Sunday, December 24th (Christmas Eve).—­I was up at four o’clock, to gaze once more on the wondrous spectacle that lay before me.  The molten lava still flowed in many places, the red cloud over the fiery lake was bright as ever, and steam was slowly ascending in every direction, over hill and valley, till, as the sun rose, it became difficult to distinguish clearly the sulphurous vapours from the morning mists.  We walked down to the Sulphur Banks, about a quarter of a mile from the ‘Volcano House,’ and burnt our gloves and boots in our endeavours to procure crystals, the beauty of which generally disappeared after a very short exposure to the air.  We succeeded, however, in finding a few good specimens, and, by wrapping them at once in paper and cotton-wool and putting them into a bottle, hope to bring them home uninjured.

On our return we found a gentleman who had just arrived from Kau, and who proposed to join us in our expedition to the crater, and at three o’clock in the afternoon we set out, a party of eight, with two guides, and three porters to carry our wraps and provisions, and to bring back specimens.  Before leaving the inn the landlord came to us and begged us in an earnest and confidential manner to be very careful, to do exactly what our guides told us, and especially to follow in their footsteps exactly when returning in the dark.  He added, ’There never has been an accident happen to anybody from my house, and I should feel real mean if one did:  but there have been a power of narrow escapes.’

First of all we descended the precipice, 300 feet in depth, forming the wall of the old crater, but now thickly covered with vegetation.  It is so steep in many places that flights of zig-zag wooden steps have been inserted in the face of the cliff in some places, in order to render the descent practicable.  At the bottom we stepped straight on to the surface of cold boiled lava, which we had seen from above last night.  Even here, in every crevice where a few grains of soil had collected, delicate little ferns might be seen struggling for life, and thrusting out their green fronds towards the light.  It was the most extraordinary walk imaginable over that vast plain of lava, twisted and distorted into every conceivable shape and form, according to the temperature it had originally attained, and the rapidity with which it had cooled, its surface, like half-molten glass, cracking and breaking beneath our feet.  Sometimes we came to a patch that looked like the contents of a pot, suddenly petrified in the act of boiling; sometimes the black iridescent lava had assumed the form of waves, or more frequently of huge masses of rope, twisted and coiled together; sometimes it was piled up like a collection of organ-pipes, or had gathered into mounds and cones of various dimensions.  As we proceeded the lava became hotter and hotter, and from every crack arose gaseous fumes, affecting our noses and throats in a painful manner; till at last, when