TRISTAN DA CUNHA. 115 



Inaccessible Island lies W. by S. i S. of Tristan, distant 

 about 23 miles, i.e., from the Peak of Tristan to the centre of 

 Inaccessible Island. The island is about 4£ miles in length, from 

 east to west, and about 2 miles broad, 4 square miles in area. 

 The highest point of the island is 1,840 feet in altitude. We 

 anchored on the north-east side. 



All night the penguins were to be heard screaming on shore 

 and about the ship, and as parties of them passed by, they left 

 vivid phosphorescent tracks behind them as they dived through 

 the water alongside. 



In the morning we had a view of the island. It presented 

 on this side a range of abrupt cliffs, about 1,000 feet in height, 

 of much the same structure as those of Tristan, viz., successive 

 layers of basalt, traversed by vertical or oblique dykes, but mostly 

 by narrow vertical ones. At the foot of the cliffs are some very 

 steep debris slopes extending in one place a long way up the 

 cliff, but not so as to render the ascent possible. 



In front of these stretches a strip of narrow uneven ground, 

 formed of large detached rocks and detritus from the cliffs above, 

 which terminates seawards in a beach of black boulders and 

 large pebbles. In one place, where the cliff is somewhat lower 

 than elsewhere, there is a waterfall, which at the time of our 

 visit was scantily supplied with water, but from the marks left 

 by it on the rocks and vegetation, evidently attains much greater 

 dimensions in rainy weather. The cascade pours right down 

 from the high cliff above into a dark pool of peaty water on the 

 beach below. The rocks about its course are covered with 

 mosses and green incrusting plants. 



The face of the cliff generally is sprinkled over with green, 

 the vegetation consisting principally of tussock grass (Spurt ina 

 arundinacea), Apium graveolens (a small sedge), Sonchus olcra- 

 ceus (Sow thistle), fiumex (Dock), and ferns: with dark green 

 patches of Phylica arbor ea on the debris slopes and ledges. 

 The strip of accessible lower shore land is mostly covered with 

 a dense growth of tall grass, called by the Tristan people 

 " tussock," but quite different in structure from the well-known 

 tussock of the Falklancls, though in outward habit resembling it 



very closely. 



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