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5.] PRODUCTIONS OF THE SOIL. 403 



for ever remain classical to the voyager in the South Sea, was 

 in view. At a distance the appearance was not attractive. The 

 luxuriant vegetation of the lower part could not yet be seen, and 

 as the clouds rolled past, the wildest and most precipitous peaks 

 showed themselves towards the centre of the island. As soon as 

 we anchored in Matavai Bay, we were surrounded by canoes. 

 This was our Sunday, but the Monday of Tahiti : if the case had 

 been reversed, we should not have received a single visit ; for 

 the injunction not to launch a canoe on the sabbath is rigidly 

 obeyed. After dinner we landed to enjoy all the delights pro- 

 duced by the first impressions of a new country, and that country 

 the charming Tahiti. A crowd of men, women, and children, 

 was collected on the memorable Point Venus, ready to receive 

 us with laughing, merry faces. They marshalled us towards the 

 house of Mr. Wilson, the missionary of the district, who met us 

 on the road, and gave us a very friendly reception. After sitting 

 a short time in his house, we separated to walk about, but re- 

 turned there in the evening. 



The land capable of cultivation, is scarcely in any part more 

 than a fringe of low alluvial soil, accumulated round the base of the 

 mountains, and protected from the waves of the sea by a coral reef, 

 which encircles the entire line of coast. Within the reef there is an 

 expanse of smooth water, like that of a lake, where the canoes of 

 the natives can ply with safety and where ships anchor. The low 

 land which comes down to the beach of coral-sand, is covered by 

 the most beautiful productions of the intertropical regions. In the 

 midst of bananas, orange, cocoa-nut, and bread-fruit trees, spots 

 are cleared where yams, sweet potatoes, the sugar-cane, and pine 

 apples, are cultivated. Even the brushwood is an imported fruit- 

 tree, namely, the guava, which from its abundance has become 

 as noxious as a weed. In Brazil I have often admired the varied 

 beauty of the bananas, palms, and orange-trees contrasted toge- 

 ther ; and here we also have the bread-fruit, conspicuous from 

 its large, glossy, and deeply digitated leaf. It is admirable to 

 behold groves of a tree, sending forth its branches with the vigour 

 of an English oak, loaded with large and most nutritious fruit. 

 However seldom the usefulness of an object can account for the 

 pleasure of beholding it, in the case of these beautiful woods, the 

 knowledge of their high productiveness no doubt enters largely 



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