and the sweet potatoe, with plants of the cloth tree, neatly set out in rows. The walls that separate them are made of the loose burnt stones, which are got in clearing the ground; and being entirely concealed by sugar-canes, planted close on each side, make the most beautiful fences that can be conceived. The party stopped for the night at the second hut they found amongst the plantations, where they judged themselves to be about six or seven miles from the ships. They described the prospect from this spot as very delightful; they saw the ships in the bay before them; to the left a continued range of villages, interspersed with groves of cocoa-nut trees, spreading along the sea-shore; a thick wood stretching out of sight behind them; and to the right an extent of ground, laid out in regular and well-cultivated plantations, as far as the eye could reach. Near this spot, at a distance from any other dwelling, the natives pointed out to them the residence of a hermit, who, they said, had formerly been a great chief and warrior, but had long ago quitted the shores of the island, and now never stirred from his cottage. They prostrated themselves as they approached him, and afterward presented to him a part of such provisions as they had brought with them. His behaviour was easy and cheerful; he scarce shewed any marks of astonishment at the sight of our people, and though pressed to accept some of our curiosities, he declined the offer, and soon withdrew to his cottage. He was described as by far the oldest person any of the party had ever seen, and judged to be, by those who computed his age at the lowest, upward of 100 years old. As our people had imagined the mountain not to be more than ten or twelve miles from the bay, and consequently that they should reach it with ease early the next morning, an error into which its great height had probably led stalk, with about half a bushel of light mould; the latter is left bare to the root, and the mould round it is made in the form of a basin, in order to hold the rain-water, as this root requires a certain degree of moisture. It has been before observed, that the tarrow, at the Friendly and Society Islands, was always planted in low and moist situations, and generally where there was the convenience of a rivulet to flood it. It was imagined that this mode of culture was absolutely necessary; but we now found, that, with the precaution above-mentioned, it succeeds equally well in drier situation; indeed, we all remarked, that the tarrow of the Sandwich Islands is the best we had ever tasted. The plantains are not admitted in these plantations, but grow amongst the bread-fruit trees. led them, they were now much surprised to find the distance scarce perceptibly diminished. This circumstance, together with the uninhabited state of the country they were going to enter, made it necessary to procure a supply of provisions; and for that purpose they dispatched one of their guides back to the village. Whilst they were waiting his return, they were joined by some of Kaoo's servants, whom that benevolent old man had sent after them, as soon as he heard of their journey, laden with refreshments, and authorised, as their route lay through his grounds, to demand and take away whatever they might have occasion for. Our travellers were much astonished to find the cold here so intense; but having no thermometer with them, could judge of it only by their feelings, which, from the warm atmosphere they had left, must have been a very fallacious measure. They found it, however, so cold, that they could get but little sleep, and the natives none at all; both parties being disturbed, the whole night, by continued coughing. As they could not, at this time, be at any very considerable height, the distance from the sea being only six or seven miles, and part of the road on a very moderate ascent, this extraordinary degree of cold must be ascribed to the easterly wind blowing fresh over the snowy mountains. Early on the 27th they set out again, and filled their calibashes at an excellent well about half a mile from their hut. Having passed the plantations, they came to a thick wood, which they entered by a path made for the convenience of the natives, who go thither to fetch the wild or horse-plantain, and to catch birds. Their progress now became very slow, and attended with much labour; the ground being either swampy, or covered with large stones; the path narrow, and frequently interrupted by trees lying across it, which it was necessary to climb over, the thickness of the underwood on both sides making it impossible to pass round them. In these woods they observed, at small distances, pieces of white cloth fixed on poles, which they supposed to be land-marks for the division of proper ty, as they only met with them where the wild plantains grew. The trees, which are of the same kind with those we called the spice-tree at New Holland, were lofty and straight, and from two to four feet in circumference. After After they had advanced about ten miles in the wood, they had the mortification to find themselves, on a sudden, within sight of the sea, and at no great distance from it; the path having turned imperceptibly to the southward, and carried them to the right of the mountain, which it was their object to reach. Their disappointment was greatly increased by the uncertainty they were now under of its true bearings, since they could not, at this time, get a view of it from the top of the highest trees. They, therefore, found themselves obliged to walk back six or seven miles to an unoccupied hut, where they had left three of the natives and two of their own people, with the small stock that remained of their provisions. Here they spent the second night; and the air was so very sharp, and so little to the liking of their guides, that, by the morning, they had all departed, except one. The want of provisions now making it necessary to return to some of the cultivated parts of the island, they quitted the wood by the same path they had entered it; and, on their