“I was, perhaps, too venturesome, but other visitors have been far more so. As one instance of this, Dr. Judd, having become familiar with the volcanic power, in his ardor to secure valuable and recent specimens for the United States exploring expedition, on the visit of Commodore Wilkes and his company to this crater, descended to the surface of the lake, and then into a _sub-crater_ in the midst of the larger. While he was busily engaged there in collecting specimens, a sudden bursting up of a huge volume of fluid lava from the bottom of the sub-crater, alarmed him, and threatened speedily to overwhelm and destroy him. He sprang to escape, but finding the rim overhanging, he could not scale it where he was; and the flowing mass was now too near to allow him to return to the place where he had descended; and its radiating heat was too intense to be faced. Escape without assistance was utterly hopeless; and the natives of the company who were about the brink, and from whom such help might have been expected, alarmed for themselves, were flying for their lives. Dr. Judd, giving himself up for lost, offered a prayer to heaven, and was about to resign himself to his fate, when a friendly and resolute Hawaiian, who had been a pupil at the mission seminary, compassionating the exposed sufferer, faced the approaching fiery volume, and braving its intense heat, exposed his own life, reached down his strong hand, and firmly grasped the doctor’s, who thus, at the last available moment, through their united exertions and the blessing of heaven, escaped with his life from the horrible pit and a fiery grave! A mighty current instantly overflowed the place where they had just been standing, and they were obliged to run for their lives before the molten flood; and being able to outstrip it, they ascended from the surface of the abyss to the lofty rim, with heartfelt thanksgivings to their great deliverer.[1] This proves the real danger of descending too far into the crater of the volcano; and had it occurred in the days of unbroken superstition, it would doubtless have been ascribed to the anger of Pele, and tended to increase the number of her deluded worshipers. But now such a deliverance was justly ascribed to the kind providence of Jehovah, the knowledge of whose character, as displayed in the gospel, has introduced the Hawaiian race into a new life. ----- Footnote 1: See United States Exploring Expedition, vol. iv., p. 173. -----