172 HAWAIIAN ISLANDS. 
surface. One pool, the largest of the three then in action, was after- 
wards ascertained by survey to measure one thousand five hun- 
dred feet in one diameter, and a thousand in the other: and this 
whole area, into which the Capitol grounds at Washington might be 
sunk entire, was boiling, as seemed from above, with nearly the 
mobility of water. Still all went on quietly. Not a whisper was 
heard from the fires below. White vapours rose in fleecy wreaths 
from the pools and numerous fissures, and above the large lake they 
collected into a broad canopy of clouds, not unlike the snowy heaps 
or cumuli that lie near the horizon in a clear day, though changing 
more rapidly their fanciful shapes. On descending afterwards to the 
black ledge, at the verge of the lower pit, a half-smothered gurgling 
sound was all that could be heard from the pools of lava. Occasionally . 
there was a report like that of musketry, which died away, and left 
the same murmuring sound, the stifled mutterings of a boiling fluid. 
Such was the general appearance of Pele’s pit in a day view, at the 
time it was visited by the author.* 
At night, though no less quiet, the scene was one of indescribable 
sublimity. We were encamped on the edge of the crater, with the fires" 
full in view. The large cauldron, in place of its bloody glare, now 
glowed with intense brilliancy, and the surface sparkled with shifting 
points of dazzling light, occasioned by the jets in constant play. A 
row of small basins on the southeast side of the lake were also jetting 
out their glowing lavas. ‘Two other pools in another part of the 
pit tossed up their molten rock much like the larger cauldron, and 
occasionally burst out with jets forty or fifty feet in height. The 
broad canopy of clouds above the pit which seemed to rest on a column 
of wreaths and curling heaps of lighted vapour, and the amphitheatre 
of rocks around the lower depths, were brightly illuminated from the 
boiling lavas; while a lurid red tinged the distant parts of the inclosing 
walls and threw into deeper shades of darkness the many cavernous 
recesses. And over this scene of restless fires and fiery vapours the 
heavens by contrast seemed unnaturally black, with only here and 
there a star like a dim point of light. 
The next night, streams of lava boiled over from the lake, and formed 
several glowing lines diverging over the bottom of the crater. Towards 
morning, there was a dense mist, and the whole atmosphere seemed 
on fire. Through the haze, the lakes were barely distinguished by 
* In November, 1840. 
