258 
MISSIONARY TOUR 
awe, the appalling spectacle which the crater and its 
appendages presented. The violations of her sacred 
abode, and the insults to her power, of which we had 
been guilty, appeared to them, and to the natives in 
general, acts of temerity and sacrilege; and, notwith¬ 
standing the fact of our being foreigners, we were sub¬ 
sequently threatened with the vengeance of the volcanic 
deity, under the following circumstances. 
Some months after our visit to Kirauea, a priestess 
of Pdld came to Lahaina, in Maui, where the principal 
chiefs of the islands then resided. The object of her 
visit was noised abroad among the people, and much 
public interest excited. One or two mornings after 
her arrival in the district, arrayed in her prophetic 
robes, having the edges of her garments burnt with 
fire, and holding a short staff or spear in her hand, pre¬ 
ceded by her daughter, who was also a candidate for 
the office of priestess, and followed by thousands of the 
people, she came into the presence of the chiefs; and 
having told who she was, they asked what communi¬ 
cations she had to make. She replied, that, in a trance 
or vision, she had been with P61e, by whom she was 
charged to complain to them that a number of foreigners 
had visited Kirauea; eaten the sacred berries; broken 
her houses, the craters; thrown down large stones, &c. 
to request that the offenders might be sent away; and 
to assure them, that if these foreigners were not banished 
from the islands, Pdle would certainly, in a given num¬ 
ber of days, take vengeance by inundating the country 
with lava, and destroying the people. She also pretended 
to have received, in a supernatural manner, Kihoriho’s 
approbation of the request of the goddess. The crowds 
of natives who stood waiting the result of her inter- 
