5? 



HA WAIL 



[letter v. 



Pele, is approachable with safety except during an eruption. 

 The spectacle, however, varies almost daily, and at times the 

 level of the lava in the pit within a pit is so low, and the suf- 

 focating gases are evolved in such enormous quantities, that 

 travellers are unable to see anything. There had been no 

 news from it for a week, and as nothing was to be seen but a 

 very faint bluish vapour hanging round its margin, the prospect 

 was not encouraging. 



When I have learned more about the Hawaiian volcanoes, I 

 shall tell you more of their phenomena, but to-night I shall 

 only write to you my first impressions of what we actually saw 

 on this January 31st. My highest expectations have been in- 

 finitely exceeded, and I can hardly write soberly after such a 

 spectacle, especially while through the open door I see the 

 fiery clouds of vapour from the pit rolling up into a sky, glow- 

 ing as if itself on fire. 



We were accompanied into the crater by a comical native 

 guide, who mimicked us constantly, our Hilo guide, who 

 " makes up " a little English, a native woman from Kona, who 

 speaks imperfect English poetically, and her brother who 

 speaks none. I was conscious that we foreign women with our 

 stout staffs and grotesque dress looked like caricatures, and the 

 natives, who have a keen sense of the ludicrous, did not con- 

 ceal that they thought us so. 



The first descent down the terminal wall of the crater is very 

 precipitous, but it and the slope which extends to the second 

 descent are thickly covered with ohias, ohelos (a species of 

 whortleberry), sadlerias, polypodiums, silver grass, and a great 

 variety of bulbous plants, many of which bore clusters of 

 berries of a brilliant turquoise blue. The " beyond " looked 

 terrible. I could not help clinging to these vestiges of the 

 kindlier mood of nature in which she sought to cover the 

 horrors she had wrought The next descent is over rough 

 blocks and ridges of broken lava, and appears to form part of 

 a break which extends irregularly round the whole crater, and 

 which probably marks a tremendous subsidence of its floor. 

 Here the last apparent vegetation was left behind, and the 

 familiar earth. We were in a new region of blackness and awful 

 desolation, the accustomed sights and sounds of nature ail 

 gone. Terraces, cliffs, lakes, ridges, rivers, mountain sides, 

 whirlpools, chasms of lava surrounded us, solid, black, and 

 shining, as if vitrified, or an ashen grey, stained yellow with 

 sulphur here and there, or white with alum. The lava was 



