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
hottest
part
of
the
floor
and
leave
us
our
shoe-soles.
His
pluck gave
me
back-bone.
We
took
one
lantern
and
instructed
the
guides
to
hang
the
other
to
the
roof
of
the
look-out
house
to
serve
as
a
beacon
for
us
in
case
we
got lost,
and
then
the
party
started
back
up
the
precipice
and
Marlette
and
I
made
our
run.
We
skipped
over
the
hot
floor
and
over
the
red
crevices
with
brisk
dispatch
and
reached
the
cold
lava
safe
but
with
pretty
warm
feet.
Then
we
took
things
leisurely
and
comfortably, jumping tolerably
wide
and
probably bottomless chasms,
and
threading
our
way
through
picturesque
lava
upheavals
with
considerable
confidence.
When
we
got
fairly
away
from
the
cauldrons
of
boiling
fire,
we
seemed
to
be
in
a gloomy desert,
and
a suffocatingly dark one,
surrounded
by
dim
walls
that
seemed
to
tower
to
the
sky.
The
only
cheerful
objects
were
the
glinting stars high overhead.
By
and
by
Marlette shouted "Stop!" I
never
stopped
quicker
in
my life. I
asked
what
the
matter
was.
He
said
we
were
out
of
the
path.
He
said
we
must
not
try
to
go
on
till
we
found
it
again,
for
we
were
surrounded
with
beds
of
rotten
lava
through
which
we
could
easily
break
and
plunge
down
a
thousand
feet. I
thought
eight
hundred
would
answer
for
me,
and
was
about
to
say
so
when
Marlette partly
proved
his
statement
by
accidentally crushing
through
and
disappearing
to
his
arm-pits.
He
got
out
and
we
hunted
for
the
path
with
the
lantern.
He
said
there
was
only
one
path
and
that
it
was
but
vaguely defined.
We
could
not
find it.
The
lava
surface
was
all
alike
in
the
lantern
light.
But
he
was
an
ingenious
man.
He
said
it
was
not
the
lantern
that
had
informed
him
that
we
were
out
of
the
path,
but
his
feet.
He
had noticed a crisp grinding
of
fine
lava-needles
under
his
feet,
and
some
instinct
reminded
him
that
in
the
path
these
were
all
worn
away.
So
he
put
the
lantern
behind
him,
and
began
to
search
with
his
boots
instead
of
his
eyes.
It
was
good
sagacity.
The
first
time
his
foot
touched a surface
that
did
not
grind
under
it
he
announced
that
the
trail
was
found again;
and
after
that
we
kept
up
a sharp
listening
for
the
rasping
sound
and
it
always
warned
us
in
time.
It
was
a
long
tramp,
but
an
exciting one.
We
reached
the
North
Lake
between
ten
and
eleven
o'clock,
and
sat
down
on
a
huge
overhanging lava- shelf, tired
but
satisfied.
The
spectacle
presented
was
worth
coming
double
the
distance
to
see.
Under
us,
and
stretching
away
before
us,
was
a heaving
sea
of
molten
fire
of
seemingly limitless extent.
The
glare
from
it
was
so
blinding
that
it
was
some
time
before
we
could
bear
to
look
upon
it
steadily.
It
was
like
gazing
at
the
sun
at
noon-day,
except
that
the
glare
was
not
quite
so
white.
At
unequal distances
all
around
the
shores
of
the
lake
were
nearly white-hot
chimneys
or
hollow
drums
of
lava,
four
or
five
feet high,
and
up
through
them
were
bursting
gorgeous
sprays
of
lava-gouts
and
gem
spangles,
some
white,
some
red
and
some
golden—a ceaseless bombardment,
and
one
that
fascinated
the
eye
with
its
unapproachable splendor.
The
mere
distant
jets, sparkling
up
through
an
intervening
gossamer
veil
of
vapor,
seemed
miles
away;
and
the
further
the
curving ranks
of
fiery
fountains
receded,
the
more
fairy-like
and
beautiful
they
appeared.
Now
and
then
the
surging
bosom
of
the
lake
under
our
noses
would
calm
down
ominously
and
seem
to
be
gathering
strength
for
an
enterprise;
and
then
all
of
a
sudden
a
red
dome
of
lava
of
the
bulk
of
an
ordinary
dwelling
would
heave
itself
aloft
like
an
escaping
balloon,
then
burst
asunder,
and
out
of
its
heart
would
flit
a pale-green film
of
vapor,
and
float
upward
and
vanish
in
the
darkness—a
released
soul
soaring
homeward
from
captivity
with
the
damned,
no
doubt.
The
crashing plunge
of
the
ruined
dome
into
the
lake
again
would
send
a
world
of
seething
billows
lashing against
the
shores
and
shaking
the
foundations
of
our
perch.
By
and
by, a loosened
mass
of
the
hanging
shelf
we
sat
on
tumbled
into
the
lake, jarring
the
surroundings
like
an
earthquake
and
delivering
a
suggestion
that
may
have
been
intended
for
a hint,
and
may
not.
We
did
not
wait
to
see.
We
got lost
again
on
our
way
back,
and
were
more
than
an
hour
hunting
for
the
path.
We
were
where
we
could
see
the
beacon
lantern
at
the
look-out
house
at
the
time,
but
thought
it
was
a star
and
paid
no
attention
to
it.
We
reached
the
hotel
at
two
o'clock
in
the
morning
pretty
well
fagged out. Kilauea
never
overflows
its
vast
crater,
but
bursts
a
passage
for
its
lava
through
the
mountain
side
when
relief
is
necessary,
and
then
the
destruction
is
fearful.
About
1840
it
rent
its
overburdened
stomach
and
sent a
broad
river
of
fire
careering
down
to
the
sea,
which
swept
away
forests, huts,
plantations
and
every
thing
else
that
lay
in
its
path.
The
stream
was
five
miles
broad,
in
places,
and
two
hundred
feet deep,
and
the
distance
it
traveled
was
forty
miles.
It
tore
up
and
bore
away
acre-patches
of
land
on
its
bosom
like
rafts—rocks, trees
and
all
intact.
At
night
the
red
glare
was
visible
a
hundred
miles
at
sea;
and
at
a distance
of
forty
miles
fine
print
could
be
read
at
midnight.
The
atmosphere
was
poisoned
with
sulphurous
vapors
and
choked
with
falling ashes,
pumice
stones
and
cinders; countless
columns
of
smoke
rose
up
and
blended
together
in
a tumbled canopy
that
hid
the
heavens
and
glowed
with
a
ruddy
flush
reflected
from
the
fires
below;
here
and
there
jets
of
lava
sprung
hundreds
of
feet
into
the
air
and
burst
into
rocket-sprays
that
returned
to
earth
in
a crimson rain;
and
all
the
while
the
laboring
mountain
shook
with
Nature's
great
palsy
and
voiced
its
distress
in
moanings
and
the
muffled
booming
of
subterranean
thunders.
Fishes
were
killed
for
twenty
miles
along
the
shore,
where
the
lava
entered
the
sea.
The
earthquakes
caused
some
loss
of
human
life,
and
a
prodigious
tidal
wave
swept inland, carrying
every
thing
before
it
and
drowning
a
number
of
natives.
The
devastation
consummated
along
the
route
traversed
by
the
river
of
lava
was
complete
and
incalculable.
Only
a Pompeii
and
a Herculaneum
were
needed
at
the
foot
of
Kilauea
to
make
the
story
of
the
irruption
immortal.