SANDWICH ISLANDS. 
I ry £* 
75 
natives should have considered it as the abode of the gods 
of fire. 
Several parties from the ship were formed for the pur¬ 
pose of visiting Peli, the earliest being that of the botanist, 
consisting of the same individuals as ascended Mouna Iveah, 
with the exception of the missionary, whom they exchanged 
for the Armourer. After passing through five miles of what 
may be called cultivated country, they arrived at the great 
forest, through five more miles of which they travelled by 
rude and difficult paths, over the rough lava. Beyond the 
forest, shrubs and herbs cover the scoriae and mingled rock 
and ashes, to the crater itself; being occasionally interrupted 
by patches of hot rock, where deep fissures and cracks show 
the fires beneath, and whence smoke and flame are per¬ 
petually issuing. Other patches there are of steaming sand, 
or hot clay, in which the natives, when frequenting the 
mountains to cut sandal-wood, bury the root of the edible 
fern, and thus dress it for food. Some shrubs grow actually 
within the great crater; and the ohelo berry, white cran¬ 
berry, and strawberry, are in plenty close to its edge. 
The natives, on seeing some of the English bear the fire 
as well as the cold of the mountain, exclaimed, that the 
white people were like the gods, for that they could equally 
endure the snow and the fire. 
