Point Venus. 149 



of the poorer class paddle out on the reef at night, and spear fish 

 by torchlight as of old, so that every night the reefs outside the 

 harbour are gaily illumined by these torch fires. 



A few days after our arrival at Papiete, I made an excursion 

 to Foint Venus, the northern extremity of Matavai Bay, in com- 

 pany with a party of our surveying officers, who wished to take 

 sights at this station for chronometric measurements of longitude ; 

 Point Venus being one of the secondary meridians to which lon- 

 gitudes in the Pacific are referred. The distance from Papiete is 

 about six miles. We went in one of the ship's steam cutters, 

 taking a small boat in tow;, and after a somewhat hazardous 

 passage among the reefs, which here form an irregular barrier 

 along the coast, we reached Matavai Bay. We landed easily 

 upon a smooth sloping beach of black volcanic sand — the detritus 

 brought down from the hills by a neighbouring stream ; and while 

 the observers established themselves and their instruments on a 

 grass plot near the base of the lighthouse, I took a stroll into the 

 surrounding country, having at my disposal about five hours. 



The French keeper of the lighthouse, who was most obliging, 

 pointed out to us a square slab of coral rock imbedded in the 

 ground, and bearing on its surface a deeply-chiselled groove. It 

 was placed there some ten years ago, to replace one which had 

 been fixed there in the year 1839 by Captain Wilkes, of the 

 United States Exploring Expedition, and was, I understand, in- 

 tended to assist in determining the exact position of a submerged 

 coral knoll, some 100 yards from the shore, on which measure- 

 ments were made for determining the rate of growth of the coral. 

 We were also shown a large and venerable tamarind tree near the 

 lighthouse, which is said to have been planted more than 100 

 years ago by our own great navigator, Cook. Cocoanuts, bread- 

 fruit, oranges, bananas, and mangoes, grew in great profusion, and 

 the greatest and most good-natured eagerness was shown by the 

 natives in putting these delicious fruits at our disposal. 



We also saw a large extent of cleared land devoted to the 



