As I laid myself down on my mat—fancying that the very ground which was my pillow shook beneath my head—the silent musings of my mind were:—"Great and marvelous are thy works, Lord, God Almighty! greatly art thou to be feared, thou King of saints!"
The next morning we prepared for a descent into the crater.
One of the few places where this is practicable was within a rod of the hut where we lodged. For the first four hundred feet the path was steep, and from the looseness of the stones and rocks on both sides, required caution in every movement. A slight touch was sufficient to detach these and send them bounding downwards hundreds of feet to the imminent danger of any one near them. The remaining distance of about the same number of feet, was gradual and safe, the path having turned into the bed of an old channel of lava, which ran off in an inclined plain, until it met the ledge before described more than a quarter of a mile west of the place where we began the descent. Previous to our descent we had provided ourselves with long canes and poles, by which we might test the soundness of any spot before stepping on it, and immediately on reaching the ledge, we found the wisdom of the precaution. This offset is formed wholly of scoria and lava, mostly burned to a cinder and everywhere intersected by deep crevices and chasms, from many of which light smoke and vapor were emitted, and from others a scalding steam.
The general surface is a black, glossy incrustation, retaining perfectly the innumerably diversified tortuous configurations of the lava, as it originally cooled, and so brittle as to crack and break under us like ice, while the hollow reverberations of our footsteps beneath, sufficiently assured us of the unsubstantial character of the whole mass.
In some places by thrusting our stick down with force, large pieces would break through, disclosing deep fissures, and holes apparently without bottom. These, however, were generally too small to appear dangerous. The width of this ledge is constantly diminishing in a greater or less degree, by the falling of large masses from its edges into the crater; and it is not improbable that in some future convulsion, the whole structure may yet be plunged into the abyss below.
Leaving the sulphur banks on the western side behind us, we directed our course along the northern part to the western cliff. As we advanced these became more and more perpendicular, until they presented nothing but the bare and upright face of an immense wall, from eight to ten hundred feet high, on whose surface huge stones and rocks hung apparently so loosely as to threaten falling at the agitation of a breath. In many places a white curling vapor issued from the sides and summit of the precipice, and in two or three streams of clay-colored lava, like some waterfall extending almost from the top to the bottom, had cooled evidently at a very recent period. At almost every step, something new attracted our attention, and by stopping sometimes to look up, not without a feeling of apprehension, at the enormous masses above our heads, at others to gain by a cautious approach to the brink of the gulf, a nearer glance at the equally frightful depth below; at one time turning aside to ascertain the heat of a column of steam and at another to secure some unique or beautiful specimen, we occupied more than two hours in proceeding the same number of miles.
At that distance from our entrance on the ledge we came to a spot on the western side, where it widened many hundred feet and terminated next the crater, not as in most other places, perpendicularly, but in an immense heap of broken slabs and blocks of lava, loosely piled together, as they had fallen in some convulsion of the mountain, and jutting off to the bottom in a frightful mass of ruin. Here we had been informed the descent into the depths of the crater could be most easily made, but being without a guide we were entirely at a loss what course to take, until we unexpectedly descried the gentlemen who had preceded us re-ascending. They dissuaded us most strenuously from proceeding further, but their lively representations of the difficulty and dangers of the way only strengthened our resolution to go down, and knowing that the crater had been crossed at this end, we hastened on, notwithstanding the refusal of the guide to return with us.
The descent was as perilous as it had been represented, but by proceeding with great caution, testing well the safety of every step before committing our weight to it, and often stopping to select the course which seemed least hazardous, in the space of about twenty minutes, by a zigzag way, we reached the bottom without any accident of greater amount than a few scratches on the hands from the sharpness and roughness of the lava, by which we had occasionally been obliged to support ourselves. When we were about half way down we were encouraged to persevere in our undertaking, by meeting a native who had descended on the opposite side and passed over. It was only however from the renewed assurance it gave of the practicability of the attempt, for besides being greatly fatigued, he was much cut and bruised from a fall; said the bottom was "ino-ino loaka wahi O debelo!"—"excessively bad the place of the devil!"—and could be prevailed on to return with us only by the promise of a large reward.
It is difficult to say whether sensations of admiration or of terror predominated, on reaching the bottom of this tremendous spot. As I looked up at the gigantic wall, which on every side rose to the very clouds, I felt oppressed to a most unpleasant degree, by a sense of confinement.
Either from the influence of imagination, or from the actual effect of the immense power of a noonday sun beating directly on us, in addition to the heated and sulphureous atmosphere of the volcano itself, I for some moments experienced an agitation of spirits, and difficulty of respiration, that made me cast a look of wishful anxiety towards our little hut, which, at an elevation of near fifteen hundred feet seemed only like a bird's nest on the opposite cliff. These emotions, however, soon passed off, and we began with great spirit and activity, the enterprise before us. I can compare the general aspect of the bottom of the crater, to nothing that will give a livelier image of it to the mind than the appearance of a lake would present, if the ice with which it was covered in the winter was suddenly broken up by a heavy storm, and as suddenly frozen again, while large slabs and blocks were still toppling and dashing and heaping against each other with the motion of the waves. Just so rough and distorted was the black mass under our feet, only a hundred fold more terrific, independently of the innumerable cracks, fissures, deep chasms and holes, from which sulphureous vapor, steam and smoke were exhaled, with a degree of heat that testified to the near vicinity of fire.