A hundred years ago the floor of this crater was the scene of continual activity. Around the entire rim was a black ledge or balcony against which fountains of lava hurled their repeated drops, falling on the black ledge. Now, the fire-pit is but a little over a quarter of a mile in diameter, and yet it has the same form of black ledge which had been built up in the great crater so many years before.
When first visited by the missionaries, there were many hilly islands, fountain cones, and hissing blowholes. Later, the great floor began to cool and lakes appeared in different sections.
In 1890, when the writer first saw the home of the fire-goddess, there were three lakes through which eruptive gases burst with explosions like [[193]]the continual rattle of artillery, and there were two great rivers of lava flowing across the wide, black floor of the vast crater. Now there is only one lake of fire. Ka Lua Pele, the “Pit of Pele,” is at present on a small scale what the crater of Kilauea was in its magnitude in 1823 and for many years thereafter.
The brief mention of shifting fires, flowing rivers, raging lakes, deep pits, falling walls, and frozen uneven lava surfaces must suffice to make evident the stupendous forces of nature which have terrified the Hawaiians for centuries and have made them build up legends in and around these terrors and have created the demand for a special fire-goddess to take rank with the other gods worshipped.
Spear.
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