Lady Brassey and her companions reached, at last, the foot of the present active crater, whence the molten contents of the terrestrial interior are continually pouring forth in a lurid flood. With some difficulty they gained the summit—to stand, silent and spell-bound, in contemplation of a spectacle which more than realizes the terrors of the ancient Phlegethon. The precipice overhung a basin of molten fire, measuring nearly a mile across. With a clang, a clash, and a roar, like that of breakers on a rocky coast, waves of blood-red, fiery, liquid lava dashed against the opposing cliffs, and flung their spume high up in the air—waves which were never still, but rolled onwards incessantly to the charge, and as incessantly retired—hustling one another angrily, and hissing and boiling and bubbling, like a sea chafed by adverse wind and current. A dull dark red, like that of the lees of wine, seems the normal colour of the surging lava, which was covered, however, with a thin grey scum—this scum, or froth, being every moment and everywhere broken by eddies and jets and whirlpools of red and yellow fire, and occasionally thrown back on either side by the force and rush of swift golden-tinted rivers. On one side of the lake the principal object of attack was an island, dark and craggy, against which the lava-waves rolled with impetuous fury. On the other, they swept precipitately into a great cavern, carrying away the gigantic stalactites which hung at its entrance, and filling it with a thunderous roar like that of contending armies.
Scenes there are many in this wide world of ours which neither the craft of the scribe nor the skill of the painter can hope to reproduce, and this is one of them. It is awful in its grandeur, terrible in its sublimity, like Milton's Satan. It fascinates, and yet repels; charms the eye, while it chills the heart. One trembles with the sense of a dire terrific power, which at any moment may leap into the clay, and sweep the shattered island into destruction. But dreadful as it is by day, a deeper dread attaches to it by night, when the glare of those leaping fountains and rolling billows of molten lava is reflected athwart the darkness of heaven. And as the night advances and the darkness increases, a wonderful phantasmagoria of colour invests the fiery lake—jet black merges suddenly into palest grey; the deepest maroon changes, through cherry and scarlet, into the exquisitest hues of pink and blue and violet; the richest brown pales, through orange and yellow, into a delicate straw. Lady Brassey adds that there was yet another shade, which can be described only by the term "molten lava colour." The wreaths and wheeling clouds of smoke and vapour were by all these borrowed lights and tints translated into beautiful gleaming mist-like creations—belonging neither to earth nor air, but born of the molten flame and seething fire—which seemed splendidly and appropriately displayed against the amphitheatre of black peaks, pinnacles, and crags rising in the background. Of these great pieces would sometimes break off, and with a crash fall into the burning lake, there to be remelted and in due time thrown up anew.[33]
The time spent at Honolulu by Lady Brassey was by no means wasted. She kept both eyes and ears well open, and suffered nothing to escape her which could throw any light on the manners and customs of the Hawaiian population. Though not a deep, she was a close and an accurate observer; and her book may advantageously be consulted by others than the "general reader."
The Hawaiians, as a people with a good deal of leisure, upon whose shoulders as yet civilization has laid none of its heavier burdens, are naturally prone to amusement, and cultivate their numerous national sports with a good deal of energy and skill. Foremost amongst these is the well-known pastime of surf-swimming—a pastime the origin of which it is not difficult to understand. It is one in which both men and women join. Armed with a surf-board—a flat piece of wood, about four feet long by two feet wide, pointed at each end—which they put edge-wise in front of them, they swim out into the broad and beautiful bay, and dive under the surf-crested billows of the Pacific. When at a certain distance from the land, a distance regulated by the swimmer's measure of strength and address, he chooses a large wave, and either astride, or kneeling, or standing upon his board, allows himself to be swept in shore upon its curling crest with headlong speed. The spectator might almost fancy him to be mounted upon the sea-horse of ancient myths, and holding its grey curling mane, as it snorts and champs and plunges shoreward, wrapped in spray and foam. To this vigorous sport the Hawaiians are exceedingly partial. They are almost to the manner born, for from their earliest childhood they live an amphibious life, and never seem happier than when they are diving, swimming, bathing, or playing tricks in the bright emerald waters that wash the smiling shores of their favoured isle, or in those of the pleasant river that flows by the groves and gardens of Hilo.
On a sunny afternoon half the population of the latter town may be seen "disporting themselves in, upon, and beneath the water." Climbing the steep and rugged rocks that form the opposite bank, they take headers and footers and siders from any elevation under five-and-twenty feet, diving and swimming in every imaginable attitude, and with a kind of easy and spontaneous grace that commands admiration. One of their great feats is thus described: A couple of natives undertake to jump from a precipice, one hundred feet high, into the river below, clearing in their descent a rock, which at about a distance of twenty feet from the summit, projects as far from the face of the cliff. The two men—lithe, tall, and strong—are seen standing on the green height, their long hair confined by a wreath of leaves and flowers, while a similar wreath is twisted round the waist. With a keen, quick glance they measure the distance, and fall back some yards, in order to run and acquire the needful impetus. Suddenly one of them reappears, takes a flying leap from the rock, executes a somersault in mid-air, and feet foremost plunges into the pool beneath, to rise again almost immediately, and climb the steep river-bank with an air of serene indifference. His companion having performed the same exploit, the two clambered up to the projection of which we have spoken, and again dropped into the river waters; a less wonderful feat than their former, but still one requiring both pluck and skill.
Among the games mentioned by Lady Brassey are spear-throwing, transfixing an object with a dart, kona, an elaborate kind of draughts, and talu, which consists in hiding a small stone under one of five pieces of cloth placed in front of the players. One hides the stone, and his companions have to guess where it is hidden; and it generally happens that, however skilfully the hider may glide his arm under the cloth and shift from one piece to another, a clever player detects where he lets go the stone by the movement of the muscles of the upper part of his arm. Another game, tarua, resembles the Canadian sport of "tobogonning," only it is carried on upon the grass instead of upon the frozen surface of the snow. The performers stand erect on a narrow plank, turned up in front, which they guide with a kind of paddle. Starting from the summit of a hill or a mountain, they sweep down the grassy slopes at a furious pace, preserving their balance with admirable dexterity. For the game of pahé, which is also very popular, a specially prepared smooth floor is necessary, and along this the javelins of the players glide like snakes. On the same kind of floor they play maita, or uru maita. Two sticks are fixed in the ground, only a few inches apart, and from a distance of thirty or forty yards the player seeks to throw a stone—the uru—between them; the uru being circular in shape, three or four inches in diameter, and an inch in thickness, except at the middle, where it is thicker.[34]
We pass on to Japan, and accompany Lady Brassey to a Japanese dinner in a Japanese tea-house. The dinner took place in an apartment which, as an exact type of a room in any Japanese house, may fitly be described. The roof and the screens, which form the sides, are all made of a handsome dark-polished wood resembling walnut. The exterior walls under the verandah, as well as the partitions between the other rooms, are simply screens of wooden lattice-work, covered with white paper, and sliding in grooves; so that a person walks in or out at any part of the wall he thinks proper to select or finds convenient. This arrangement necessarily dispenses with doors and windows. If you wish to look out, you open a little bit of your wall, or a larger bit if you step out. Instead of carpets, the floor is strewn with several thicknesses of very fine mats, each about six feet long by three feet broad, "deliciously soft to walk upon." All Japanese mats are of the same size, and they constitute the standard by which everything connected with house-building or house-furnishing is measured. Once you have prepared your foundations and woodwork of the dimensions of so many mats, you may go to a shop and buy a ready-made house, which you can then set up and furnish in the light Japanese fashion in a couple of days; but then such a house is fitted only for a Japanese climate.