At the Fall Conference, 1852, held at Salt Lake City, nine Elders were appointed on missions to the islands. They reached Honolulu in the month of February, 1853. Their names were, Benjamin F. Johnson, William McBride, Nathan Tanner, Reddin A. Allred, Redick N. Allred, Thomas Karren, Ephraim Green, James Lawson and Egerton Snider. These Elders were a great help to the mission. Nearly all of them were men of experience. Their presence brought additional life and energy, the effect of which soon became visible everywhere. The most of them took hold of the work with zeal.

They brought with them the copy of the revelation on celestial marriage, which was first published at the conference at which they were called to go to the islands. They also brought the spirit of the conference with them, and we all felt the benefit of it.

After their arrival, the work received a great impulse on the Island of Oahu, and especially in Honolulu. That town was made alive with excitement, and large numbers were baptized. A branch of the white members was organized, over which Elder B. F. Johnson was appointed to preside. Elders Tanner and Karren were chosen as counselors to Elder Philip B. Lewis, the president of the mission. Upon the Islands of Hawaii and Kauai, also, the work made great strides, and hundreds were added to the Church.

I omitted to mention that Elder William Perkins, who had been appointed on a mission to the islands, reached there, accompanied by his wife and Sister John S. Woodbury, about the last of November, 1851. They remained for some time, laboring to the best of their ability. Brother Perkins was released to return home because of his wife’s failing health.

For the purpose of visiting the Saints and people on the Island of Hawaii (the Owyhee of Captain Cook), I had occasion to sail to that island in April, 1854.

In those days, money was very scarce with the Elders, and we had not the means to transport us from island to island on the regular vessels which sailed in those seas. I, therefore, in company with several of the brethren, traveled, preaching by the way, through the hilly and rough country that lay between Lahaina and Kawaipapa on eastern Maui, a point considered the best to embark at to cross the channel to Hawaii.

Our company consisted of Elder R. N. Allred, who was at that time president on the Island of Maui; Elder J. H. Napela, and four native Elders belonging to Maui, who had been appointed to labor in the ministry on the Island of Hawaii. Their names were Kaelepulu, Kapono, Hoopiiaina and Peleleu.

The channel which we had to cross was at times very rough and dangerous, and many lives had been lost in it; but we had faith to believe that the Lord would preserve us in crossing, although our vessel was one that very few white men would care to venture out to sea in. It was a canoe hollowed out of a tree. Both ends of the canoe had boards fitted in as a sort of a deck, which was covered with mats. These mats were lashed to the canoe and made the top of the deck as round as a log and perfectly water-tight. You would think this deck a curious place to go to sea on, yet the native islanders were perched on both ends of the canoe on this deck with their paddles to row the canoe when the wind did not blow. In the center of the canoe a certain space was left for us to sit in, and sides were formed by lashing mats to some poles that were raised above the edge of the canoe. In this place the natives had fixed plenty of mats, so that we could sit or recline, as suited us, very comfortably. Lashed across the canoe, were two poles, each a little distance from the end of the canoe. These poles extended six or eight feet into the water, and fastened to their ends was a board, which ran parallel with the canoe. This we call an outrigger; it was for the purpose of keeping the canoe balanced when the sail was hoisted. On these poles, when the wind commenced to blow the islanders sat, easing up and bearing down, according to the strength of the wind, so as to keep the canoe from capsizing. The greater part of the time some portion of their bodies was in the water. But the sea has no terrors for the Sandwich Islanders. They can swim in the water for hours without being at all fatigued.

When I looked at these men perched on the deck of the canoe, it looked like going to sea on a log; and had I not been familiar with the skill of the natives in managing their canoe, and had some confidence in my own powers as a swimmer, with them to aid me in the water, I should scarcely have ventured in such a craft as this was.

We prayed to the Lord, before we started, to give us a pleasant and favorable voyage, and the natives said they had never had a more favorable time.

We reached Upolu on the island of Hawaii between three and four o’clock, having started from Maui about eight o’clock in the morning.

While upon this subject I may say that we returned to Upolu after our visit had ended, and again crossed the channel, back to Maui, but this time we did not have a single canoe. One of the native Saints and his son had procured two new canoes and had lashed them together as was the fashion in former days, for their chiefs, by fastening pieces of timber across both canoes, the latter being from four to six feet apart. This was called in their language kaulua.

Our place to sit or recline was arranged between the canoes, by laying down boards and covering them with mats, making quite a comfortable floor for us to sit upon, and in the centre of this the mast was raised and fastened.

