200 On the Volcanic Character of the Island of Hawaii. 



being distinctly marked, looked like so many distinct courses 

 of masonry." 



After leaving Kalahiti, they " proceeded over a very rugged 

 tract of lava, broken up in the wildest confusion, apparently 

 by an earthquake, when it was in a semi-fluid state. About 

 noon they passed a large crater. Its rim, on the side towards 

 the sea, was broken down, and the streams of lava issuing 

 thence, marked the place by which its contents were princi- 

 pally discharged. The lava was not so porous as that of 

 Keanaee; but, like much in the immediate vicinity of the cra- 

 ters, was of a dark red, or brown ferruginous colour, and but 

 partially glazed over." For a mile along the coast, they found 

 it impossible to travel without making a considerable circuit 

 inland, and they continued to pursue their way over a broken 

 and rugged tract of lava. 



In this volcanic country, the want of fresh water is severely 

 felt, and was often experienced by the missionaries during 

 their tour. 



On the 26th, at Kapua, they hired a man to go about seven 

 miles into the mountains, for fresh water; but he returned 

 with only one calabash full, a very inadequate supply for the 

 party, who had suffered much from thirst, and the effects of 

 brackish water. They now entered the district of Kau, and 

 turning the southern point of the island, found " the same 

 gloomy and cheerless desert of rugged lava, spreading itself 

 in every direction, from the shore to the mountains. Here 

 and there at distant intervals they passed a lonely house, or a 

 few wandering fishermen's huts, with a solitary shrub of thistles 

 struggling for existence among the crevices in the blocks of 

 scoria and lava: all besides was one vast desert, dreary, black 

 and wild. Often all traces of a path entirely disappeared. For 

 miles together, they clambered over huge pieces of vitreous 

 scoria, or rugged piles of lava, which like several of the tracts 

 they had passed in Kana, had been tossed into its present con- 

 fusion by some violent convulsion of the earth." 



Their narrative proceeds : " From the state of the lava, 

 covering that part of the country, through which we have 

 passed, we should be induced to think, that eruptions and 

 earthquakes had been almost without exception, concomitants 

 of each other ; and the shocks must have been exceedingly 

 violent, to have torn the lava to pieces and shaken it up in 

 such distorted forms, as we every where beheld." " Slabs of 

 lava, from nine to- twelve inches thick, and from four to twenty 

 or thirty feet in diameter, were frequently piled up edgewise, 

 ^r stood leaning against several others, piled up in a similar 



manner." 



