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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I
Offer Some To You, Some I Also Eat," After Which The Natives Partook
Of Them Freely.
Kapiolani gathered and eat them without this
formula, after which she and her company of eighty persons descended
to the black edge of Hale-mau-mau.
There, in full view of the fiery
pit, she thus addressed her followers: - "Jehovah is my God. He
kindled these fires. I fear not Pele. If I perish by the anger of
Pele, then you may fear the power of Pele; but if I trust in
Jehovah, and he should save me from the wrath of Pele, when I break
through her tabus, then you must fear and serve the Lord Jehovah.
All the Gods of Hawaii are vain! Great is Jehovah's goodness in
sending teachers to turn us from these vanities to the living God
and the way of righteousness!" Then they sang a hymn. I can fancy
the strange procession winding its backward way over the cracked,
hot, lava sea, the robust belief of the princess hardly sustaining
the limping faith of her followers, whose fears would not be laid to
rest until they reached the crater's rim without any signs of the
pursuit of an avenging deity. It was more sublime than Elijah's
appeal on the soft, green slopes of Carmel, but the popular belief
in the Goddess of the Volcano survived this flagrant instance of her
incapacity, and only died out many years afterwards.
Besides these interesting reminiscences, I have been hearing most
thrilling stories from Mrs. Lyman and Mr. Coan of volcanoes,
earthquakes, and tidal waves.
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