e parts, from seeing these to them supernatural effects, take the
friars for gods, and supply them with poultry, flesh[14], and various other
things, reverencing the monks as their lords and rulers. When the frost and
snow is considerable, the monks warm their apartments as before described,
and by admitting the hot water, or opening their windows, they are able in
an instant to produce such a temperature as they may require.

In the buildings of their monastery they use no more materials than are
presented to them by the before mentioned volcano. Taking the burning
stones which are thrown from the crater, they throw them, while hot, into
water, by which they are dissolved into excellent lime; which, when used in
building, lasts forever. The same stones, when cold, serve to make their
walls and vaults, as they cannot be broken or cut except with an iron
instrument. The vaults which they build with these stones are so light as
to require no props for supporting them[15]. On account of these great
conveniences, the monks have constructed so many walls and buildings of
different kinds, as is really wonderful to see. The coverings or roofs of
their houses are constructed for the most part in the following manner:
Having carried the wall to its full height, they make it to incline or bend
in gradually till it form a regular vault. They are little incommoded with
rain in this country; as the climate is so extremely cold, that the first
snow that falls does not thaw for nine months.

The monks live mostly on fish and wild fowl; for, in consequence of the
boiling hot water running into a large and wide haven of the sea, that bay
is kept from freezing, and there is so great a concourse of sea fowl and
fish in that place, that they easily take as many of them as they can
possibly have occasion for, with which they maintain a great number of
people round about, whom they keep constantly employed either in building
or in catching fish and fowls, and in a thousand other necessary
occupations relative to the monastery. The houses of these natives are
built on the hill near the monastery, of a round form, about twenty-five
feet wide at the bottom, and growing gradually narrower as they go up, in a
conical form, ending in a small hole at top, to admit light and air; and
the floor of the house is so hot, that the inhabitants feel no cold within
doors at any season. To this place many barks resort in summer from the
neighbouring islands,