Journey across the Island of Tahiti. 157 



entered the valley of Hamaanino, my attention was now directed to two 

 immense heaps of stones, piled in the form of obtuse pyramids; these were 

 erected over the graves of two Englishmen, mutineers of the Bounty, who 

 were killed in battle, and whose tupapow or ghosts are still supposed to 

 wander about this place, often driving the benighted native, on his return 

 from the mountains with his load of plantains, across a neighbouring 

 mountain, rather than pass the spot. Our eyes had been now directed 

 some time towards a cliff, called by the natives Pihaa. On our approach 

 we found it to present a most magnificent perpendicular mass of basaltic 

 columns, fully two hundred feet high, by three hundred in breadth, the 

 columns irregular pentagons, arranged close to one another without ad- 

 hering, not vertebrated, nor jointed like the Giant's Causeway, but only 

 occasionally fractured. The columns vary from nine inches and a foot in 

 diameter, to that of two feet ; but the most singular part of this formation 

 is, that a great portion of this cliff has the columns gracefully curled into 

 a segment of a circle, as though the whole formation had been in a plastic 

 state, and at that time a movement had taken place which carried or bent 

 the upper parts of these columns out of the perpendicular. At the foot of 

 this cliff meanders the largest of the streams, named the Pap6 Matavai. 

 To the eastward of this is a cave of considerable extent; I imagine not less 

 than one hundred feet high, with columns overhanging in such a manner as 

 to threaten destruction to any who may take refuge, as we did, from a 

 heavy shower of rain. That masses do fall repeatedly was evident from 

 the fragments strewn over the floor of the cave. The only instance of the 

 jointed columns is on the S. W. side, iu the valley of Bunara, where a 

 jointed column stands projected in a cave, and is called the mararaa ofai, 

 or moon-stone. In the course of our journey we met with repeated speci- 

 mens of the living soldier crab, pagurus, carrying with it the shell of the 

 turbo setosus, in many instances at an elevation of several hundred feet, 

 and more than ten miles inland. 



At eleven, a. m. the ocean opened to our view, and in pushing for the 

 beach, we had to pass through a long grass, called piripiri, which bears a 

 burr covered with prickles of a most annoying kind, penetrating the clothes 

 and scratching the skin, which in tropical climates is readily excited to 

 inflammation. The natives, to avoid this, always on passing through the 

 grass, strip off their clothes, and thus avoid the painful purgatory which 

 the European has to undergo, at whom they always laugh, stating that it 

 justly punishes only the foreigners who first introduced it. It was brought 

 from Norfolk Island by Mr. Crook, one of the first missionaries, and is now 

 80 completely spread over the whole groupe of islands as totally to prevent 

 the breeding of sheep, whom it speedily kills by getting into the wool, and 

 worrying them to death by the constant irritation kept up. Having reached 

 the plains at the foot of the mountains, we had only to pass as soon as 

 possible through the various plantations of yams, sweet potatoes, &c. until 



No. 3.— Vol. I. Y 



