The Hawaiian Archipelago - Six Months Among The Palm Groves, Coral Reefs, And Volcanoes Of The Sandwich Islands By Isabella L. Bird
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Although We Are Shivering, The Mercury Is 57
Degrees, But In This Warm And Equable Climate, One's Sensations Are
Not Significant Of The Height Of The Thermometer.
It is very fascinating to be here on the crater's edge, and to look
across its deep three miles
Of blackness to the clouds of red light
which Halemaumau is sending up, but altogether exciting to watch the
lofty curve of Mauna Loa upheave itself against the moon, while far
and faint, we see, or think we see, that solemn light, which ever
since my landing at Kawaihae has been so mysteriously attractive.
It is three days off yet. Perhaps its spasmodic fires will die out,
and we shall find only blackness. Perhaps anything, except our
seeing it as it ought to be seen! The practical difficulty about a
guide increases, and Mr. Gilman cannot help us to solve it. And if
it be so cold at 4000 feet, what will it be at 14,000?
KILAUEA. June 5th.
I have no room in my thoughts for anything but volcanoes, and it
will be so for some days to come. We have been all day in the
crater, in fact, I left Mr. Green and his native there, and came up
with the guide, sore, stiff, bruised, cut, singed, grimy, with my
thick gloves shrivelled off by the touch of sulphurous acid, and my
boots nearly burned off. But what are cuts, bruises, fatigue, and
singed eyelashes, in comparison with the awful sublimities I have
witnessed to-day?
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