University of Virginia Library

A STRANGE DREAM.

ALL day long I have sat apart and pondered
over the mysterious occurrences
of last night... There is no
link lacking in the chain of incidents — my
memory presents each in its proper order with
perfect distinctness, but still—

However, never mind these reflections—I will
drop them and proceed to make a simple statement
of the facts.

Toward eleven o'clock, it was suggested that
the character of the night was peculiarly suited
to viewing the mightiest active volcano on the
earth's surface in its most impressive sublimity.
There was no light of moon or star in the inky

heavens to mar the effect of the crater's gorgeous
pyrotechnics.

In due time I stood, with my companion, on
the wall of the vast cauldron which the natives,
ages ago, named Hale mau mau — the abyss
wherein they were wont to throw the remains
of their chiefs, to the end that vulgar feet might
never tread above them. We stood there, at
dead of night, a mile above the level of the sea,
and looked down a thousand feet upon a boiling,
surging, roaring ocean of fire!—shaded our
eyes from the blinding glare, and gazed far
away over the crimson waves with a vague notion
that a supernatural fleet, manned by demons
and freighted with the damned, might
presently sail up out of the remote distance;
started when tremendous thunder-bursts shook
the earth, and followed with fascinated eyes the
grand jets of molten lava that sprang high up
toward the zenith and exploded in a world of
fiery spray that lit up the sombre heavens with
an infernal splendor.

“What is your little bonfire of Vesuvius to
this?”

My ejaculation roused my companion from
his reverie, and we fell into a conversation appropriate

to the occasion and the surroundings.
We came at last to speak of the ancient custom
of casting the bodies of dead chieftains into this
fearful caldron; and my comrade, who is of
the blood royal, mentioned that the founder of
his race, old King Kamehameha the First—that
invincible old pagan Alexander — had found
other sepulture than the burning depths of the
Hale mau mau. I grew interested at once; I
knew that the mystery of what became of the
corpse of the warrior king had never been fathomed;
I was aware that there was a legend
connected with this matter; and I felt as if there
could be no more fitting time to listen to it than
the present. The descendant of the Kamehamehas
said:

“The dead king was brought in royal state
down the long, winding road that descends from
the rim of the crater to the scorched and chasm-riven
plain that lies between the Hale mau mau
and those beetling walls yonder in the distance.
The guards were set and the troops of mourners
began the weird wail for the departed. In
the middle of the night came a sound of innumerable
voices in the air, and the rush of invisible
wings; the funeral torches wavered, burned

blue, and went out. The mourners and watchers
fell to the ground paralyzed by fright, and
many minutes elapsed before any one dared to
move or speak; for they believed that the phantom
messengers of the dread Goddess of Fire
had been in their midst. When at last a torch
was lighted, the bier was vacant — the dead
monarch had been spirited away! Consternation
seized upon all, and they fled out of the
crater. When day dawned, the multitude returned
and began the search for the corpse.
But not a footprint, not a sign was ever found.
Day after day the search was continued, and
every cave in the great walls, and every chasm
in the plain, for miles around, was examined,
but all to no purpose; and from that day to
this the resting-place of the lion king's bones is
an unsolved mystery. But years afterward,
when the grim prophetess Wiahowakawak lay
on her deathbed, the Goddess Pele appeared to
her in a vision, and told her that eventually the
secret would be revealed, and in a remarkable
manner, but not until the great Kauhuhu, the
Shark God, should desert the sacred cavern
Aua Puhi, in the Island of Molokai, and the
waters of the sea should no more visit it, and
its floors should become dry. Ever since that
time the simple, confiding natives have watched
for the sign. And now, after many and many
a summer has come and gone, and they who
were in the flower of youth then have waxed
old and died, the day is at hand! The great
Shark God has deserted the Aua Puhi: a
month ago, for the first time within the records
of the ancient legends, the waters of the sea
ceased to flow into the cavern, and its stony
pavement is become dry! As you may easily
believe, the news of this event spread like wildfire
through the islands, and now the natives
are looking every hour for the miracle which
is to unvail the mystery and reveal the secret
grave of the dead hero.”

After I had gone to bed I got to thinking
of the volcanic magnificence we had witnessed,
and could not go to sleep. I hunted up a book
and concluded to pass the time in reading.
The first chapter I came upon related several
instances of remarkable revelations, made to
men through the agency of dreams—of roads
and houses, trees, fences, and all manner of
landmarks, shown in visions and recognized

afterward in waking hours, and which served
to point the way to some dark mystery or other.

At length I fell asleep, and dreamed that I
was abroad in the great plain that skirts the
Hale mau mau. I stood in a sort of twilight
which softened the outlines of surrounding objects,
but still left them tolerably distinct. A
gaunt, muffled figure stepped out from the
shadow of a rude column of lava, and moved
away with a slow and measured step, beckoning
me to follow. I did so. I marched down,
down, down, hundreds of feet, upon a narrow
trail which wound its tortuous course through
piles and pyramids of seamed and blackened
lava, and under overhanging masses of sulphur
formed by the artist hand of nature into an infinitude
of fanciful shapes. The thought crossed
my mind that possibly my phantom guide
might lead me down among the bowels of the
crater, and then disappear and leave me to
grope my way through its mazes, and work out
my deliverance as best I might; and so, with
an eye to such a contingency, I picked up a
stone, and “blazed” my course by breaking
off a projecting corner, occasionally, from lava
walls and festoons of sulphur. Finally we

turned into a cleft in the crater's side, and pursued
our way through its intricate windings for
many a fathom down toward the home of the
subterranean fires, our course lighted all the
while by a ruddy glow which filtered up
through innumerable cracks and crevices, and
which afforded me occasional glimpses of the
flood of molten fire boiling and hissing in the
profound depths beneath us. The heat was intense,
and the sulphurous atmosphere suffocating;
but I toiled on in the footsteps of my
stately guide, and uttered no complaint. At
last we came to a sort of rugged chamber whose
sombre and blistered walls spake with mute
eloquence of some fiery tempest that had spent
its fury here in a bygone age. The spectre
pointed to a great boulder at the farther extremity—stood
and pointed, silent and motionless,
for a few fleeting moments, and then disappeared!
“The grave of the last Kamehameha!”
The words swept mournfully by, from
unknown source, and died away in the distant
corridors of my prison-house, and I was alone
in the bowels of the earth, in the home of desolation,
in the presence of death!

