried me into a pleasant room thoroughly warmed by a large
wood fire, and I hastily retired to bed to spend much of the
bitterly cold night in watching the fiery vapours rolling up out of
the infinite darkness, and in dreading the descent into the crater.
The heavy clouds were crimson with the reflection, and soon after
midnight jets of flame of a most peculiar colour leapt fitfully into
the air, accompanied by a dull throbbing sound.
This morning was wet and murky as many mornings are here, and the
view from the door was a blank up to ten o'clock, when the mist
rolled away and revealed the mystery of last night, the mighty
crater whose vast terminal wall is only a few yards from this house.
We think of a volcano as a cone. This is a different thing. The
abyss, which really is at a height of nearly 4,000 feet on the flank
of Mauna Loa, has the appearance of a great pit on a rolling plain.
But such a pit! It is nine miles in circumference, and its lowest
area, which not long ago fell about 300 feet, just as ice on a pond
falls when the water below it is withdrawn, covers six square miles.
The depth of the crater varies from 800 to 1,100 feet in different
years, according as the molten sea below is at flood or ebb. Signs
of volcanic activity are present more or less throughout its whole
depth, and for some distance round its margin, in the form of steam
cracks, jets of sulphurous vapour, blowing cones, accumulating
deposits of acicular crystals of sulphur, etc., and the pit itself
is constantly rent and shaken by earthquakes. Grand eruptions occur
at intervals with circumstances of indescribable terror and dignity,
but Kilauea does not limit its activity to these outbursts, but has
exhibited its marvellous phenomena through all known time in a lake
or lakes in the southern part of the crater three miles from this
side.
This lake, the Hale-mau-mau, or House of Everlasting Fire of the
Hawaiian mythology, the abode of the dreaded goddess Pele, is
approachable with safety except during an eruption. The spectacle,
however, varies almost daily, and at times the level of the lava in
the pit within a pit is so low, and the suffocating gases are
evolved in such enormous quantities, that travellers are unable to
see anything. There had been no news from it for a week, and as
nothing was to be seen but a very faint bluish vapour hanging round
its margin, the prospect was not encouraging.
When I have learned more about the Hawaiian volcanoes, I shall tell
you more of their phenomena, but tonight I shall only write to you
my first impressions of what we actually saw on this January 31st.
My highest expectations have been infinitely exceeded, and I can
hardly write soberly after such a spectacle, especially while
through the open door I see the fiery clouds of vapour from the pit
rolling up into a sky, glowing as if itself on fire.
We were accompanied into the crater by a comical native guide, who
mimicked us constantly, our Hilo guide, who "makes up" a little
English, a native woman from Kona, who speaks imperfect English
poetically, and her brother who speaks none. I was conscious that
we foreign women with our stout staffs and grotesque dress looked
like caricatures, and the natives, who have a keen sense of the
ludicrous, did not conceal that they thought us so.
The first descent down the terminal wall of the crater is very
precipitous, but it and the slope which extends to the second
descent are thickly covered with ohias, ohelos (a species of
whortleberry), sadlerias, polypodiums, silver grass, and a great
variety of bulbous plants many of which bore clusters of berries of
a brilliant turquoise blue. The "beyond" looked terrible. I could
not help clinging to these vestiges of the kindlier mood of nature
in which she sought to cover the horrors she had wrought. The next
descent is over rough blocks and ridges of broken lava, and appears
to form part of a break which extends irregularly round the whole
crater, and which probably marks a tremendous subsidence of its
floor. Here the last apparent vegetation was left behind, and the
familiar earth. We were in a new Plutonic region of blackness and
awful desolation, the accustomed sights and sounds of nature all
gone. Terraces, cliffs, lakes, ridges, rivers, mountain sides,
whirlpools, chasms of lava surrounded us, solid, black, and shining,
as if vitrified, or an ashen grey, stained yellow with sulphur here
and there, or white with alum. The lava was fissured and upheaved
everywhere by earthquakes, hot underneath, and emitting a hot
breath.
