I83S-] EXCURSION TO THE MOUNTAINS. 297 



over the ravine, the air felt cool and damp, but now it became very 

 sultry. Shaded by a ledge of rock, beneath a fa?ade of columnar lava, 

 we ate our dinner. My guides had already procured a dish of small 

 fish and fresh-water prawns. They carried with them a small net 

 stretched on a hoop ; and where the water was deep and in eddies, 

 they dived, and like otters, with their eyes open followed the fish into 

 holes and corners, and thus caught them. 



The Tahitians have the dexterity of amphibious animals in the water. 

 An anecdote mentioned by Ellis shows how much they feel at home in 

 this element. When a horse was landing for Pomarre in 1817, the 

 slings broke, and it fell into the water: immediately the natives jumped 

 overboard, and by their cries and vain efforts at assistance almost 

 drowned it. As soon, however, as it reached the shore, the whole 

 population took to flight, and tried to hide themselves from the man- 

 carrying pig, as they christened the horse. 



A little higher up the river divided itself into three little streams. 

 The two northern ones were impracticable, owing to a succession of 

 waterfalls which descended from the jagged summit of the highest 

 mountain ; the other to all appearance was equally inaccessible, but we 

 managed to ascend it by a most extraordinary road. The sides of the 

 valley were here nearly precipitous ; but, as frequently happens with 

 stratified rocks, small ledges projected, which were thickly covered by 

 wild bananas, liliaceous plants, and other luxuriant productions of the 

 tropics. The Tahitians, by climbing amongst these ledges, searching 

 for fruit, had discovered a track by which the whole precipice could be 

 scaled. The first ascent from the valley was very dangerous ; for it 

 was necessary to pass a steeply-inclined face of naked rock, by the aid 

 of ropes which we brought with us. How any person discovered that 

 this formidable spot was the only point where the side of the mountain 

 was practicable, I cannot imagine. We then cautiously walked along 

 one of the ledges till we came to one of the three streams. This ledge 

 formed a flat spot, above which a beautiful cascade, some hundred feet 

 in height, poured down its waters, and beneath, another high cascade 

 fell into the main stream in the valley below. From this cool and shady 

 recess we made a circuit to avoid the overhanging waterfall. As before, 

 we followed little projecting ledges, the danger being partly concealed 

 by the thickness of the vegetation. In passing from one of the ledges to 

 another there was a vertical wall of rock. One of the Tahitians, a fine 

 active man, placed the trunk of a tree against this, climbed up it, and 

 then by the aid of crevices reached the summit. He fixed the ropes to 

 a projecting point, andlewered them for our dog and luggage, and then 

 we clambered up ourselves. Beneath the ledge on which the dead tree 

 was placed, the precipice must have been five or six hundred feet deep ; 

 and if the abyss had not been partly concealed by the overhanging ferns 

 and lilies, my head would have turned giddy, and nothing should have 

 induced me to ha%-e attempted it. We continued to ascend, sometimes 

 along ledges, and sometimes along knife-edged ridges, having on each 

 hand profound ravines. In the Cordillera I have seen mountains on a 

 far grander scale, but for abruptness, nothing at all comparable with 



