acres of it sufficiently level for cultivation. These level spots are carefully planted with kormeras[1], corn, &c., but are not rich enough for potatoes, which are never planted by the natives but on newly-cleared land, which they abandon after the third year's crop; it then becomes covered with fern, and in a few years more is rendered fit for nothing by the constant fires destroying whatever vegetable matter is formed by the decayed plant.
There are numerous hot springs on the island; they are all at the edge of the lake, and formed into baths by the natives making an open wall of stone around them, so as to admit a sufficiency of cold water to render them bearable to the skin. In all of them, although nearly boiling and strongly impregnated with sulphuric acid, there may be seen plants growing independently of the patches of green which cover the bottom. Several of the springs contain sulphuret of iron, as may be seen by the stones, all of which are bronzed by the deposit, often so completely as to look like pieces of pyrites. There are great numbers of shell-fish in the lake, and also craw-fish, sometimes eight inches long; both of which are articles of food for the natives, and of great consequence to them, as there are no fish except eels, which are scarce, and some little fish not so large as minnows, which they catch in nets made in the shape of a sparrow-trap, and eat dried. The largest hot springs are at the great Pa, one of which is eight or nine feet across, with a stream running from it four feet wide: the water at the place whence it issues is, I have no doubt, hotter than boiling, as it appears to come up in the form of steam; it is quite clear, and has but little taste, although it smells strongly of sulphuric acid: the rocks around are encrusted with a whitish efflorescence of an intensely sour taste, which I regret I had no means of pre-
- ↑ Sweet potatoes
