24 



Floating Islands of the Lakes. 

 While the subject of floating islands is hardly a 



is one of those closed valleys, and is 7-9^ fathoms deep 

 all over; both its inlet and its outlet are choked with 



forestry one, it is, I think, of sufficient botanical and weed f and sa ?° swamps; no sudden rises or falls occur, 



general interest to be referred to here. Around the 

 margin of these lakes is a thick growth of water-loving 

 plants. Those nearest the bank are marsh species, and 

 those further out are water plants. Even the water 



lilies, No. 250 (Nymphaea gigantea) do not extend far 



from the banks, for the ground shelves rapidly, and 

 the water is soon too deep for even their long steins, 

 which reach 16 feet at times. The main vegetation 

 consists of a large lily, No. 253 (Sisum sp., probably 

 S. anthelminticum). This clothes the water's edge all 

 round the lakes. It is a big plant, with leaves 5 to 6 



feet long. 



It roots in the mud on the margin of the 



water, and puts out new horizontal stems into the water, 

 from which grows a cluster of leaves and roots — a new 

 plant, in fact. This method of propagation continues 

 till the water's edge for 5 or 6 yards dee]) is a dense 



for the area is large and the stream too small to make 

 any difference of level, even after a very heavy rain I 

 experienced when camped there. That some explana- 

 tion ether than the natives' w T ill be forthcoming in 

 time is to be hoped. At the risk of being accused of 

 digressing altogether from forestry and intruding into 



realms psychic, I give the natives' story of Embi Lake 

 floating islands. The Embi people bury their dead in 

 holes in a rocky hill slope above their village; the spirits 

 of these dead descend from their caves, and enter the 

 bodies of crocodiles in Embi Lake. The lake is, there- 

 fore, held in great reverence by the people, and the 

 crocodiles in more than ordinary awe; but as an extra 

 precaution there is a being or devil they appear also 

 to call u Embi/ 1 and he inhabits a floating island which 

 they call Kukuwaio. This island or its inhabitant — 



mass. 



Among these lilies are to be found other water X cou!d not <l mte separate them in the native s story 



cries out at night when it is hungry, detaches the 

 Kukuwaio from the bank, and journeys round and 

 about the lake, seeking for food, finally tying up again 

 at any convenient place to the bank. As a native put 

 it, who had had the advantage of somewhat -wider travel 



7 ^ j „ „ * o 



stemmed sedge, but its root system is very developed, than his neighbours, and had seen the capital and the 

 and it is masses of such roots that supply the buoyancy 



plants, No. 251 (Limmonthetmun indicum.) for instance; 

 also a clambering fern, No. 255 (Dryopteris goiiyy- 

 lodes) ; but most important of all, the plant making up 

 the aquatic gardens is a sedge, No. 254 (Cy penis sp.). 

 In itself it is the usual insignificant, triangular, stiff- 



necessary to enable sections of vegetation to float. 



R.M.S. Morinda come in and go out, and heard her 

 blowing her whistle, (i Kukuwaio sing out all same 



Quite large areas of lake-side vegetation detach them- Morinda, and walk about look along kai kai." 



selves from the mass, and float out into the centre, 

 and either tie .up to a bank lower down, or are taken 



i 



The natives appear to recognize only 



one floating 



slowly down to the outlet, where they break up, if they island and refer to it as having been there always. 



have not done so on the way down. The largest I 



floating; down at the rate of a furlong an hour. How 





nd 



A 



very aged man was produced to tell me that his father 



measured was 50 yards long by 30 yards wide, and was livecl on the solid wooded island, and in his time 



Kukuwaio — the same floating island — existed. On my 



pointing out that I had seen two together, a large and 

 a small one, I was informed that the smaller one was a 



child of the larger. There are so many things in a 



people's beliefs that are incredible and yet are accepted 

 unhesitatingly, and Kukuwaio seems no more harmful 

 than many things believed in by other and more highly 



why these masses of vegetation detach themselves from 

 the rest is not at all clear. How they are formed is 



easier to explain. The continually thrust out horizontal 



shoots of the sisum soon reach water so deep that thev 

 cannot root. They obtain their plant food from the 



their large tuft of 6-ft. leaves. 



parent, and grow 



Having no anchor, the weight of their top hamper of civilized 

 leaves capsizes the plant, which lies with its greenery 

 half in and half out of the water, and with the hori- 

 zontal stem turned up out of the water, with the 1 jroung 



rootlets it tried to develop exposed to the air. On this 

 stem, among these rootlets, falls the sedge seed, and 

 soon there is a tuft of sedge leaves growing on the 

 elbow-like rhizome of cur lily. The sedge, as I have 

 already stated, makes a large mass of roots and rootlets. 

 A quite insignificant plant will have a root mass 18 inches 

 square and 12 inches deep, and of considerable weight, 

 but yet alw r ays a little lighter ihan water. On squeez- 

 ing this mass below water, a quantity of air bubbles 

 rise, and doubtless the whole carries enough air to 

 bring it to a specific gravity of less than one. It was 

 not possible to do more than roughly estimate the 



specific gravity of the detached cyperuo root masses by 



the depth at which they floated after the aerial parts 

 had been cut. I should put it at between 0.8 and 0.9. 

 The specific gravity is sufficiently low for these root 

 masses to support, not only the sedge leaves, but all 

 (he other vegetation ; of these the dense masses of sisum 

 are of great weight. When first seen, just under the 

 water, the roots look like ordinary soil, and it is only 

 when taken out and squeezed and examined that their 

 true composition is made plain. 



races. Curiosity in regard to a person's 

 religious belief is usually resented, and so I desisted 

 from further cross-examination, though I must confess 

 I should haA'e liked to discover what happeiu d, 

 according to the natives, to Kukuwaio's doubtless 

 numerous family. I was camped a fortnight in the 

 flydrographer's before I saw one of these islands. The 

 natives had told me of them, and had told many blood- 

 curdling stores, with the object, I assumed of prevent- 

 ing my putting a canoe en the lake. By doing so I 

 would save a great deal of time lost in w r alking round 



the waters to my work, which was getting farther and 

 farther from my camp, and so, despite the inhabitants, 

 a raft, and finally a canoe, w T as built on the shore of 



the lake. My first sight of one of these islands burst 

 on me and my boys quite unexpectedly, and I must 



admit that the presence of an undoubted and perfectly 

 L'ood but brand-new island, covered with a vegetation 



rather startling 



My 



S feet high, among which a common yellow compositae 

 !a inhered conspicuously, 



bovs, except my policeman, who deserves every credit 



for standing his ground, stampeded into the bush, 



which, after all. was a verv natural thin°* to do. 



Whether it was the suggestive effect of the folk stories 



oo 



The interesting question of how these comparatively L™,™*™ '° f ? r * Week ' ° r m 7 f f ith ™ The , "&?* 



that " of valour the better part is discretion/' I felt 

 like Bending for reinforcements before embarking on 

 the raft to investigate the kukuwaio. However, with 



large areas cf vegetation become detached requires fur- 

 ther inquiry before it can be answered satisfactorily. 

 Were these sheets of water subject to storms, an ex- 

 planation would present itself, but T did not see more 1 * ie a ^ °f a policeman and a native dragged from the 

 than a little ripple on Embi Lake, so sheltered is it bush to propel the raft, the island was investigated then 

 by the mountains, A sudden rapid current would be a and there. This and subsequent investigations in the 



canoe made it possible for me to advance the above 



splendid agent for detaching these islands: but none 



occurs. The Embi stream is not a big one; Embi Lake explanation of the formation of these phenomena. 



