28 Volcanic Character of the Island of Hawaii. 
the various elemental agents, and certainly these fables are’ 
recommended to a poetical imagination, by much that is 
splendid and grand 
Whenever the natives spoke of those gods of fire, it was 
as ‘ dreadful beings.” They reside imall the volcanoes, but 
chiefly in that of Kirauea. They never travelled on journies 
of mercy, but always on those of wrath. Earthquakes, thun- 
der and lightning their h: sacrifices were 
rauea with lava, and spouted it out; or taking a subterrane~ 
ous passage, marched to some one of their houses (craters) in 
the neighbourhood, and thence came down upon the delin- 
of Mr. Goodrich, mentioned in his letter, makes it 74. 
depth of the crater, they estimated at. 700 or 800 feet ; but 
Mr. Goodrich fixes it at more than 1000. | 
~The travellers ‘threw down several large stones, which, 
to the bottom, where they were lost in the lava. Some of 
_ Phe party separa 
path along the edge of the crater, towards the sea shore. 
The path was in many places dangerous, lying along narrow 
ridges, with fearful precipices om each side; or across deep 
chasms and hollows, that required the utmost care to avoid 
falling into them, and where a fall would 
have been certain 
death, as several of the chasms seemed 
precipice. the i 
towered some hundred feet above them on bahia and the 
2 flood of lava rolled almost beneath on the right. On 
side they descended to small craters on the declivity, and 
