We had circles and serpents and streaks of lightning
all twined and wreathed and tied together, without
a break throughout an area more than a mile square
(that amount of ground was covered, though it was not
strictly “square"), and it was with a feeling
of placid exultation that we reflected that many years
had elapsed since any visitor had seen such a splendid
display—since any visitor had seen anything
more than the now snubbed and insignificant “North”
and “South” lakes in action. We had
been reading old files of Hawaiian newspapers and the
“Record Book” at the Volcano House, and
were posted.
I could see the North Lake lying out on the black
floor away off in the outer edge of our panorama,
and knitted to it by a web-work of lava streams.
In its individual capacity it looked very little more
respectable than a schoolhouse on fire. True,
it was about nine hundred feet long and two or three
hundred wide, but then, under the present circumstances,
it necessarily appeared rather insignificant, and besides
it was so distant from us.
I forgot to say that the noise made by the bubbling
lava is not great, heard as we heard it from our lofty
perch. It makes three distinct sounds—a
rushing, a hissing, and a coughing or puffing sound;
and if you stand on the brink and close your eyes
it is no trick at all to imagine that you are sweeping
down a river on a large low-pressure steamer, and
that you hear the hissing of the steam about her boilers,
the puffing from her escape-pipes and the churning
rush of the water abaft her wheels. The smell
of sulphur is strong, but not unpleasant to a sinner.
We left the lookout house at ten o’clock in
a half cooked condition, because of the heat from
Pele’s furnaces, and wrapping up in blankets,
for the night was cold, we returned to our Hotel.
CHAPTER LXXV.
The next night was appointed for a visit to the bottom
of the crater, for we desired to traverse its floor
and see the “North Lake” (of fire) which
lay two miles away, toward the further wall.
After dark half a dozen of us set out, with lanterns
and native guides, and climbed down a crazy, thousand-foot
pathway in a crevice fractured in the crater wall,
and reached the bottom in safety.
The irruption of the previous evening had spent its
force and the floor looked black and cold; but when
we ran out upon it we found it hot yet, to the feet,
and it was likewise riven with crevices which revealed
the underlying fires gleaming vindictively.
A neighboring cauldron was threatening to overflow,
and this added to the dubiousness of the situation.
So the native guides refused to continue the venture,
and then every body deserted except a stranger named
Marlette. He said he had been in the crater
a dozen times in daylight and believed he could find
his way through it at night. He thought that
a run of three hundred yards would carry us over the
Copyrights
Roughing It from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
