AFRO-INDIAN REGIONS. 



459 



until 4 P.M. : I then proceeded to a shed I had given directions to have 

 erected upon the Eastern brink, beyond the Isthmus. Finding satis- 

 factory arrangements made for passing the night there, I kept on as far 

 as the Southeastern slope, and again descended into the Great Crater ; 

 passing across the " black ledge" to the part immediately overlooking 

 the molten lake. The view at night was much nearer than from the 

 Western brink of the Crater; but the aspect of the molten lake was 

 not materially changed. The clouds overhead were however rendered 

 more lowering, which I mistook for the threatenings of a storm ; and 

 accordingly hastened my return. 



On the morning of the 28th, 1 walked Eastward; following the series 

 of pit-craters already described. In this direction, and all around to the 

 Southward, the whole country seems declining towards a centre, form- 

 ing a concavity rather than a plain. In the South, were three parallel 

 lines of subsidence, each marked by a long low cliff, conspicuous in the 

 distance; and it was also perceived, that the country containing the 

 Great Crater is less elevated than a portion of the route of the recent 

 Eruption; in other words, that the Great Crater is situated to the 

 Southward of the wide culminating ridge of the island. The wide 

 concavity just mentioned was once the seat of an enq^tion of sand ; 

 that, according to Hawaiian annals, " came up through fissures, pro- 

 ducing for a time total darkness, and destroying a Hawaiian army 

 that happened to be passing by." 



From the fourth pit-crater, I proceeded South to the nearest of the 

 low cliffs of subsidence : which I traced West-southwest about four 

 miles, curving but very slightly. Leaving this, I reached the S. S. W. 

 portion of the Crevice of formation and eruption at a point about two 

 miles from the Great Crater. The Crevice proved a quarter of a mile 

 wide, as marked by several gaping parallel fissures, new ones begin- 

 ning as others terminate : the accompanying lava-eminences were much 

 smaller than those of the Northeastern portion of the Crevice : the first 

 in the series was near at hand, a long hillock about seventy feet high, 

 composed of ragged scoriaceous lava. 



Along the S. S. W. portion of the Crevice, the country is lowest, 

 besides gradually and regularly declining in the distance ; the line of 

 vision outwards being uninterrupted. Mr. Brackenridge, in proceeding 

 from the Great Crater, found this crevice "extending some eight or ten 

 miles through an almost continuous sandy plain, nearly destitute of 

 vegetation ; and where there is any, the S'denoid appeared to be the 



