162 
VOYAGE TO THE 
there. The place contains about 3000 inhabitants, and 
has a fort mounting twenty guns. The aspect of the 
country is very rough and uninviting in the neighbourhood, 
being composed of lavas of various ages, all dark and forbid¬ 
ding. The beach, however, is adorned with cocoa-nut trees, 
dracaena and oil nut; and a little valley, which extends 
about four miles inland, furnishes breadfruit, bananas, sweet 
potatoes, and mountain taro, which is a less productive 
variety of the water taro. At Kairua there is no fresh 
water, and the inhabitants, for the most part, content them¬ 
selves with brackish water, which is found in the crevices 
of the lava, and which is the product of the rain, which is 
retained in the various fissures, and the salt water filtering 
through the porous rock. Those who are industrious, or 
can afford to hire water-bearers, procure fresh water from a 
distance of three or four miles. Here is the tomb-house, 
where the remains of the great Tamehameha are deposited; 
and near it are still standing several large carved images, 
which we imagine to have been spared from respect to that 
chief’s memory. Soon after passing Kairua, we saw the 
small straggling village of Makauld-ulu, at the foot of the 
great volcanic mountain Wororai, beyond which the snowy 
top of Mouna Keah now and then appeared from among the 
clouds. Near this village Tamehameha died: as soon as his 
