We found the pit in which the fire was raging to be about fifty or sixty feet deep; it was nearly round, and about one hundred yards across. The sides were perpendicular; the strongest heat seemed to be around the sides. On one side there were two large holes very close together, which looked more like the mouths of two very large furnaces than anything else I ever saw. Here the melted lava was in constant motion, surging and heaving like the waves of the sea. The sound which it made was somewhat similar to the paddles of a steam vessel in the ocean, only it was far greater. We heard this sound before we reached the mouth of the volcano, and it resembled, to our ears, the booming of heavy artillery at a distance.
The lava kept flowing in the direction of these two holes of which I spoke, and rocks thrown down upon the surface of the lava would melt when near these holes like sealing wax held in a candle. It was surprising to see with what ease the fire would melt this stony mass of lava, which in some parts of the pit would cool on the surface, and convert it again into a fluid.
Sometimes showers of hot lava would be thrown up in the air, and descend on the edges of the pit where we stood. When this occurred the bystanders would have to scamper off as fast as they could, or be severely burned.
The sight of this pit surpassed in sublimity and grandeur anything I had ever witnessed or imagined. It far exceeded what I had read in written descriptions, or even what I expected to see. Language fails to convey to the mind a correct idea of its appearance.
We were told that a party of natives had just been there, throwing the bones of one of their relatives into the volcano with hogs, fowls, etc., sacrifices with which to gain the favor of Madame Pele, the goddess.
For some years there had not been any eruptions from this crater which we visited; but others had broken out in the same neighborhood, the fire and smoke of which had been seen for a long distance, and ashes from which, it is said, had fallen on the decks of vessels hundreds of miles at sea. From these eruptions the lava had run down to the sea, sweeping everything before it, and heating the sea for several miles in such a manner as to kill large quantities of fish.
The island of Hawaii is very frequently shaken by earthquakes, the effects of the hidden fires.
Chapter 14
A Hawaiian Feast—Amusing Joke Played Upon White Men
Returning from the volcano towards Upolu, we had a meeting house to dedicate at a place called Pololu, and the Saints there had prepared a feast on the occasion.