"The abyss, which really is at a height of four thousand feet, on the flank of Mauna Loa, has the appearance of a pit on a rolling plain. But such a pit! It is quite nine miles in circumference, and at its lowest area--which not long ago fell about three hundred feet, just as ice on a pond falls when the water below is withdrawn--covers six square miles. The depth of the crater varies from eight hundred to one thousand feet, according as the molten sea below is at flood or ebb. Signs of volcanic activity are present more or less throughout its whole depth, and for some distance round its margin, in the form of steam-cracks, jets of sulphurous vapour, blowing cones, accumulating deposits of acicular crystals of sulphur, etc., and the pit itself is constantly rent and shaken by earthquakes. Grand eruptions occurred with circumstances of indescribable terror and dignity; but Kilauea does not limit its activity to these outbursts, but has exhibited its marvellous phenomena through all known time in a lake or lakes on the southern part of the crater three miles from this side. "This lake--the _Hale-mau-mau_, or 'House of Everlasting Fire,' of the Hawaiian mythology, the abode of the dreaded goddess Pele--is approachable with safety, except during an eruption. The spectacle, however, varies almost daily; and at times the level of the lava in the pit within a pit is so low, and the suffocating gases are evolved in such enormous quantities, that travellers are unable to see anything. There had been no news from it for a week; and as nothing was to be seen but a very faint bluish vapour hanging round its margin, the prospect was not encouraging.... After more than an hour of very difficult climbing, we reached the lowest level of the crater, pretty nearly a mile across, presenting from above the appearance of a sea at rest; but on crossing it, we found it to be an expanse of waves and convolutions of ashy-coloured lava, with huge cracks filled up with black iridescent rolls of lava only a few weeks old. Parts of it are very rough and ridgy, jammed together like field-ice, or compacted by rolls of lava, which may have swelled up from beneath; but the largest part of the area presents the appearance of huge coiled hawsers, the ropy formation of the lava rendering the illusion almost perfect. These are riven by deep cracks, which emit hot sulphurous vapours....