The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1908-09-18
The Fires Of / Ialemaumau

BY r. O. Matheson.


subterranean home beneath the dead
floor of Kilauea. So are her vagaries
just now in Halemaumau regarded, her
comings and goings, the ebb and the
flow of her fires running before her
feet, the swing and the swirl OF her
fame fringed garments as she opens the
door of her fiery kingdom for the
nonce, then closes it on darkened
doorstep. For months. until few days
ago, the Fire Goddess ragged in the open
and hundreds of her worshipers gazed
down upon her ragings from the lip of
her crater home. Then, the fury re-
lapsed and for a day she sulked, draw
| ing veil of black and deadened lavas
over her bright face, while far and
wide the report spread "Kilauea Is
dead" One day the news was true,
the next, petulantly, Pele had torn the
veil away and with a rush and fury
her mourning weeds were rent and she
was again the fiery queen, watched and
admired and feared in her unconquer-
able strength. Furious at her own tenn
porary abasement she tossed her fire
locks to the skies, clutched with angry
fingers the edges of her cavern and
tore the glowing rocks in laundering
cascades into the depths. Then femh
nine in her moods, her fury sunk to
sobs and finally to silence, the fires
brooding deep. This series Of moods,
so say those who know her best, are
the warnings of the goddess that soon
she will refuse to exhibit herself 1t
| is a notification to those who would
visit at her cleaning shrine, not TO
delay lest it be too late. But, though
a goddess, Pele is a woman and none
may say that her mind is made up.
Women are said not to make up their
minds except to change them. Those
who would see the fires would do well
not to put off the visit too long, how
ever.
The phenomena of Kilauea at the
present time are intensely interesting.
The display of volcanic action was new.
at work in the depths, the source of
the lava lake, has not been exceeded
for score of years and tourists and
others cannot expect to see the fires
of Halemaumau to better advantage.
So say the kamaainas. L cannot say
what the volcano has been in other
days; / cannot begin to say in words
what the volcano is today or what it was
the day and night i sat and marveled
on the firepit brink last week, because
there are few men who have ever been
who could set down in words the scene
| that all may see who visit Kilauea at
this time! Certain it is, however, that
| those who are able to visit Madame
Pele at her home now and fail to do so
are losing that which would be an ex-
perience of lifetime, sight of Ma
lures throes to be seen nowhere else
in the world, something never to be
forgotten and spectacle that must
impress the most unimaginative. a
Nearly everyone who has crossed an
ocean has been through the greatest
storm that the captain of their particu,
lar vessel ever experienced in all has
years at sea and in just the same way
everyone who has visited the volcano
in one of its periods of activity has
seen the fires to greater advantage than
any of the volcano guides ever remem-
bers in all his years of guidance back
and forth over the lava trails There
was NO guide. to lie to me a week ago
today when hung my legs over the
firepit brink and | was the sole specta.
tor for two hours of the glorious dis
play three hundred feet or more below
me, thus | have no means of telling
how much greater was the flow, how
much higher We're the fountains and
how much hotter was the lava than It
had ever been before, but should any.
one tell me that the activity on Mon.
day afternoon last has ever been sur
passed at any time / would not believe
them. L saw the fires that day when
they first began to rise; | watched the
lake of fire beleh from the bottomless
galleries in the firepit center, spread
over and across the dead. lava floor OF
the great chasm, lap the walls with
tongues of streaming, cleaning glow,
caseading into the hollows and tumb.
ling, roaring and splashing in the livid,
pulsating pond in the center that rose
so fast that the hardened lava on the
surface was the thinnest scum. across
which waves of ruby light crisscrossed
from the plashings of the fire fountains.
At first, when the lavas welled from
the depths in their first return TO the
day, they were sluggish, squirming in
dull red writhing, but a short way, then
blackening into stiffness, while the out
let cavern seemed to suck back the
smoke clouds that swirled out between
the flows. Then, with cough and
gurgle, the first fountain began to play,
increasing in volume until in the CEN
ter of a rapidly expanding lake of
/ cleaning lava fire column stood clear
thirty feet above the level into which
it poured. From that time on for two
hours that mammoth jet of fire remain
ed, never once sinking back to the lake
level, and Ut times, with intervals of
less than three minutes, the forces at
work below heaved the whole mass
high into the air, the cooling fragments
splashing back into the lake, splattering
the lava for n distance around qnite a
hundred yards. To say how high the
lava was tossed or TO what volume the
fountain played for me is the yeriest
guesswork, and the guess is forty feet
for the diameter of the FIRE column and
at least seventy feet for che height Il
which the lava was tossed in the great
est commissions. AT times the whole
column would rise pobliquely, partially
, solidify, and topple, over with splash
that would send fiery tidal waves across
tho lake A uain in ,niohf,, on,,rta I'll.