Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. VI, November 1850, Vol. I — John Shaqi
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. VI, November 1850, Vol. IVarious
History
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. VI, November 1850, Vol. I
Various
American literature -- Periodicals; Civilization -- Periodicals; Culture -- Periodicals
We spent the night by the volcano. I slept a little at intervals, just
raising myself at every awakening to look at Pele's fires, which spouted
and played like fountains, and leaped suddenly with a flash from place
to place, like electricity on wire in the experiments of the
lecture-room.
Once when I arose at midnight and went out a little beyond the range of
our screen, to enjoy in silence the august and grand spectacle, the
violence of the wind was such as to take off my unguarded hat, and carry
it clear over the brink of the crater, where it lodged for the night,
but was recovered with little injury in the morning by one of our
courageous natives.
One of the early visitors there said that, on coming near the rim, he
fell upon his hands and knees awe-struck, and crept cautiously to the
rocky brink, unwilling at once to walk up to the giddy verge and look
down as from a mast-head upon the fiery gulf at his feet. In a little
time, however, like a landsman after a while at sea, he was able to
stand very near and gaze unalarmed upon this wonder of the world.
I have myself known seamen that had faced unfearingly all the perils of
the deep, and had rushed boldly into battle with its mammoth monsters,
to stand appalled on the brink of Kilauea, and depart without daring to
try its abyss. Gazing upon it, then, at midnight, so near its brink as
we were, was rather venturing upon the edge of safety, as I found to my
cost. But woe to the man that should have a fit of somnambulism on the
spot where our tent was pitched that last night. Baron Munchausen's
seven-leagued boots could hardly save him from a warm bath in flowing
lava cherry-red.
Morning broke again upon our open encampment, clear and bracing as upon
the Green Mountains of Vermont. With fingers burned and bleeding from
the climbing and crystal-digging of yesterday, we made all the dispatch
possible in collecting and packing specimens, but it was one o'clock
before we were ready to leave. Having at length got off the natives
with their burdens, two for Hilo and two for Kau, we kneeled for the
last time by that wonderful old furnace, where the hand of God works the
bellows and keeps up his vast laboratory of elemental fire. Then we
mounted our horses and bade a final good-by, the one for Hilo, and the
other for his happy Hawaiian home.
FOOTNOTE:
[18] From "_The Island World_," a new work soon to be issued from
the press of Messrs. Harper and Brothers.
[From Chambers's Edinburgh Journal.]
THE EVERY-DAY YOUNG LADY.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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