1839.] GEOGRAPHICAL DESCRIPTION. 193 



lies west of Oloosinga, from which it is separated by a channel 

 for boats, one quarter of a mile in width. It is of but little 

 importance, and contains but few inhabitants, most of them 

 having been cut off during the bloody wars that have more 

 than decimated the population of the islands. 



Fifteen miles west of Ofoo and Oloosinga, from which it is 

 visible in fine weather, is Tutuila, the most central island, 

 and one of the most important of the group. It is nearly 

 fifty miles in circumference ; its shores are precipitous ; and 

 it has, generally, a broken and rugged appearance, occasioned 

 by the numerous sharp spurs and ridges that vary its surface, 

 — though its scenery is highly romantic, and its unevenness 

 is more than half concealed by the dense forests of cocoas and 

 bread-fruits, whose thickly-matted foliage, interlaced with 

 innumerable vines and creepers, covers the island as with a 

 carpet, which, when disturbed by the summer wind, rises 

 and falls, in wavy undulations, like the billows of the ocean. 

 The highest peak on Tutuila is Matafoa, upwards of twenty- 

 three hundred feet above the ocean. It contains a large pop- 

 ulation, who are chiefly congregated in the valleys and plains 

 sloping down to the sea. Lofty and impassable hills separate 

 the island into two parts, the only communication between 

 which is by the sea shore, — the one, on the northeast, ex- 

 ceedingly rough and uneven ; and the other, on the south- 

 west, lower, more, level, and more easy of cultivation. — 

 Tutuila was visited by the unfortunate La Perouse, in De- 

 cember, 1788, and derives something of its importance from 

 the fact, that M. de Langle, the captain of the Astrolabe, 

 and the naturalist of the Expedition, with ten other persons, 

 lost their lives on the island, in a collision with the natives. 



Upolu, thirty-six miles west of Tutuila, is seventy miles 

 in circumference. It is not so lofty, nor so much broken, as 

 the other islands of the group, and in population, beauty and 

 fertility, far exceeds either of them. The land rises gradu- 

 ally, for some distance from the shore, and then breaks into a 

 succession of mountainous ridges, clothed to the top with 

 verdure of the richest green. Wide tracts of table land lie 



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