After more than an hour of very difficult climbing we reached the
lowest level of the crater, pretty nearly a mile across, presenting
from above the appearance of a sea at rest, but on crossing it we
found it to be an expanse of waves and convolutions of ashy-coloured
lava, with huge cracks filled up with black iridescent rolls of
lava, only a few weeks old. Parts of it are very rough and ridgy,
jammed together like field ice, or compacted by rolls of lava which
may have swelled up from beneath, but the largest part of the area
presents the appearance of huge coiled hawsers, the ropy formation
of the lava rendering the illusion almost perfect. These are riven
by deep cracks which emit hot sulphurous vapours. Strange to say,
in one of these, deep down in that black and awful region, three
slender metamorphosed ferns were growing, three exquisite forms, the
fragile heralds of the great forest of vegetation, which probably in
coming years will clothe this pit with beauty. Truly they seemed to
speak of the love of God. On our right there was a precipitous
ledge, and a recent flow of lava had poured over it, cooling as it
fell into columnar shapes as symmetrical as those of Staffa. It
took us a full hour to cross this deep depression, and as long to
master a steep hot ascent of about 400 feet, formed by a recent
lava-flow from Hale-mau-mau into the basin. This lava hill is an
extraordinary sight--a flood of molten stone, solidifying as it ran
down the declivity, forming arrested waves, streams, eddies,
gigantic convolutions, forms of snakes, stems of trees, gnarled
roots, crooked water-pipes, all involved and contorted on a gigantic
scale, a wilderness of force and dread. Over one steeper place the
lava had run in a fiery cascade about 100 feet wide. Some had
reached the ground, some had been arrested midway, but all had taken
the aspect of stems of trees. In some of the crevices I picked up a
quantity of very curious filamentose lava, known as "Pele's hair."
It resembles coarse spun glass, and is of a greenish or yellowish-
brown colour. In many places the whole surface of the lava is
covered with this substance seen through a glazed medium. During
eruptions, when fire-fountains play to a great height, and drops of
lava are thrown in all directions, the wind spins them out in clear
green or yellow threads two or three feet long, which catch and
adhere to projecting points.
As we ascended, the flow became hotter under our feet, as well as
more porous and glistening. It was so hot that a shower of rain
hissed as it fell upon it. The crust became increasingly insecure,
and necessitated our walking in single file with the guide in front,
to test the security of the footing. I fell through several times,
and always into holes full of sulphurous steam, so malignantly acid
that my strong dog-skin gloves were burned through as I raised
myself on my hands.
We had followed a lava-flow for thirty miles up to the crater's
brink, and now we had toiled over recent lava for three hours, and
by all calculation were close to the pit, yet there was no smoke or
sign of fire, and I felt sure that the volcano had died out for once
for our especial disappointment. Indeed, I had been making up my
mind for disappointment since we left the crater-house, in
consequence of reading seven different accounts, in which language
was exhausted in describing Kilauea.
Suddenly, just above, and in front of us, gory drops were tossed in
air, and springing forwards we stood on the brink of Hale-mau-mau,
which was about 35 feet below us. I think we all screamed, I know
we all wept, but we were speechless, for a new glory and terror had
been added to the earth. It is the most unutterable of wonderful
things. The words of common speech are quite useless. It is
unimaginable, indescribable, a sight to remember for ever, a sight
which at once took possession of every faculty of sense and soul,
removing one altogether out of the range of ordinary life. Here was
the real "bottomless pit"--the "fire which is not quenched"--"the
place of hell"--"the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone"--
the "everlasting burnings"--the fiery sea whose waves are never
weary. There were groanings, rumblings, and detonations, rushings,
hissings, and splashings, and the crashing sound of breakers on the
coast, but it was the surging of fiery waves upon a fiery shore.
But what can I write! Such words as jets, fountains, waves, spray,
convey some idea of order and regularity, but here there was none.
The inner lake, while we stood there, formed a sort of crater within
itself, the whole lava sea rose about three feet, a blowing cone
about eight feet high was formed, it was never the same two minutes
together. And what we saw had no existence a month ago, and
probably will be changed in every essential feature a month hence.
What we did see was one irregularly-shaped lake, possibly 500 feet
wide at its narrowest part and nearly half a mile at its broadest,
almost divided into two by a low bank of lava, which extended nearly
across it where it was narrowest, and which was raised visibly
before our eyes. The sides of the nearest part of the lake were
absolutely perpendicular, but nowhere more than 40 feet high; but
opposite to us on the far side of the larger lake they were bold and
craggy, and probably not less than 150 feet high. On one side there
was an expanse entirely occupied with blowing cones, and jets of
steam or vapour. The lake has been known to sink 400 feet, and a
month ago it overflowed its banks. The prominent object was fire in
motion, but the surface of the double lake was continually skinning
over for a second or two with a cooled crust of a lustrous grey-
white, like frosted silver, broken by jagged cracks of a bright
rose-colour. The movement was nearly always from the sides to the
centre, but the movement of the centre itself appeared independent
and always took a southerly direction. Before each outburst of
agitation there was much hissing and a throbbing internal roaring,
as of imprisoned gases. Now it seemed furious, demoniacal, as if no
power on earth could bind it, then playful and sportive, then for a
second languid, but only because it was accumulating fresh force.
