JVotice of Hawaii, {Owhyee,) and its Volcanic Regions, 8fc. 237 



path leading down, I was quite surprised to find the commencement 

 of it so different from that of my former descent. Indeed, I did not 

 know, till then, that any part within the upper circumference, pre- 

 sented such an aspect — at a single view, affording the most conclu- 

 sive proof of the kind of process going on, in the undermining of 

 the surrounding mountain ; and of the manner in which the enor- 

 mous fires beneath are fed, when old masses of matter upon which 

 they have been acting, become utterly reduced to scoria and ashes. 



After an almost perpendicular descent of eighty or a hundred feet, 

 — in accomplishing which, we at times, hung from rock to rock,— 

 the path came upon an extent of ground, half a mile in length and 

 a quarter broad, broken into abrupt hills and deep glens, and cover- 

 ed with grass, shrubbery, and small trees. The whole declines 

 gradually, several hundred feet, towards the crater, and constitutes a 

 little valley, separated from it, by a succession of barren hills, and of 

 volcanic rock and sand. It had evidently been shattered into its pres- 

 ent forms, and sunk from the level above, at no very remote period, 

 in some convulsion, after its foundations had been sapped by the ele- 

 ment still raging beneath. And it is not improbable, that, even now, 

 the whole is suspended on some comparatively slender base, till an- 

 other throe shall open for it a descent into a raging. abyss, to be con- 

 verted, in its turn, into a mass of hquid fire. 



The scenery, here, was strikingly unique and romantic ; consisting, 

 above and behind us, of the bare and perpendicular face of rocks, 

 from which this section had been rent as it came down; and of a 

 succession of miniature mountains and ravines, thrown into every 

 wild form, and still beautifully verdant with various growth. The 

 path winding over and through these — though plain and seemingly 

 safe — is, in truth, the most dangerous that I have met with in the 

 whole region. In many places, the bushes and grass skirting it, either 

 partially or entirely conceal the most horrible pits and fissures, into 

 which, almost without knowing it, a single false step, or a slip, might 

 plunge one to be heard of no more. In several instances, when least 

 dreaming of danger, I have come upon some of these, with a sud- 

 denness and want of caution, that have made my blood curdle, as I 

 ventured a gaze, into their yawning and unfathomable mouths. Once, 

 in particular, the first intimation I had of being near any thing of the 

 kind, was given by the heat of the steam issuing from it and striking 

 against my face — my feet beuig already on the very brink. It was 

 sufficiently large to admit the stoutest man entire ; of a depth to which 



Vol/ XX.—No. 2. 31 



