Making a run northwards, the _Sunbeam_ reached Hawaii, one of the Sandwich Islands, on the 22d December. Here was the same profusion and beauty of flowers. The women and girls are described as being gaily decorated with wreaths and garlands, and wearing a dress of a very simple yet not inelegant fashion, consisting of ‘a coloured long-sleeved loose gown reaching to the feet’—no tying at the waist, all flowing and free, with no restraint in walking or sitting down. Our space does not permit us to follow the movements of the party in their excursions through interesting scenery. Hawaii, like all the other islands in the group, is of volcanic origin. Kilauea, which is still raging, is reckoned to be the largest volcano in the world, for its crater is nine miles in circumference. This extraordinary volcano, situated at the top of a mountain six thousand feet above the level of the sea, was visited by Mrs Brassey, although the journey to it is fatiguing, and the approach to it is attended with some peril. There happens to be a comfortable inn near the brink of the crater, at which travellers are accommodated and are furnished with guides to conduct them with safety to points of interest.
According to Mrs Brassey’s account, the scene was horribly grand. ‘We were standing on the extreme edge of a precipice, overhanging a lake of molten fire, a hundred feet below us, and nearly a mile across. Dashing against the cliffs on the opposite side, with a noise like the roar of a stormy ocean, waves of blood-red, fiery, liquid lava hurled their billows upon an iron-bound headland, and then rushed up the face of the cliffs to toss their gory spray high in the air. The restless heaving lake boiled and bubbled, never remaining the same for two minutes together.... There was an island on one side of the lake, which the fiery waves seemed to attack unceasingly with relentless fury, as if bent on hurling it from its base. On the other side was a large cavern, into which the burning mass rushed with a loud roar, breaking down in its impetuous headlong career the gigantic stalactites that overhung the mouth of the cave, and flinging up the liquid material for the formation of new ones. It was all terribly grand, magnificently sublime; but no words could adequately describe such a scene.’