On our arrival eleven fire fountains were playing joyously round the
lakes, and sometimes the six of the nearer lake ran together in the
centre to go wallowing down in one vortex, from which they
reappeared bulging upwards, till they formed a huge cone 30 feet
high, which plunged downwards in a whirlpool only to reappear in
exactly the previous number of fountains in different parts of the
lake, high leaping, raging, flinging themselves upwards. Sometimes
the whole lake, abandoning its usual centripetal motion, as if
impelled southwards, took the form of mighty waves, and surging
heavily against the partial barrier with a sound like the Pacific
surf, lashed, tore, covered it, and threw itself over it in clots of
living fire. It was all confusion, commotion, force, terror, glory,
majesty, mystery, and even beauty. And the colour! "Eye hath not
seen" it! Molten metal has not that crimson gleam, nor blood that
living light! Had I not seen this I should never have known that
such a colour was possible.
The crust perpetually wrinkled, folded over, and cracked, and great
pieces were drawn downwards to be again thrown up on the crests of
waves. The eleven fountains of gory fire played the greater part of
the time, dancing round the lake with a strength of joyousness which
was absolute beauty. Indeed after the first half hour of terror had
gone by, the beauty of these jets made a profound impression upon
me, and the sight of them must always remain one of the most
fascinating recollections of my life. During three hours, the bank
of lava which almost divided the lakes rose considerably, owing to
the cooling of the spray as it dashed over it, and a cavern of
considerable size was formed within it, the roof of which was hung
with fiery stalactites, more than a foot long. Nearly the whole
time the surges of the further lake taking a southerly direction,
broke with a tremendous noise on the bold craggy cliffs which are
its southern boundary, throwing their gory spray to a height of
fully forty feet. At times an overhanging crag fell in, creating a
vast splash of fire and increased commotion.
Almost close below us there was an intermittent jet of lava, which
kept cooling round what was possibly a blowhole forming a cone with
an open top, which when we first saw it was about six feet high on
its highest side, and about as many in diameter. Up this cone or
chimney heavy jets of lava were thrown every second or two, and
cooling as they fell over its edge, raised it rapidly before our
eyes. Its fiery interior, and the singular sound with which the
lava was vomited up, were very awful. There was no smoke rising
from the lake, only a faint blue vapour which the wind carried in
the opposite direction. The heat was excessive. We were obliged to
stand the whole time, and the soles of our boots were burned, and my
ear and one side of my face were blistered. Although there was no
smoke from the lake itself, there was an awful region to the
westward, of smoke and sound, and rolling clouds of steam and vapour
whose phenomena it was not safe to investigate, where the blowing
cones are, whose fires last night appeared stationary. We were able
to stand quite near the margin, and look down into the lake, as you
look into the sea from the deck of a ship, the only risk being that
the fractured ledge might give way.
Before we came away, a new impulse seized the lava. The fire was
thrown to a great height; the fountains and jets all wallowed
together; new ones appeared, and danced joyously round the margin,
then converging towards the centre they merged into one glowing
mass, which upheaved itself pyramidally and disappeared with a vast
plunge. Then innumerable billows of fire dashed themselves into the
air, crashing and lashing, and the lake dividing itself recoiled on
either side, then hurling its fires together and rising as if by
upheaval from below, it surged over the temporary rim which it had
formed, passing downwards in a slow majestic flow, leaving the
central surface swaying and dashing in fruitless agony as if sent on
some errand it failed to accomplish.
Farewell, I fear for ever, to the glorious Hale-mau-mau, the
grandest type of force that the earth holds! "Break, break, break,"
on through the coming years,
"No more by thee my steps shall be,
No more again for ever!"
It seemed a dull trudge over the black and awful crater, and
strange, like half-forgotten sights of a world with which I had
ceased to have aught to do, were the dwarf tree-ferns, the lilies
with their turquoise clusters, the crimson myrtle blossoms, and all
the fair things which decked the precipice up which we slowly
dragged our stiff and painful limbs. Yet it was but the exchange of
a world of sublimity for a world of beauty, the "place of hell," for
the bright upper earth, with its endless summer, and its perennial
foliage, blossom, and fruitage.
Since writing the above I have been looking over the "Volcano Book,"
which contains the observations and impressions of people from all
parts of the world. Some of these are painstaking and valuable as
showing the extent and rapidity of the changes which take place in
the crater, but there is an immense quantity of flippant rubbish,
and would-be wit, in which "Madam Pele," invariably occurs, this
goddess, who was undoubtedly one of the grandest of heathen mythical
creations, being caricatured in pencil and pen and ink, under every
ludicrous aspect that can be conceived. Some of the entries are
brief and absurd, "Not much of a fizz," "a grand splutter," "Madam
Pele in the dumps," and so forth. These generally have English
signatures. The American wit is far racier, but depends mainly on
the profane use of certain passages of scripture, a species of wit
which is at once easy and disgusting. People are all particular in
giving the precise time of the departure from Hilo and arrival here,
"making good time" being a thing much admired on Hawaii, but few can
boast of more than three miles an hour. It is wonderful that people
can parade their snobbishness within sight of Hale-mau-mau.
