THROUGH HAWAII. 
273 
by the shock. We next traced its course through the 
fields of potatoes. In some places the ground seemed 
hardly disturbed, yet it sunk six or eight inches beneath 
our tread. At other places we saw apertures upwards 
of two feet wide. The potatoes that were growing 
immediately in the direction of the fissure, were all 
spoiled. Several roots of considerable size were thrown 
out of the ground, and, according to the representations 
of the natives, appeared as if they had been scorched. 
At the south end of the village, it had passed through 
a small well, in which originally there was seldom more 
than eighteen inches’ depth of water, though since that 
period there has been upwards of three feet. The crack 
was about ten inches wide, running from north to south 
across the bottom of the well. The water has not only 
increased in quantity, but suffered a great deterioration 
in quality, being now very salt; and its rising and 
falling with the ebbing and flowing of the tide, indicates 
its connexion with the waters of the ocean, from which 
it is distant about 300 yards. 
Convulsions of this kind are common over the whole 
island: they are not, however, so frequent in this 
vicinity as in the northern and western parts, and are 
seldom violent, except when they immediately precede 
the eruption of a volcano. The superstitions of the 
natives lead them to believe they are produced by the 
power of P61ē, or some of the volcanic deities, and 
consider them as requisitions for offerings, or threaten- 
ings of still greater calamities. 
In the afternoon, Messrs. Thurston and Bishop walk¬ 
ed over to Makena, a pleasant village about a mile to 
the southward of Kaimu, where they collected about 
one hundred people, to whom Mr. Thurston preached 
2 N 
