We had been reading old files of Hawaiian newspapers and the "Record Book" at the Volcano House, and were posted.
I could see the North Lake lying out on the black floor away off in the outer edge of our panorama, and knitted to it by a web-work of lava streams.

In its individual capacity it looked very little more respectable than a schoolhouse on fire.

True, it was about nine hundred feet long and two or three hundred wide, but then, under the present circumstances, it necessarily appeared rather insignificant, and besides it was so distant from us.
I forgot to say that the noise made by the bubbling lava is not great, heard as we heard it from our lofty perch.

It makes three distinct sounds--a rushing, a hissing, and a coughing or puffing sound; and if you stand on the brink and close your eyes it is no trick at all to imagine that you are sweeping down a river on a large low-pressure steamer, and that you hear the hissing of the steam about her boilers, the puffing from her escape-pipes and the churning rush of the water abaft her wheels.

The smell of sulphur is strong, but not unpleasant to a sinner.
We left the lookout house at ten o'clock in a half cooked condition, because of the heat from Pele's furnaces, and wrapping up in blankets, for the night was cold, we returned to our Hotel..