Enterprise and Adventure/A Dismal Tour
A DISMAL TOUR.
An eminent missionary has given an account of a visit to the volcano of Kilauea in Hawaii, Sandwich Islands, which forcibly depicts the terrors of that wonder of the world, to which Etna and Vesuvius are but trifles. The party of travellers started on horseback from a native village, by a path which gradually ascended to the volcano, distant about fifty-five miles. On the following day they emerged upon an immense field of smooth, flat, unbroken lava, which appeared to have been at one time a great upland lake of mineral fire. Crossing this, they came upon a high ridge, burst up and broken, but with jagged edges so sharp, that it was impossible to pass over it. Here, being ahead of their guides, they missed their way, and wandered about some time; but at length, by retracing their steps, they got again into the track, and now began to ascend the great volcano. They could see its huge clouds of sulphureous smoke driven along by the trade wind; and as they proceeded, the ground beneath their feet became filled with fissures, from which issued steam and vapour, as if they had been in a region of smelting furnaces. A mile or two further, they descended two or three hundred feet on to a sunken plain, rent here and there by earthquakes, and strewn with great boulders of lava, sounding hollow and unsafe under the tramp of their horses, who began to show signs of a consciousness of danger. They then obtained for the first time an idea of the great Hawaiian volcano—not like other volcanoes, the top of a mountain with broad base and furrowed sides, but a hideous fire- eaten pit, variously estimated from nine to fifteen hundred feet deep, and from nine to fifteen miles in circumference. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon when they arrived near the brink of the mighty crater, at a place to windward of the smoke, where their screen was to be erected for the night. It being too late to explore the abyss that day, and the natives not having come up with food and baggage, they went to visit a sulphur bank, at a few hundred yards from the crater, out of which sulphureous vapour was issuing by various crevices, so hot in some places as instantly to scald the hand. By the time of their return to the crater's brink, some of the party of natives, and other stragglers of the party, had arrived singly, and with their bags, at the common encamping ground. The lurid fires of the caldron in the crater began to be visible, looking like masses of molten metal tossed to and fro in waves as by a wind. Night, and the drizzling vapour, having overtaken them before the natives could make anything better, they had to nestle altogether under a screen of cane and brakes thrown up against the wind, but open in front, and looking towards the caldron, being only a few feet from the precipice.
A restless night passed in this way was succeeded by a day of laborious toil in making part of the circuit of the crater. Sometimes along narrow pathways, crossing unsightly seams by a natural bridge of only a foot in breadth, where a sudden stumble might have precipitated them into some horrible gulf of fire, or into some deep sunken cavern; sometimes along a tract like a wide, desolate sea-beach; sometimes by a lake of fire, so furiously boiling, and splashing, and casting up jets of liquid lava, that the travellers were compelled to fly for their lives; and again by larger and wider lakes, where sometimes the fiery waves were, in their noise, like the heavy beating of surf, the adventurers held on their way, until most of them suffered with excessive heat, and became feverish, with throbbing headaches. Their fingers were burnt and bleeding with climbing and holding on to ledges and rocks; but they nevertheless continued for three days to pursue their perilous journey, when, worn out with fatigue, they were compelled to give the word to descend. At most times even this hasty survey would have been impossible. Sudden eruptions of a more violent character frequently overwhelm without warning all objects within a wide range.
In Dibble's History of the Sandwich Islands, the incident is related, of the destruction by this cause, near the end of the last century, of Keoua, a native chief, and his band of followers, a story which is still remembered by the natives with superstitious horror. According to this account, the army of Keoua had set out on their way in three different companies along the sides of the mountain. The company in advance had not proceeded far, before the ground began to rock beneath their feet, and it became impossible to stand. Soon afterwards, a dense cloud was seen to arise out of the crater, and almost at the same moment the electrical effect upon the air was so great, that the lightning began to flash and the thunder to roar in the heavens. Meanwhile, the cloud continued to rise and spread abroad, until the whole region was enveloped, and the light of day was entirely excluded. The darkness was the more terrific, being made visible by an awful glare from streams of red and blue light, that issued from the pit. Soon followed an immense volume of sand and cinders, which came down in a destructive shower for many miles around. Some persons of the forward company were burned to death by the sand and the cinders, and others were seriously injured. All experienced a suffocating sensation upon the lungs, and hastened on with all possible speed. The rear body, which was nearest the volcano at the time of the eruption, seemed to suffer the least injury, and after the earthquake and shower of sand had passed over, hastened forward to escape the dangers which threatened them, and rejoicing in mutual congratulations that they had been preserved in the midst of such imminent peril. But what was their surprise and consternation when, on coming up with their friends of the centre party, they discovered them all to have become corpses. Some were lying down, and others were sitting upright, clasping with dying grasp their wives and children, and joining noses (their form of expressing affection), as in the act of taking leave. So much like life they looked, that they first supposed them merely at rest, and it was not until they had come up to them and handled them, that they could detect their mistake. Of the whole party, including women and children, not one of them survived to relate the catastrophe that had befallen their comrades. The only living thing they found was a hog, in company with one of the families which had been so suddenly bereft of life. In those perilous circumstances, the surviving party did not even stay to bewail their fate; but leaving their deceased companions as they found them, hurried on and overtook the company in advance at the place of their encampment.