XVIII PROFOUND RAVINES 435 



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, and lowered 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 have 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 this. In the 

 evening we reached a flat little spot on the banks of the same 

 stream which we had continued to follow, and which descends 

 in a chain of waterfalls ; here we bivouacked for the night. 

 On each side of the ravine there were great beds of the 

 mountain -banana, covered with ripe fruit. Many of these 

 plants were from twenty to twenty-five feet high, and from 

 three to four in circumference. By the aid of strips of bark 

 for rope, the stems of bamboos for rafters, and the large leaf of 



