r shoes like knife blades; over
light, crumbled lava into which we sank up to our knees; over
hills of lava that were, themselves, covered with smaller hills;
into ravines and over steam-cracks, some of which we could jump
with the aid of our long poles, and some of which we had to find
our way around; steam-cracks whose depths we could not see, and
into which we thrust our walking-sticks, drawing them out charred
black or aflame; over lava so hot that we ran as rapidly and
lightly as possible, to prevent our shoes being scorched.
Three hours of this kind of work for the three miles, and
_Hale-mau-mau_, or 'House of Everlasting Fire,' lay spitting and
moaning at our feet!

"A lake of boiling lava is what the column of smoke marked out to
us,--a pit within a pit,--a lake of raging lava fifty feet below
us, of which you have here the picture taken 'from life.'

"It was so hot and suffocating on the brink of this lake that we
cut eye-holes in our pocket-handkerchiefs and wore them as masks.
Even then we had to run back every few moments for a breath of
fresher air, though we were on the windward side of the lake. The
gases on the leeward side would suffocate one instantly. Oh, the
glory! This Hale-mau-mau, whose fire never goes out, is a huge
lake of liquid lava, heaving with groans and thunderings that
cannot be described. Around its edge, as you see in the picture,
the red lava was spouting furiously. Now and then the center of
the lake cooled over, forming a thin crust of black lava, which,
suddenly cracking in a hundred directions, let the blood-red fluid
ooze up through the seams, looking like fiery snakes.

"Look at the picture, and imagine these enormous slabs of cooled
lava slowly rising themselves on end, as if alive, and with
a stately motion plunging beneath the sea of fire, with an
indescribable roar.

"For three hours we gazed, spell-bound, though it seemed but a few
moments: we were chained to the spot, as is every one else who
visits Kilauea.

"The wind, as the jets rose in air, spun the molten drops of lava
into fine threads, which the natives call Pele's hair, and very
like hair it is.

"All this time, under our feet were rumblings and explosions that
made us start and run now and then, for fear of being blown up;
coming back again after each fr