£86 
MISSIONARY TOUR 
ol the flames were the kani of their Jiurct, (music of 
their dance,) and the red flaming surge was the surf 
wherein they played, sportively swimming on the roll¬ 
ing wave.* 
As eight of the natives with us belonged to the ad¬ 
joining district, we asked them to tell us what they 
knew of the history of this volcano, and what their 
opinions were respecting it. From their account, and 
that of others with whom we conversed, we learned, 
that it had been burning from time immemorial, or, to 
use their own words, “ mai ka po mai,” from chaos till 
now,+ and had overflowed some part of the country 
during the reign of every king that had governed 
Hawaii: that in earlier ages it used to boil up, over¬ 
flow its banks, and inundate the adjacent country ; 
but that, for many kings’ reigns past, it had kept 
below r the level of the surrounding plain, continually 
extending its surface and increasing its depth, and 
occasionally throwing up, with violent explosion, huge 
rocks or red-hot stones. These eruptions, they said, 
were always accompanied by dreadful earthquakes, 
loud claps of thunder, with vivid and quick-succeeding 
lightning. No great explosion, they added, had taken 
place since the days of Keoua; but many places near 
* Swimming in the sea, when the weather is tempestuous and 
the surf high, is a favourite amusement throughout the Sandwich 
and other islands in the Pacific. 
f The Hawaiian traditions, like those of the ancients, refer to 
night, or a chaotic state, the origin of the world, and almost all 
things therein, the greater part of their gods not excepted. The 
present state they call the Ao marama , Day, or state of light. 
They speak of creation as a transition from darkness to light; 
and when they wish to express the existence of any thing from 
the beginning, they say it has been so mai ka po mai, from the 
night, or state of darkness or confusion, till now. 
