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of any vestige of vegetation. So rough and loose were the scoriic 

 boulders, and so sharp the vitrified lava like slag and clinkers from 

 a factory, that 1 found my strong Euglisli shooting-boots cut 

 tlirough in many places, and blood was tiowing from my feet, knees, 

 and even hands ; my natives were also in evil plight. I therefore 

 tore strips od" my shirt and bound tlicm round my boots, and 

 continued this operation as long as my shirt lasted. ^\' hen T left the 

 mountain two days afterl was shirtless, and had utterly destroyed two 

 pairs of boots. At about 3 p.m. the guide, disappointed in his ex- 

 pectation of finding another cavern containing water, after con- 

 sultation with me, altered his plan, and instead of keeping his 

 westerly course for the upper crater, turned to the right, north-west, 

 hoping to find water at a spot some miles below the lower one. The 

 consequence was, that bad as the walking had been before, it became, 

 if possible, worse as we left an old lava bed and toiled mile after 

 mile over nothing but loose sharp i-ocks and scoriie of every possible 

 size and shape; and piled in the wildest confusion. We succeeded, 

 liowever, in finding a little M'ater amid a few solitary stunted 

 bushes, the sole residue of a burnt-out forest, and then again 

 tending upwards and to the west, shaped our course directly for 

 the lower crater of the two that were sending out dense volumes 

 of smoke above us. We lay down for the night on a little patch 

 of half-vitrified ashes. I suppose that we were then about 9000 

 feet above the sea, but we might have been considerably more. 

 The next morning we started before sunrise. Having found to my 

 surprise a few dry sticks, I thought so good an opportunity was not 

 to be lost, and endeavoured to make some tea, but owing to the 

 height the water boiled without attaining sufficient heat, and as 

 water was veiy precious, I did not long continue the experiment, 

 but I'eturned what remained in the pannikin to our calabash. Our 

 way now lay, mile after mile, over scoriae boulders, yeasty-looking 

 basins, and tortuous folds and waves of solidified lava, caverns and 

 small chasms whence the hot lava had flowed away, hillocks generally 

 of small stones burnt to a deep orange red, and here and there little 

 smooth places covered with ashes,— altogetlaer dark and dreary in 

 colour, without a living thing or a green blade. That morning we 

 passed tlie site of the eruption of 1852. The view thence of the 

 opposite mountain of Manna Kea was glorious. The old conical 

 craters on its summit covered with newly fallen snow, its huge 

 outhne, shadowy and dim ; the clouds of smoke that rose round its 

 base from the intervening valley down which the present eruption 

 was flowing ; the wild dreariness of the foreground and the tropical 

 sky above. Who could fitly describe or paint it ! 



And now a disaster occurred. A native fell and broke one of 

 oiu- two calabashes or gourds of water. One only remained, and it 

 was not full. Our supply was reduced to a pint bottle of beer .and 

 less than two pints of water. We descended into a cave, and 

 scraped off some damp moss and sfjueezed it into the pannikin, 

 obtaining, after half-an-hour's labour, little more than half-a-pint 

 of dark yellow liijuid, tasting strongly of sulphur and dirt, so un- 

 drinkable that we decided on mixing it with the rest, a proceeding 

 that had this advantage, that no one was afterwards inclined to 

 drhik more than nature absolutely demanded. The natives, now 



