Scenery of the Lake Waiiria. 229 



the valley suddenly closes in, and it becomes necessary to 

 scramble up an almost perpendicular precipice 1000 feet in 

 height. It was a tight bit of work, struggling upwards 

 under a tropical rain over the slippery moss-grown blocks, 

 every cranny and projection thickly studded with creeping 

 plants. The crest of the pass, from 60 to 80 feet wide, hem- 

 med in by precipices impossible to scale, was fortified by the 

 natives during the war ; that is to say, a breastwork of stones 

 was thrown up, thus converting the depression on the other 

 side of the mountain, in which lies the lake, into an inaccess- 

 ible lurking-place. Not far distant is the deep narrow defile 

 of Ruotorea, which played so conspicuous a part in the older 

 history of Tahiti, as it was customary to fling into it all 

 prisoners of war. At length, about two p. m., the lake itself 

 was reached, lying in a sort of mountain cauldron, the sides 

 of which descend steeply, while two of the loftiest peaks, those 

 of Tetuero and Anaori, rise sheer out of the lake to a height of 

 5000 feet.* Except at the narrow strip of ground, on which 

 M. Frauenfeld found himself standing, and which was nothing 

 but a beach of small extent, there was no other spot within 

 sight at which it would have been possible to land. The dis- 

 tance to the opposite shore, when visible, seems about half a 

 mile. The whole basin, even where the enclosing rocks are 

 steepest, indeed, almost perpendicular, and thence up to the 



* According to Kulczycki's measurements the lake lies 430 metres (1401 feet) above 

 the sea, and is 400 metres (1304 feet) in circumference, while the precipitous peaks 

 around are 1800 metres (5865 feet) above sea level. 



