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Sketch of the Life of Mr. David Donglas, 339 



vault collected into small pools below, indicated a temperature of 

 50^, the air of the cave being 51°, while in the shade on the out- 

 side the thermometer stood at 82*^. The interior of the moist 

 caverns are of most beautiful appearance; not only from the sin- 

 gularity of their structure, but because they are delightfully 

 fringed with ferns, mosses, and jungermannise, thus holding out to 

 the Botanist a most inviting retreat from the overpowering rays 

 of a tropical sun." 



At Kapupala the traveller having apologized to the worthy 

 chief for declining an invitation to abide in a nice dwelling pre- 

 pared for him, preferring a spot retired from the disagreeables of 

 the village, he is presented with a fowl cooked on heated stones 

 underground, some baked tara, and sweet potatoes, together with 

 a calabash full of delicious goat's-milk, poured through the husk of 

 a cocoa nut, in lieu of a sieve. On the morrow of the 2Gth, it 

 being Sunday, Honori, the guide, ofiSciates as preacher. In the 

 interval between services the school house was visited. 



" I visited the school in the interval, when Honori had retired 

 to compose his second sermon, and found the assemblage under 

 the direction of the chief, who appears to be a good man, though 

 far from an apt scholar ; they were reading the second chapter of 

 the Epistle to the Galatians. The females were by far the most 

 attentive, and proved themselves the readiest learners. It is most 

 gratifying to see far beyond what is called the pale of civilization, 

 this proper sanctification of the Lord's day, not only consisting in 

 a cessation from the ordinary duties, but in reading and reflecting 

 upon the purifying and consolatory doctrines of Christianity. The 

 women were all neatly dressed in the native fashion, except the 

 chief's wife and some few others, who wore very clean garments 

 of calico. The hair was either arranged in curls, or braided on 

 the temples, and adorned with tortoise-shell combs of their own 

 making, and chaplets of balsamic flowers, the peaflowering racemes 

 of the maurarii tree, and feathers, &c. The men were all in the 

 national attire, and looked tolerably well dressed, except a few of 

 the old gentlemen." 



" The schoolmaster, a litttle hump- backed man, about thirty 

 years old, little more than three feet high, with disproportionately 

 long legs, and having a most peculiar cast in his right eye, failed 

 not to prompt and reprove his scholars, when necessity required, 

 in remarkably powerful tones of voice, which, when he read, pro- 

 duced a trumpet-like sound, resembling the voice of a person 

 bawling into a cask." 



