262 POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
heavy black smoke was seen rising from the 
crater directly in front of us ; the subterranean 
struggle ceased, and immediately after, flames 
burst from a large cone, near which we had been 
in the morning, and which then appeared to have 
been long inactive. Red-hot stones, cinders, and 
ashes, were also propelled to a great height with 
immense violence ; and shortly after, the molten 
lava came boiling up, and flowed down the sides 
of the cone, and over the surrounding scoria, in 
two beautiful curved streams, glittering with inde¬ 
scribable brilliance. 
“ At the same time a whole lake of fire opened in 
a more distant part. This could not have been 
less than two miles in circumference; and its 
action was more horribly sublime than any thing 
I ever imagined to exist, even in the ideal visions 
of unearthly things. Its surface had all the agi¬ 
tation of an ocean ; billow after billow tossed its 
monstrous bosom in the air, and occasionally 
those from different directions burst with such 
violence, as in the concussion to dash the fiery 
spray forty and fifty feet high. It was at once 
the most splendidly beautiful and dreadfully 
fearful of spectacles ; and irresistibly turned the 
thoughts to that lake of fire, from whence the 
smoke of torment ascendeth for ever and ever. 
No work of Him who laid the foundations of 
the earth, and who by his almighty power still 
supports them, ever brought to my mind the more 
awful revelations of his word with such over¬ 
whelming impression. Truly, ‘ with God is ter¬ 
rible majesty/—‘ Let all the nations say unto God 
-—how terrible art thou in thy works / ” 
Soon after leaving our encampment on the 
morning of the 3d of August, we came to the 