arrival at the plantations, were surrounded by the natives, of whom they purchased a fresh stock of ne cessaries; and prevailed upon two of them to supply the place of the guides that were gone away. Having obtained the best information in their power, with regard to the direction of their road, the party, being now nine in number, marched along the skirts of the wood for six or seven miles, and then entered it again by a path that bore to the eastward. For the first three miles they passed through a forest of lofty spice-trees, growing on a strong rich loam; at the back of which they found an equal extent of low shrubby trees, with much thick underwood, on a bottom of loose burnt stones. This led them to a second forest of spicetrees, and the same rich brown soil, which was again succeeded by a barren ridge of the same nature with the former. This alternate succession may, perhaps, afford matter of curious speculation to naturalists. The only additional circumstance I could learn relating to it was, that these ridges appeared, as far as they could be seen, to run in directions parallel to the sea-shore, and to have Mouna Roa for their centre. In passing through the woods they found many canoes half-finished, and here and there a hut; but saw none of the inhabitants. Having penetrated near three miles into the the second wood, they came to two huts, where they stopped, exceedingly fatigued with the day's journey, having walked not less than twenty miles, according to their own computation. As they had met with no springs, from the time they left the plantation-ground, and began to suffer much from the violence of their thirst, they were obliged, before the night came on, to separate into parties, and go in search of water; and, at last, found some left by rain in the bottom of an unfinished canoe, which, though of the colour of red wine, was to them no unwelcome discovery. In the night, the cold was still more intense than they had found it before; and though they had wrapped themselves up in mats and cloths of the country, and kept a large fire between the two huts, they could yet sleep but very little, and were obliged to walk about the greatest part of the night. Their elevation was now probably pretty considerable, as the ground on which they had travelled had been generally on the ascent. On the 29th, at day-break, they set out, intending to make their last and utmost effort to reach the snowy mountain; but their spirits were much depressed, when they found they had expended the miserable pittance of water they had found the night before. The path, which extended no farther than where canoes had been built, was now at an end; and they were therefore obliged to make their way as well as they could; every now and then climbing up into the highest trees, to explore the country round. At eleven o'clock, they came to a ridge of burnt stones, from the top of which they saw the snowy mountain, appearing to be about twelve or fourteen miles from them. It was here deliberated, whether they should proceed any further, or rest satisfied with the view they now had of Mouna Rao. The road, ever since the path ceased, had become exceedingly fatiguing; and every step they advanced was growing still more so. The deep chinks, with which the ground was every where broken, being slightly covered with moss, made them stumble at almost every step; and the intermediate space was a surface of loose burnt stones, which broke under their feet like potsherds. They threw stones into several of these chinks, which, by the noise they made, seemed to fall to a considerable depth, and the ground sounded hollow under their feet. Besides these these discouraging circumstances, they found their guides so averse to going on, that they believed, whatever their own determinations might have been, they could not have prevailed on them to remain out another night. They therefore at last agreed to return to the ships, after taking a view of the country, from the highest trees which the place afforded. From this elevation they saw themselves surrounded, on all sides, with wood toward the sea; they could not distinguish, in the horizon, the sky from the water; and between them and the snowy mountain, was a valley about seven or eight miles broad, above which the mountain appeared only as a hill of a moderate size. They rested this night at a hut in the second wood, and, on the 30th, before noon, they had got clear of the first, and found themselves about nine miles to the north-east of the ships, toward which they directed their march through the plantations. As they passed along, they did not observe a single spot of ground that was capable of improvement left unplanted; and indeed it appeared, from their account, hardly possible for the country to be cultivated to greater advantage for the purposes of the inhabitants, or made to yield them a larger supply of necessaries for their subsistence. They were surprised to meet with several fields of hay; and, on enquiring to what uses it was applied, were told, it was designed to cover the young tarrow grounds, in order to preserve them from being scorched by the sun. They saw a few scattered huts amongst the plantations, which served for occasional shelter to the labourers; but no villages at a greater distance than four or five miles from the sea. Near one of them, about four miles from the bay, they found a cave, forty fathoms long, three broad, and of the same height. It was open at both ends; the sides were fluted, as if wrought with a chisel, and the surface glazed over, probably by the action of fire. Having given this account of the most material circumstances that occurred on the expedition to the snowy mountain, I shall now return to the other islands that remain to be described. The island next in size and nearest in situation to Owhyhee, is MowEE, which lies at the distance of eight leagues N.N.W. from the former, and is one hundred and forty geographical miles in circumference. A low isthmus divides it into two circular peninsulas, of which that to the east |