PONAIIOIIOA. 
219 
retired to rest. We had travelled more than 
twenty miles, and two of our number had, since the 
morning, spoken four times to the people. 
Soon after sunrise on the 31st, the people of the 
place were collected around our house. I requested 
them to sit down in front, and, after singing a 
hymn, preached to them a short and plain dis¬ 
course. Mr. Thurston concluded the service with 
prayer. The people remained in the place nearly 
an hour, and made many inquiries. 
After breakfast three of our number went to 
visit the places where we had seen the columns of 
smoke rising yesterday; and having travelled about 
five miles, over a country fertile and generally cul¬ 
tivated, we came to Ponahohoa . It was a bed of 
ancient lava, the surface of which was decomposed; 
and in many places shrubs and trees had grown to 
a considerable height. 
As we approached the places whence the smoke 
issued, we passed over a number of fissures and 
deep chasms, from two inches to six feet in width. 
The whole mass of rocks had evidently been rent 
by some violent convulsion of the earth, at no 
very distant period ; and when we came in sight of 
the ascending columns of smoke and vapour, we 
beheld immediately before us a valley, or hollow, 
about half a mile across, formed by the sinking of 
the whole surface of ancient lava, to a depth of 
fifty feet below its original level. Its superficies 
was intersected by fissures in every direction; and 
along the centre of the hollow, two large chasms, 
of irregular form and breadth, were seen stretching 
from the mountain towards the sea, in a south- 
by-west direction, and extending either way as far 
as the eye could reach. The principal chasm was 
in some places so narrow that we could step over 
