OF THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS. 405 



party, they discovered them all to have become corpses. Some were lying down, and others 

 were sitting upright, clasping with dying grasp their wives and children, and joining noses 

 (their form of expressing affection) as in the act of taking a final leave. So much like life 

 they looked, that they at first supposed them merely at rest, and it was not until they 

 had come up to them and handled them, that they could detect their mistake. Of the whole 

 party, including women and children, not one survived to relate the catastrophe that had 

 befallen their comrades. The only living being they found, was a solitary hog. In these 

 perilous circumstances the surviving party did not even stay to bewail their fate, but 

 leaving their deceased companions as they found them, hurried on, and overtook the com- 

 pany in advance." 



On their return after a week or ten days, they found the bodies entire and exhibiting no 

 signs of decay except a hollowness of the eyes. They were never buried, and a missionary 

 who collected a part of the account from the natives who marched with Keoiia, saw a human 

 skull lying in the black volcanic sand of this neighborhood. It is said by some who saw 

 the corpses that, although never deeply burned, they were thoroughly scorched, and this will 

 perhaps account for their preservation for so many days. 



This eruption surpassed any subsequent one, and was of a totally different nature. No 

 lava is mentioned, but an immense amount of sand and scoriae, with volumes of steam and 

 sulphurous vapor. The description at once reminds us of the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 ; 

 the same black, lofty column of smoke, lightnings, and destructive showers of sand such as 

 overwhelmed Pompeii and Herculaneum. Could it have marked a renewal of activity after 

 a long rest, and were the scoria? the remains of the long-cooled crust at the bottom of the 

 crater ? South and west of Kilauea where the sand deposits are quite extensive, the whole 

 ground is cracked with earthquake throbs. These rents are sometimes filled with the black 

 sand, and sometimes, especially near Ponahohoa, with lava. 1 It seems probable that from 

 these cracks came the steam and vapor so destructive to the army, as those nearer the crater 

 did not suffer from them. The prevailing trade-winds have carried all the ejections of this 

 eruption to the south-west of the crater, and no sand of similar appearance is found on the 

 windward side. The Ponahohoa region seems to overlie some fissure, or at least a weak part of 

 the volcanic dome, as the earthquakes are usually quite severe here, cracks are frequent, and 

 even lava has been ejected, although there are no signs of the existence of a volcano distinct 

 from Kilauea. More probably it is over the line of a subterranean lava-stream, and the facts 

 mentioned by the Rev. William Ellis, who visited the place in 1823, seem to corroborate this 

 view. He saw a deep chasm which had opened several months before, and was still emitting 

 vapors. Black lava was spattered on the bushes and rocks in the neighborhood, and at 

 the same time there is every reason to believe that the lavas of Kilauea were finding an 

 outlet. 



The appearance of Kilauea itself as described by Mr. Ellis, who was the first to 

 publish an account of it, was quite different from its present condition. 2 It was 

 evidently in an unfilled state, and we must infer that it was emptying itself, as the action 

 was much diminished the next year. It may be allowable then to consider 1823 as the 

 date of an eruption although no stream of lava, if we except the traces at Ponahohoa, 

 appeared above ground. The volcano discharged as usual by a lateral rent, the side walls 



l See plate in A Tour through Hawaii, by Rev. William 2 Jjr. Ellis visited Kilauea, August 1, 1823. 

 Ellis. London, 1827, p. 203. 



MEMOIRS BOST SOC. NAT. HIST. Vol. I. Pt. 3. 103 



