1839.] RIVERS AND HARBORS. 169 



lakes. There are a number of mountain torrents, however, 

 dignified with the name of rivers, which are swollen to such 

 an extent during the rainy season that it is really dangerous 

 to attempt to ford them. The principal of these on the island 

 of Tahiti, are the Pappino on the north, and the Ooaigarra 

 on the south side, both rapid streams, but narrow, and usually 

 only a few feet deep. Tahiti also has a pretty lake, seven- 

 teen hundred feet above the level of the sea, called Lake 

 Waiherea ; it is of an oval shape, ninety-six feet deep, half a 

 mile long, and one third of a mile in width ; and is bordered 

 with a beautiful fringe of woody plants. The lake has no 

 visible outlet, but the natives say that if a bread-fruit be 

 thrown in, it will appear after a while in a spring, whose 

 waters gush forth from the hill-side, at a distance of nearly 

 three miles. 



The excellence of the harbors of Tahiti and her sister 

 islands, is well known to navigators. Deeply embayed be- 

 tween lofty hills, which have a sheer descent to the water, 

 and often many hundred feet below, or faced by perpendicu- 

 lar piers of coral, and protected in front from the waves of 

 the ocean, by the massive breakwaters reared by the same 

 skilful engineer, they afford ample and perfect security against 

 both wind and tide. Papieti, on the north side of Tahiti, is 

 the most capacious and the first in importance. Fronting a 

 deep recess in the island, is a reef of coral trending away for 

 several miles to the east, but broken just on the right of the 

 fiorde, by a stream of fresh water putting in, which, it is said, 

 always interrupts the labors of the polyp. Tall hills rise on 

 either side of the recess, and between these and the reef, is 

 the harbor, or bay, of Papieti. It is about one mile in length, 

 and half a mile in width. It affords a deep and secure an- 

 chorage, — large vessels being safely moored within a stone's 

 throw of the shore, — and is capacious enough to accommodate 

 a hundred sail. 



As you pass through the opening in the reef, and enter the 

 circular and land-locked harbor, the beautiful little coral 

 island of Moto-utu starts up on the left, like Aphrodite, from 



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