208 
MISSIONARY TOUR 
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 discourse. Mr. 
Thurston concluded the service with prayer. The 
people remained in the place for 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. After travelling about five miles, 
over a country fertile and generally cultivated, 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-and-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 it, but in others it was ten or twelve feet across., 
