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doubt at night the inflamed gases would present the appearance of 

 a cohimn of fire, but in the day-time, to one who had seen 

 what I had that day seen, the upper crater looked rather 

 curious than imposing. The great heat did not allow a nearer 

 approach than about forty yards' distance. 



Nothing now remained but to return to the two natives, who, 

 worn out and dispirited, had laid down about a mile and a half 

 away some 500ft. below the level of the craters, and there we slept. 



Few living men, perhaps, have looked on such a scene with such 

 surroundings as I did that night. The night was clear with us. 

 Over our heads spread the vault of heaven, starlit and moonlit ; 

 and all around, scarred and furrowed like an ancient world des- 

 troyed by fire, lay the great grey round face of Mauna Loa ; above 

 us its two craters sent up rolling volumes of lurid smoke. To the 

 northward Mauna Kea reared its crest of snow into the moon- 

 beams, looking down nearly 14,000ft. upon the mingled gloom and 

 glare of the intervening valley, along which flowed the eruption, 

 running downwards to the forests, and burning its way through 

 them for miles and miles into the far distance by Hilo. To the 

 east and south, before us, the low dark woodlands fringing the 

 coast, slept in shadow with the sea beyond. 



Solemnly grand and impressive it was, but it became sublime 

 when clouds gathered some thousand feet below us ; their upper 

 surface as we looked down on them, shining white in moonlight, 

 yet through which the lightning flashes played, and deepest thunders 

 reverberated — still we were in perfect calm — and over and beyond 

 the thunder storm I could look upon the glitter of the moon's rays 

 on the placid sea — like Dante, with whose genius the scene so well 

 accorded — 



" Di lontano 



"Conobbi il tremolar della marina." 



Such was my last night on Mauna Loa. 



In the morning, rising at the first sign of da'vvn, very great 

 and sustained exertion, not without much suflering from thirst, 

 and with bleeding feet, brought us back long after nightfall to my 

 friend Stuart- Wortley, and to what seemed to us the comforts and 

 luxuries of the old grass hut above Kilauea. 



