“Messrs (William) Ellis, (Asa) Thurston, (Artemas) Bishop and (Joseph) Goodrich made a tour round the island of Hawai‘i, examining its various districts, conversing with the natives, and preaching the gospel 130 different times.” (History of ABCFM)
“Hitherto we had travelled close to the sea-shore, in order to visit the most populous villages in the districts through which we had passed. But here receiving information that we should find more inhabitants a few miles inland, than nearer the sea, we thought it best to direct our course towards the mountains.”
Makoa, their guide, “objected strongly to our going thither, as we should most likely be mischievous, and offend Pele or Nahoaarii, gods of the volcano, by plucking the ohelo, (sacred berries,) digging up the sand, or throwing stones into the crater, …”
“… and then they would either rise out of the crater in volumes of smoke, send up large stones to fall upon us and kill us, or cause darkness and rain to overtake us, so that we should never find our way back.”
“We told him we did not apprehend any danger from the gods … If we were determined on going, he said, we must go by ourselves, he would go with us as far Kapapala, the last village at which we should stop, and about twenty miles on this side of it …”
“… from thence he would descend to the sea-shore, and wait till we overtook him. The governor, he said, had told him not to go there, and, if he had not, he should not venture near it, for it was a fearful place. … [W]e proceeded on our way, leaving Makoa to wait for them, and come after us as far as Kapapala, where we expected to spend the night.”
In 1823, they were the first Westerners to visit Kilauea volcano. Ellis describes his first impressions, “After walking some distance over the sunken plain, which in several places sounded hollow under our feet, we at length came to edge of the great crater, where a spectacle, sublime and even appalling, presented itself before us“.
“‘We stopped, and trembled.’”
“Astonishment and awe for some moments rendered us mute, and, like statues, we stood fixed to the spot, with our eyes riveted on the abyss below.”
“Immediately before us yawned an immense gulf, in the form of a crescent, about two miles in length, from north-east to south-west, nearly a mile in width, and apparently 800 feet deep.”
“The bottom was covered with lava, and the south-west and northern parts of it were one vast flood of burning matter, in a state of terrific ebullition; rolling to and fro its ‘fiery surge’ and flaming billows.”
“Fifty-one conical islands, of varied form and size, containing so many craters, rose either round the edge or from the surface of the burning lake.”
“Twenty-two constantly emitted columns of grey smoke, or pyramids of brilliant flame; and several of these at the same time vomited from their ignited mouths streams of lava, which tolled in blazing torrents down their black indented sides into the boiling mass below.”
“The existence of these conical craters led us to conclude, that the boiling caldron of lava before us did not form the focus of the volcano; that this mass of melted lava was comparatively shallow; and that the basin, in which it was contained was separated, by a stratum of solid matter, from the great volcano abyss, which constantly poured out its melted contents through these numerous craters into this upper reservoir.”
“We were further inclined to this opinion, from the vast columns of vapour continually ascending from the chasms in the vicinity of the sulphur banks and pools of water, for they must have been produced by other fire than that which caused the ebullition in the lava at the bottom of the great crater …”
“… and also by noticing a number of small craters, in vigorous action, situated high up the sides of the great gulf, and apparently quite detached from it.”
“The streams of lava which they emitted rolled down into the lake, and mingled with the melted mass there, which, though thrown up by different apertures, had perhaps been originally fused in one vast furnace.”
“The sides of the gulf before us, although composed, of different strata of ancient lava, were perpendicular for about 400 feet, and rose from a wide horizontal ledge of solid black lava of irregular breadth, but extending completely round.”
“Beneath this ledge the sides sloped gradually towards the burning lake, which, was, as nearly as we could judge, 300 or 400 feet lower. It was evident, that the large crater had been recently filled with liquid lava up to this black ledge, and had, by some subterranean canal, emptied itself into the sea, or upon the low land on the shore.”
“The grey, and in some places apparently calcined, sides of the great crater before us; the fissures which intersected the surface of the plain on which we were standing; the long banks of sulphur on the opposite side of the abyss; the vigorous action of the numerous small craters on its borders …”
“… the dense columns of vapour and smoke, that rose at the north and south end of the plain; together with the ridge of steep rocks by which it was surrounded, rising probably in some places 300 or 400 feet in perpendicular height, presented an immense volcanic panorama, the effect of which was greatly augmented by the constant roaring of the vast furnaces below.”
“After the first feelings of astonishment had subsided, we remained a considerable time contemplating a scene, which it is impossible to describe, and which filled us with wonder and admiration at the almost overwhelming manifestation it affords of the power of that dread Being who created the world, and who has declared that by fire he will one day destroy it.”
“We then walked along the west side of the crater, and in half an hour reached the north end.” (All here is from William Ellis’ Narrative of a Tour Through Hawaii.)
