CHAPTER XVIII.
“The spirits I have raised abandon me—
The spells which I have studied baffle me—
The remedy I recked of tortures me.”
Byron.
As soon as day broke, Tolta recommenced his march. The route was difficult, but he hoped to reach Pohaku’s fortress the coming night. They had camped well up Mauna Kea, and as the sun slowly lighted the landscape, sending his rays into the depths of that mysterious space which lay between them and Mauna Loa, it disclosed a scene that might literally be taken for the valley of the shadow of death.
Its mean elevation above the sea was about four thousand feet, gradually rising as it approaches the mountains on either side. Numerous streams of lava, now black and vitreous, and of great extent, having their source in the huge volcano opposite, glistened in the morning sun. Several of these lay in their direction, and they would be obliged to make their way as they best could over their jagged and distorted surfaces. At the distance they were from them, they looked like cataracts of ink. Amid them, and scattered thickly over the plain, were small conical craters, regular in shape, and composed of clay and ashes. These gave to the region the appearance of being pock-marked on a leviathan scale. Whirlwinds swept frequently over the plain, taking up high into the air columns of fine sand, and dispersing it with furious and blinding gusts. There was neither water nor vegetation, except in the immediate vicinity of Mauna Kea, or a long way to the eastward. In their rear, but far above, was perpetual snow, though not in sufficient masses to make a conspicuous land-mark. Immediately beneath them were piles of basaltic rocks and loose stones, thrown together in abrupt heaps on slippery beds of gravel, with now and then soil enough to grow coarse grasses, and stunted cassia trees, whose yellow blossoms were the sole bits of bright color permitted by nature to enliven the general dreariness. Far away to the left the horizon was lined with forests, that rose on its verge like great green billows. Before them, somewhat to the right, was the gigantic outline of the lofty crater of Mauna Loa, whose immense base occupied nearly one third of the island, rising so gradually to its summit, as to appear in the distance like a huge dome, up whose sides a carriage might easily be drawn. The vast scale of its desolation may be judged of from its having on its summit, as already remarked, an active crater of nearly thirty miles in circuit.
As Tolta turned his eyes towards this mountain, he saw the bright red spot that had glowed so fiery in his late vision was not without foundation in fact. The edge of the crater was to be clearly seen with not much more than its usual volume of smoke. At some distance below, however, there was a great rent in the mountain, out of which poured a stream of melted lava, rapidly making its way in an oblique direction between them and Kilauea.