260 
MISSIONARY TOUR 
friends in acknowledging* Jehovah as the true God. 
They all went together to the volcano; Kapiolani, with 
her attendants, descended several hundred feet towards 
the bottom of the crater, where she spoke to them of 
the delusion they had formerly laboured under in sup¬ 
posing it inhabited by their false gods; they sung a 
hymn, and after spending several hours in the vicinity, 
pursued their journey. What effect the conduct of 
Kapiolani, on this occasion, will have on the natives 
in general, remains yet to be discovered. 
The people of Kearakomo also told us, that no longer 
than five moons ago, Pel6 had issued from a subter¬ 
ranean cavern, and overflowed the low land of Kea- 
raara, and the southern part of Kapapala. The inun¬ 
dation was sudden and violent, burnt one canoe, and 
carried four more into the sea. At Mahuka, the deep 
torrent of lava bore into the sea a large rock, according 
to their account, near a hundred feet high, which, a 
short period before, had been separated by an earth¬ 
quake from the main pile in the neighbourhood. It 
now stands, they say, in the sea, nearly a mile from 
the shore, its bottom surrounded by lava, its summit 
rising considerably above the water. We exceedingly 
regretted our ignorance of this inundation at the time 
when we passed through the inland parts of the above- 
mentioned districts, for had we known of it then, we 
should certainly have descended to the shore, and 
examined its extent and appearance. We now felt 
convinced that the chasms we had visited at Ponaho- 
hoa, and the smoking fissures we afterwards saw 
nearer Kirauea, marked the course of a stream of lava, 
and thought it probable that though the lava had burst 
out five months ago, it was still flowing in a smaller 
