338 Sketch of the Life of Mr. David Douglas, 



observations ; but though the thermometer stood at 41°, still the 

 keen mountain breeze affected me so much, of course mainly 

 owing to the fatigue and heat I had suffered the day before, that 

 I was reluctantly obliged to relinquish the attempt, and being un- 

 able to settle again to sleep, I replenished my blazing stock of 

 fuel, and sat gazing on the roaring and agitated state of the cra- 

 ter, where three new fires had burst out since ten o'clock the pre- 

 ceding evening. Poor Honori, my guide, who is a martyr to 

 asthma, was so much affected by their exhalations (for they were 

 on the north bank, just below my tent) that he coughed inces- 

 santly the whole night, and complained of cold, though he was 

 wrapt in my best blanket, besides his own tapas, and some other 

 articles that he had borrowed from my Woakee man. The latter 

 slept with his head towards the fire, coiled up most luxuriously, 

 and neither cold, heat, nor the roaring of the volcano, at all dis- 

 turbed his repose." 



On his descent from the Yolcano Mr. Douglas describes some 

 extensive caves. 



"Among the grassy undulating ground are numerous caves, 

 some of great magnitude from forty to sixty-five feet high, and 

 from thirty to forty feet broad, many of them of great length 

 like gigantic arches, and very rugged. These generally run at 

 right angles with the dome of Mouna Roa and the sea. Some of 

 those natural tunnels may be traced for several miles in length 

 with occasional holes of different sizes in the roofs, screened 

 sometimes with an overgrowth of large trees and ferns, which ren- 

 ders walking highly dangerous. At other places the vaults have 

 fallen in for the space of one hundred or even three hundred yards, 

 an occurrence which is attributable to the violent earthquakes 

 that sometimes visit this district. The inhabitants convert these 

 caverns to use in various ways ; employing them occasionally as 

 permanent dwellings, but more frequently as cool retreats, where 

 they carry on the process of making native cloth, from the bark 

 of the mulberry tree, or where they fabricate and shelter their 

 canoes from the violent rays of the sun." 



" They are also used fcr goat-folds and pig-styes, and the fallen 

 in places, where there is a greater depth of decomposed vegeta- 

 ble matter, are frequently planted with tobacco, Indian corn, 

 melons, and other choice plants. At a distance of ten miles north 

 of Kapupala, and near the edge of the path, are some fine caverns 

 above sixty feet deep. The water dropping from the top of the 



