o cool themselves. Trees, however, were still
seen which had sprung up amid the once burning mass, and bushes of
various sorts, among them strawberries, not here low plants, but vines
of large size bearing delicious fruit. Just below the edge of the
plateau was a forest, and, on rising above it, the vast dome of Mauna
Loa, of a bronze hue, rose before them, against the deep blue of a
tropical sky. They had barely time to reach the edge of the crater and
to pitch their tents, which had been sent on before, when the sun set,
and the surrounding darkness revealed two lakes of liquid fire down in
the depths of a vast basin, with perpendicular sides several miles in
circumference, and an apparently level bottom. For some time they gazed
at the scene; not a word was uttered--even the midshipmen failed to cut
a joke. No loud sounds were heard; no reports, as many of the party had
expected; but, instead, there came up from the bottom of the abyss a
low, bubbling murmur, like that emitted by a thick liquid when boiling--
for to nothing else could it be likened. Guided by some of the natives,
Jack and Terence, with the three midshipmen, climbed down to the ledge
some hundred feet below the plateau, when they found themselves
apparently not much above the margin of the largest of the two lakes of
fire.

"There are a good many things I would dare to do, but I shouldn't like
to jump into that," said Tom, as he watched the mighty volume of lava in
a furious state of ebullition, forming fiery waves which ran ceaselessly
across the lake towards a wide abyss to the southward. Sometimes the
whole seemed rising, and suddenly, at the distance of scarcely three
hundred yards, a vast column spouted up to the height of sixty or
seventy feet, almost as quickly subsiding; and the next instant another
rose still nearer to them, which made even Jack spring back, for so near
did it appear that he could not help fancying that it might fall upon
them.

After watching this wonderful phenomenon for some time, the rest of the
party were very glad when Terence proposed that they should climb up
from whence they came; an operation which took them the best part of an
hour. The early part of the night was spent before they could manage to
go to sleep, and even then few of them could get the terrific scene they
had witnessed out their heads. They had not been long asleep when all
hands were aroused by a report like thunder, which came up from the