A restless night passed in this way was succeeded by a day of laborious toil in making part of the circuit of the crater. Sometimes along narrow pathways, crossing unsightly seams by a natural bridge of only a foot in breadth, where a sudden stumble might have precipitated them into some horrible gulf of fire, or into some deep sunken cavern; sometimes along a tract like a wide, desolate sea-beach; sometimes by a lake of fire, so furiously boiling, and splashing, and casting up jets of liquid lava, that the travellers were compelled to fly for their lives; and again by larger and wider lakes, where sometimes the fiery waves were, in their noise, like the heavy beating of surf, the adventurers held on their way, until most of them suffered with excessive heat, and became feverish, with throbbing headaches. Their fingers were burnt and bleeding with climbing and holding on to ledges and rocks; but they nevertheless continued for three days to pursue their perilous journey, when, worn out with fatigue, they were compelled to give the word to descend. At most times even this hasty survey would have been impossible. Sudden eruptions of a more violent character frequently overwhelm without warning all objects within a wide range.
In Dibble's History of the Sandwich Islands, the incident is related, of the destruction by this cause, near the end of the last century, of Keoua, a native chief, and his band of followers, a story which is still remembered by the natives with superstitious horror. According to this account, the army of Keoua had set out on their way in three different companies along the sides of the mountain. The company in advance had not proceeded far, before the ground began to rock beneath their feet,
