The Manitowoc tribune. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1866-1878, 1877-12-06
The Largest Volcano in the World.

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Wide 4 trGEe.
"Why, it isn't on the top of a noun
tain at all What humbug my geog
raphy must have been!"
So wrote a little fellow to a young
friend in America.
He was right It isn't on the top of a
mountain, though the biographies do
say. GA volcano is a mountain sending
forth fire, smoke and lava" and give the
picture of a mountain smoking at the
top.
This volcano is nothing of the kind;
but is hideous, yawnlng black pit at
the bottom of amounbaln, and big enough
to stow away large city.
OF course you want to know, first,
where this wonder is. Get out the map
of the Western hemisphere, put your
finger on any of the lines running north
called meridians; follow it south until you
come to the Tropic of Cancer, running
east and west; then cleft about-face !"
and, following the tropic, sail out into the
calm Pacific. After q voyage of about
1000 miles, you run ashore on one of a
group of islands marked Sandwich. We
will call them Hawaiian, for that is their
true name. Net one of the brown, ma
tive inhabitants would call them Sand
wich" An English sailor gave them
that name, out of compliment to a GER
tain Lord Sandwich.
On the largest Of these islands,
Hawaii-pronounced Ha-y-e"-is the
volcano, Kiauea, the largest volcano in
the world.
We have seen it a great many times,
and, that you may see it as clearly
IS possible, you shall have letter from
the very spot The letter reads:
"Here we are, large party of us,
looking into Kilauea, which is nine miles
in circumference, and a thousand feet
below us-a pit about seven times as
deep as Niagara falls are high. We
came to-day, on horseback, from Hilo,
a ride of thirty miles. Hllo is a beauti-
full sea-shore village, the largest on the
island of Hawaii, AMI from it all visitors
to Kiiauea mike their start.
"The road over which we came is
nothing but a bride path, and a very
rough one at that, traversing miles and
miles of old lava flows. We had almost
ridden to the crater's brink before we
discovered, in the dim twilight, the aw-
full abyss.
''Before us is the immense pit which,
IN the daytime, shows only floor of
black lava, looking as smooth as satin;
and, miles away, rising out of this floor,
are few slender columns OF smoke.
''At night everything is changed !;
and you cant conceive of the lurid, de-
moniacal effect. Each slender column
of smoke becomes a pillar of fire that
rolls upward, throbbing as it moves,
and spreads itself out above the crater
like an immense canopy, all ablaze
"Ships hundred miles from land see
the glow, and we here, ON the precipice
above, can read ordinary print by its
lurid light
IS No wonder the natives worshiped
the volcano. They thought it the home
OF goddess, whom they named Pele,
and III times of unusual activity believed
her to be very angry with them. Then
they came In long professions, from the
seashore villages, bringing pigs, dogs,
fowls, and sometimes human beings, for
sacrifice. These they threw into the
crater, to appease her wrath.
"a small berry, called the ohelo.
grows on the banks of the pit and of
these the natives never dared to eat I'M
til Pele had first had her share. Very
polite, were they not? And if ever they
forgot their manners I dare say she
gave them shaking up by an earth
quake as reminder.
Sandal-wood and strawberries grow
all about here-and fieas, too wicked
tieas, that bite voraciously, to keep
themselves warm, think, for here. SO
far from Pele's hearth, it is cold, and we
sit by a log fire of our own.
1.-The day after our arrival we went
into the crater, starting Immediately af
ter an early breakfast. There is but
one entrance, narrow ledge, formed by
the gradual crumbling and falling in of
the precipice. Along this ledge we
slipped and scrambled, making the
descent on foot-for DO ridden animal
has ever been able to descend the
trail. Holding on to bushes and snags
when the path was dangerously steep,
we finally landed below on the black
satin floor of lava
% S atm What had looked SO smooth
and tempting from thousand feet above
turned out to bee surface more troubled
and uneven than the oceans in the most
violent storm. And that tiny thread of
smoke, toward which our faces were set.
lay three miles distant-three miles that
were worse than nine on an ordinary
road.
How we worked that passage I'D
hill and down hill, over hard pointed
lava that cut through our 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 ravlnes 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 Nalkincr'
sticks, drawing them out charred black
or ahame; over lava so hot that we ran
as rapidly and lightly as possible, to pre-
vent our shoes being scorched Three
hours of this kind of work for the three
miles, and ate-3tau-nadu, or House
of Everlasting Fire. lay splitting and
moaning at our feet
" A lake of boiling lava is what the
column of smoke marked out to us-a
pit within pit--a lake of raging lava
fifty feet below u.s.
1t 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
N'Oi tSN ulOLuSutS LOT Il breath
OF fresher air, though we were on the
wlndward 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
huge lake of liquid lava, heaving with
groans and thunderings that cannot be
described. Around its edge, the red