This inn is a unique and interesting place. Its existence is
strikingly precarious, for the whole region is in a state of
perpetual throb from earthquakes, and the sights and sounds are
gruesome and awful both by day and night. The surrounding country
steams and smokes from cracks and pits, and a smell of sulphur fills
the air. They cook their kalo in a steam apparatus of nature's own
work just behind the house, and every drop of water is from a
distillery similarly provided. The inn is a grass and bamboo house,
very beautifully constructed without nails. It is a longish
building with a steep roof divided inside by partitions which run up
to the height of the walls. There is no ceiling. The joists which
run across are concealed by wreaths of evergreens, from among which
peep out here and there stars on a blue ground. The door opens from
the verandah into a centre room with a large open brick fire place,
in which a wood fire is constantly burning, for at this altitude the
temperature is cool. Some chairs, two lounges, small tables, and
some books and pictures on the walls give a look of comfort, and
there is the reality of comfort in perfection. Our sleeping-place,
a neat room with a matted floor opens from this, and on the other
side there is a similar room, and a small eating-room with a grass
cookhouse beyond, from which an obliging old Chinaman who
persistently calls us "sir," brings our food. We have had for each
meal, tea, preserved milk, coffee, kalo, biscuits, butter, potatoes,
goats' flesh, and ohelos. The charge is five dollars a day, but
everything except the potatoes and ohelos has to be brought twenty
or thirty miles on mules' backs. It is a very pretty picturesque
house both within and without, and stands on a natural lawn of
brilliant but unpalatable grass, surrounded by a light fence covered
with a small trailing double rose. It is altogether a most magical
building in the heart of a formidable volcanic wilderness. Mr.
Gilman, our host, is a fine picturesque looking man, half Indian,
and speaks remarkably good English, but his wife, a very pretty
native woman, speaks none, and he attends to us entirely himself.
A party of native travellers rainbound are here, and the native
women are sitting on the floor stringing flowers and berries for
leis. One very attractive-looking young woman, refined by
consumption, is lying on some blankets, and three native men are
smoking by the fire. Upa attempts conversation with us in broken
English, and the others laugh and talk incessantly. My inkstand,
pen, and small handwriting amuse them very much. Miss K., the
typical American travelling lady, who is encountered everywhere from
the Andes to the Pyramids, tireless, with an indomitable energy,
Spartan endurance, and a genius for attaining everything, and
myself, a limp, ragged, shoeless wretch, complete the group, and our
heaps of saddles, blankets, spurs, and gear tell of real travelling,
past and future. It is a most picturesque sight by the light of the
flickering fire, and the fire which is unquenchable burns without.
About 300 yards off there is a sulphur steam vapour-bath, highly
recommended by the host as a panacea for the woeful aches, pains,
and stiffness produced by the six-mile scramble through the crater,
and I groaned and limped down to it: but it is a truly spasmodic
arrangement, singularly independent of human control, and I have not
the slightest doubt that the reason why Mr. Gilman obligingly
remained in the vicinity was, lest I should be scalded or blown to
atoms by a sudden freak of Kilauea, though I don't see that he was
capable of preventing either catastrophe! A slight grass shed has
been built over a sulphur steam crack, and within this there is a
deep box with a sliding lid and a hole for the throat, and the
victim is supposed to sit in this and be steamed. But on this
occasion the temperature was so high, that my hand, which I unwisely
experimented upon, was immediately peeled. In order not to wound
Mr. Gilman's feelings, which are evidently sensitive on the subject
of this irresponsible contrivance, I remained the prescribed time
within the shed, and then managed to limp a little less, and go with
him to what are called the Sulphur Banks, on which sulphurous vapour
is perpetually depositing the most exquisite acicular sulphur
crystals; these, as they aggregate, take entrancing forms, like the
featherwork produced by the "frost-fall" in Colorado, but, like it,
they perish with a touch, and can only be seen in the wonderful
laboratory where they are formed.
In addition to the natives before mentioned, there is an old man
here who has been a bullock-hunter on Hawaii for forty years, and
knows the island thoroughly. In common with all the residents I
have seen, he takes an intense interest in volcanic phenomena, and
has just been giving us a thrilling account of the great eruption in
1868, when beautiful Hilo was threatened with destruction. Three
weeks ago, he says, a profound hush fell on Kilauea, and the summit
crater of Mauna Loa became active, and amidst throbbings, rumblings,
and earthquakes, broke into such magnificence that the light was
visible 100 miles at sea, a burning mountain 13,750 feet high! The
fires after two days died out as suddenly, and from here we can see
the great dome-like top, snow-capped under the stars, serene in an
eternal winter.
I.L.B.