KAPIOLANI. 277 
passing near the volcano, and expressed her de¬ 
termination to visit it. Some of the devotees of 
the goddess met her, and attempted to dissuade 
her from her purpose; assuring her, that though 
foreigners might go there with security, yet Pele 
would allow no Hawaiian to intrude. Kapiolani, 
however, was not to be thus diverted, but proposed 
that they should all go together; and declaring 
that if Pele appeared, or inflicted any punishment, 
she would then worship the goddess, but propos¬ 
ing, that if nothing of the kind took place, they 
should renounce their attachment to Pele, and 
join with her and her friends in aeknowledging 
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 
supposing 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, Pele had issued from 
a subterranean cavern, and overflowed the low 
land of Kearaara, and the southern part of Kapa- 
pala. The inundation 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 
