Into the Fire — The Illustrated London News, 1883

This dramatic and atmospheric original wood engraving, published in The Illustrated London News in 1883, depicts one of the great adventure experiences of the Victorian age: a night descent into the crater of Kīlauea — the great active volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii, then known to the Western world as the Sandwich Islands — by a party of intrepid 19th-century tourists, accompanied by a Hawaiian host described in the contemporary caption as a “native lady.”

By the 1880s, Kīlauea had become one of the most celebrated natural wonders on earth, and the journey to witness its eruptions at close quarters had become a pilgrimage for the adventurous traveller. The volcano's vast caldera — Halemaʻumaʻu — contained a lake of molten lava that glowed with an unearthly light visible for miles, and the descent to the crater floor by torchlight, picking a path across the cooling lava crust above the fire, was an experience that visitors described in terms of sublime terror and wonder. Mark Twain had made the descent in 1866 and written about it with characteristic vividness; by 1883 it had become a fixture of the Hawaiian tourist itinerary for those with the means and the nerve to attempt it.

The presence of a Hawaiian guide — the “native lady” of the caption — is a telling detail of the colonial encounter that shaped Victorian tourism in the Pacific. Hawaiian guides, many of them women of considerable knowledge and authority, were indispensable to the volcano experience, and their role as intermediaries between the Western visitor and the volcanic landscape was both practical and deeply cultural: Kīlauea was the home of Pele, the Hawaiian goddess of volcanoes, and the descent into her crater carried a spiritual weight that the Victorian tourist could sense even if they could not fully comprehend it.

• Publication: The Illustrated London News, London
• Date: 1883
• Subject: A night descent into the crater of Kīlauea, Hawaii (Sandwich Islands), with Victorian tourists and a Hawaiian guide
• Medium: Original wood engraving
• Size: Approximately 17 × 24 cm (7 × 9 inches)
• Scan: 350 dpi
• Condition: Original antique print — age-toning consistent with period. Any slight tears along the edges of the original print will be repaired using acid-free archival tape. No original prints will be sold where there is damage to the principal image area.

A visually spectacular and historically rich piece for collectors of Hawaiian history, Pacific exploration, Victorian travel illustration, or volcanic and natural history art — and a dramatic, conversation-starting addition to any interior.