My first frightened impulse was to fly, but a

stronger impulse arrested me and impelled me
to approach the massive boulder the spectre
had pointed at. With hesitating step I went
forward and stood beside it—nothing there. I
grew bolder, and walked around and about it,
peering shrewdly into the shadowy half-light
that surrounded it—still nothing. I paused to
consider what to do next. While I stood irresolute,
I chanced to brush the ponderous stone
with my elbow, and lo! it vibrated to my touch!
I would as soon have thought of starting a kiln
of bricks with my feeble hand. My curiosity
was excited. I bore against the boulder, and
it still yielded; I gave a sudden push with my
whole strength, and it toppled from its foundation
with a crash that sent the echoes thundering
down the avenues and passages of the dismal
cavern! And there, in a shallow excavation
over which it had rested, lay the crumbling
skeleton of King Kamehameha the Great, thus
sepulchred in long years, by supernatural
hands! The bones could be none other; for
with them lay the rare and priceless crown of
pulamalama coral, sacred to royalty, and tabu
to all else beside. A hollow human groan issued
out of the—

I woke up. How glad I was to know it was
all a dream! “This comes of listening to the
legend of the noble lord—of reading of those
lying dream revelations—of allowing myself to
be carried away by the wild beauty of old
Kileana at midnight—of gorging too much
pork and beans for supper!” And so I turned
over and fell asleep again. And dreamed
the same dream precisely as before; followed
the phantom—“blazed” my course—arrived
at the grim chamber—heard the sad spirit
voice—overturned the massy stone—beheld the
regal crown and the decaying bones of the
great king!

I woke up, and reflected long upon the
curious and singularly vivid dream, and finally
muttered to myself, “This—this is becoming
serious!”

I fell asleep again, and again I dreamed the
same dream, without a single variation! I
slept no more, but tossed restlessly in bed and
longed for daylight. And when it came, I wandered
forth, and descended to the wide plain in
the crater. I said to myself, “I am not superstitious;
but if there is any thing in that dying
woman's prophecy, I am the instrument appointed

to uncurtain this ancient mystery.”
As I walked along, I even half expected to see
my solemn guide step out from some nook
in the lofty wall, and beckon me to come on.
At last when I reached the place where
I had first seen him in my dream, I recognized
every surrounding object, and there, winding
down among the blocks and fragments of lava,
saw the very trail I had traversed in my vision!
I resolved to traverse it again, come what might.
I wondered if, in my unreal journey, I had
“blazed” my way, so that it would stand the
test of stern reality; and thus wondering,
a chill went to my heart when I came to the
first stony projection I had broken off in my
dream, and saw the fresh new fracture, and the
dismembered fragment lying on the ground!
My curiosity rose up and banished all fear,
and I hurried along as fast as the rugged road
would allow me. I looked for my other
“blazes,” and found them; found the cleft in
the wall; recognized all its turnings; walked
in the light that ascended from the glowing furnaces
visible far below; sweated in the close,
hot atmosphere, and breathed the sulphurous
smoke—and at last I stood hundreds of feet
beneath the peaks of Kileana in the ruined
chamber, and in the presence of the mysterious
boulder!

“This is no dream,” I said; “this is a revelation
from the realm of the supernatural;
and it becomes not me to longer reason, conjecture,
suspect, but blindly to obey the impulses
given me by the unseen power that guides
me.”

I moved with a slow and reverent step
toward the stone and bore against it. It yielded
perceptibly to the pressure. I brought my
full weight and strength to bear, and surged
against it. It yielded again; but I was so enfeebled
by my toilsome journey that I could
not overthrow it. I rested a little, and then
raised an edge of the boulder by a strong,
steady push, and placed a small stone under it,
to keep it from sinking back to its place. I
rested again, and then repeated the process.
Before long, I had added a third prop, and had
got the edge of the boulder considerably elevated.
The labor and the close atmosphere
together were so exhausting, however, that
I was obliged to lie down then, and recuperate
my strength by a longer season of rest. And

so, hour after hour I labored, growing more
and more weary, but still upheld by a fascination
which I felt was infused into me by the invisible
powers whose will I was working. At
last I concentrated my strength in a final effort,
and the stone rolled from its position.

I can never forget the overpowering sense of
awe that sank down like a great darkness upon
my spirit at that moment. After a solemn
pause to prepare myself, with bowed form and
uncovered head, I slowly turned my gaze till it
rested upon the spot where the great stone had
lain.

There wasn't any bones there!

I just said to myself, “Well, if this an't
the blastedest, infernalest swindle that ever I've
come across yet, I wish I may never!”

And then I scratched out of there, and
marched up here to the Volcano House, and
got out my old raw-boned fool of a horse,
“Oahu,” and “lammed” him till he couldn't
stand up without leaning against something.

You can not bet any thing on dreams.