As in the case of the single canoe, boards were fastened at the ends, with mats lying over them to keep out the water, making a deck to the canoe, while a small place was left in the centre of both canoes for some of the natives to sit, and, if necessary, bail out water.

We left the four native Elders on the island, and brought away one with us, who was released from his mission to return to Maui. His name was Kailihune.

Our return passage was rough a good part of the distance, as we had a good stiff breeze about two-thirds of the way across. Then the wind died out; but we prayed to the Lord for more wind, and our prayers were answered. We were between six and seven hours in making the passage.

We traveled around the island, and visited the famous volcano, the largest in the world. Its name is Kilauea.

Our party had swelled, including whites and natives, to about twenty in number. In addition to Brother Allred, there were of our party Elder Thomas Karren, who lived at Lehi, Utah Co., but who is now deceased; Elder James Keeler, who has lately returned from another mission to the islands, and who now resides on the Sevier; and Elder Egerton Snider, who has since died.

Brother James Lawson, of this city, was also with our party, but having seen the volcano, he did not ascend with us. We had to go on foot, as we had no money to hire animals.

The Sandwich Islanders entertained a singular idea about the manner in which their islands came into being. Their belief was that the islands were brought forth, and that Papa, a woman whom they worshiped as a goddess, was the mother of them. The first-born, they think, was Hawaii, the nearest island to this continent, and the last born Kauai and Niihau. This Papa had a sister, they say, whose name was Pele. They worshiped her as a goddess, and even when we were there many still believed in her. They say she first lived at Kauai and from there removed from one island to another until she took up her residence at Hawaii. They believed that her place of residence was the pit of the active volcano, and that there, all the spirits of good chiefs and men went to dwell. The bad ones went, they believed, to a place of darkness in the centre of the earth, over which a god called Milu reigned.

In former days the people threw the bones of some of their dead relatives into the volcano. They had the idea that if Pele was pleased with the sacrifice, she would consume the bones, and the spirit of the dead person would be permitted to return and be a familiar spirit to them, and be as one of the family. If the sacrifice was not acceptable, the bones were thrown out of the volcano.

The pit of the volcano is probably three miles across. There have been times when the whole bottom of the pit was one mass of lurid, seething fire. This must have been an awfully grand sight, but when we visited it, we found an immense field of lava which extended all around the pit, and which resembled, in many respects, the sea in its wave-like appearance. It might also have been compared to a field of shore-ice, from which the water had receded, leaving it shattered and cracked; in fact, it looked like a frozen sea, except that it was black as coal. In cooling it had cracked, leaving large seams, from which steam and heat issued.

We found the pit in which the fire was raging to be about fifty or sixty feet deep; it was nearly round, and about one hundred yards across. The sides were perpendicular; the strongest heat seemed to be around the sides. On one side there were two large holes very close together, which looked more like the mouths of two very large furnaces than anything else I ever saw. Here the melted lava was in constant motion, surging and heaving like the waves of the sea. The sound which it made was somewhat similar to the paddles of a steam vessel in the ocean, only it was far greater. We heard this sound before we reached the mouth of the volcano, and it resembled, to our ears, the booming of heavy artillery at a distance.

The lava kept flowing in the direction of these two holes of which I spoke, and rocks thrown down upon the surface of the lava would melt when near these holes like sealing wax held in a candle. It was surprising to see with what ease the fire would melt this stony mass of lava, which in some parts of the pit would cool on the surface, and convert it again into a fluid.

Sometimes showers of hot lava would be thrown up in the air, and descend on the edges of the pit where we stood. When this occurred the bystanders would have to scamper off as fast as they could, or be severely burned.

The sight of this pit surpassed in sublimity and grandeur anything I had ever witnessed or imagined. It far exceeded what I had read in written descriptions, or even what I expected to see. Language fails to convey to the mind a correct idea of its appearance.

We were told that a party of natives had just been there, throwing the bones of one of their relatives into the volcano with hogs, fowls, etc., sacrifices with which to gain the favor of Madame Pele, the goddess.

For some years there had not been any eruptions from this crater which we visited; but others had broken out in the same neighborhood, the fire and smoke of which had been seen for a long distance, and ashes from which, it is said, had fallen on the decks of vessels hundreds of miles at sea. From these eruptions the lava had run down to the sea, sweeping everything before it, and heating the sea for several miles in such a manner as to kill large quantities of fish.

The island of Hawaii is very frequently shaken by earthquakes, the effects of the hidden fires.