Chap. XX.] A PRIMITIVE MAP. 



451 



out the night together, sheltered from the rain by a small extin- 

 guisher-shaped erection, which looked as if one human body 

 could not be forced into it, much less two. The temperature 

 here at daybreak was 60° F., and the morning being cloudy, 

 and the camp lying in a narrow gorge, it remained the same 

 for an hour and a half after daybreak. 



In the morning we descended again several hundred feet, 

 and sent back to the hut and procured two young men, sup- 

 posed to be practised mountaineers, and, as we thought, certain 

 to know the way about every pass within four or five miles of 

 their dwelling. One of them, as a proof of his knowledge, 

 brought with him what I suppose is the most primitive form of 

 a map. It was a thick stick of wood about a foot and a half 

 long, with two short cross pieces on it at some distance from 

 the ends, and on each of these cross pieces were set up three 

 short uprights of wood. I give a figure of it from memory. 

 The uprights represented 



mountain peaks, and the a ^ M 



spaces between, the valleys.* ^ vf H If f^ 



The new guide held his I | ^ \f [/ jl 



map in his hand and took ^y?vj'| _j|L.^S2l^l# 



long consultation with his ^f^^^^^^^^^P^^^^sMl^ 

 brother, and then explained ^^^-^^^^^^^^^ 

 matters thoroughly to our tahitian mountain map. 



former guides. He clutched 



the uprights one after another and dilated upon them, pointing 

 out the peaks to which they corresponded. There seemed no 

 doubt we had got hold of the right man at last. 



The guides now lashed our small baggage on their backs, 

 instead of on poles as before, since this mode of carriage was 

 no longer practicable, owing to the steepness of the ascent, 

 and we started up the face of an extremely steep-sided ridge, a 

 spur of Orofena, the highest mountain of Tahiti. At the lower 

 part, we pulled ourselves up by means of the trailing Screw- 

 pine, which covered the ground with a tangled mass of its long 

 serpentine stems so thickly, that as we climbed over it we did 

 not reach the ground beneath by a yard or more. 



Near the summit of the spur, the face of the ridge was 

 almost perpendicular, and one of the men got up by the help 



* In the Marshall Islands the natives used for long land voyages, 

 between the different islands of the groups, primitive maps made of small 

 sticks and small stones. They represented correctly the distances and 

 directions of the several islands, the sizes of the stones showing the 

 relative dimensions of the islands. Kommandant. Kap. Rotger. Annalen 

 der Hydrographie und maritimen Meteorologie, 14 Jahrg., 1886. Heft V., 

 pp. 196 — 207. 



