THE BELIEF IN PELL.
"The apprehensions uniformly entertained by the natives of the fearful consequences of Pele's anger prevented their paying very frequent visits to the vicinity of her abode ; and when, on their inland journeys, they had occasion to approach Kilauea, they were scrupulously attentive to every injunction of her priests, and re garded with a degree of superstitious veneration and awe the ap palling spectacle which the crater and its appendages presented. The violations of her sacred abode, and the insults to her person, of which we had been guilty, appeared to them, and to the natives in general, acts of temerity and sacrilege ; and, notwithstanding the fact of our being foreigners, we were subsequently threatened with the vengeance of the volcanic deity under the following cir "Some months after our visit to Kirauea, a priestess of Pele came to Lahaina, in Maui, where the principal chiefs of the islands then resided. The object of her visit was noised abroad among the people, and much public interest excited. One or two mornings after her arrival in the district, arrayed in her pro phetic robes, having the edges of her garments burnt with fire, and holding a short staff or spear in her hand, preceded by her daughter, who was also a candidate for the office of priestess, and followed by thousands of the people, she came into the pres ence of the chiefs ; and having told who she was, they asked what communcations she had to make. She replied that, in a trance or vision, she had been with Pele, by whom she was charged to complain to them that a number of foreigners had visited Kilauea ; eaten the sacred berries ; broken her houses, the craters ; thrown down large stones, etc.—to request that the offenders might be sent away,—and to assure them, that if these foreigners were not banished from the islands, Pele would certainly in a given num ber of days, take vengeance, by inundating the country with lava, and destroying the people. She also pretended to have received in a supernatural manner, Rihoriho's approbation of the request of the goddess. The crowds of natives who stood waiting the result of her interview with the chiefs were almost as much as tonished as the priestess herself, when Kaahumanu, and the other chiefs, ordered all her paraphernalia of office to be thrown into the fire, told her the message she had delivered was a falsehood, and directed her to return home, cultivate the ground for her subsistence, and discontinue her deceiving the people.
"This answer was dictated by the chiefs themselves. The mis sionaries at the station, although they were aware of the visit of the priestess, and saw her, followed by the thronging crowd, pass by their habitation on the way to the residence of the chiefs, did not think it necessary to attend or interfere, but relied en tirely on the enlightened judgment and integrity of the chiefs, to suppress any attempt that might be made to revive the influence of Pele over the people ; and in the result they were not disap pointed, for the natives returned to their habitations, and the priestess soon after left the island, and has not since troubled them with threatenings of the goddess.
"On another occasion, a royal princess, the wife of Naihe, chief of Kaavaroa, was passing near the volcano, and expressed her determination to visit it. Some of the devotees of the goddess met her and attempted to dissuade her from her pur pose ; assuring her that though foreigners might go there with security, yet Pele would allow no Hawaiian to intrude. Kapio lani, however, was not to be thus diverted, but proposed that they should all go together ; and declaring that if Pele appeared, or in flicted any punishment, she would then worship the goddess, but proposing that if nothing of the kind took place, they should re nounce their attachment to Pele, and join with her and her friends in acknowledging Jehovah as the true God. They all went to gether to the volcano ; Kapiolani, with her attendants, descended several hundred feet towards the bottom of the crater, where she spoke to them of the delusion they had formerly labored under in supposing it inhabited by their false gods ; they sang a hymn, and after spending several hours in the vicinity, pursued their jour ney. What effect the conduct of Kapiolani, on this occasion, will have on the natives in general, remains to be discovered."