Page:Twenty years before the mast - Charles Erskine, 1896.djvu/247

 snow, which had drifted into the crevices, formed a striking contrast to the dark lava. One crevasse sent forth hot dust or ashes. From others hot steam rushed, sometimes with a loud and hissing sound, like that of a  locomotive. After collecting many specimens, we about ship and stood for the camp. The east side of the mountain was one vast plain of unbroken lava, which had  at some time flowed from one of the craters. It was dazzling to the eyes to behold it, resembling, as it were, a  limitless sheet of bronze, radiating all the colors of the  rainbow from its burnished surface. The vast dome, which is the summit of Mauna Loa, is about twenty miles  broad.

We made the camp at two bells, five o’clock; at six o’clock had our usual supper of hard-tack and boiled tea,  our dessert consisting of bananas. The dog-watch was spent in smoking, mending our saddles, singing, and  spinning yarns.

Standing on the summit of this mountain, and viewing the scene before me, I was reminded of the expression  of an old lady when carried for the first time to the top  of a mountain. Looking all around, and seeing hill and valley, village and river beneath her, the good old lady  raised her hands and exclaimed, "Good Lord a massy,  wall I declare to gracious what a big world it is, after all!"

During our stay of three weeks above the clouds we were exposed to many hardships, the weather being as  changeable as off Cape Horn. At times the winds were cold and boisterous, and the thermometer often dropped  to eighteen below. The pelting rain, the driving