182 TAHITI. 



ing scarcely raised above the level of the sea, the 

 water from the higher land drains away slowly. 

 The intermediate zone does not, like the upper 

 one, reach into a damp and cloudy atmosphere, 

 and therefore remains sterile. The woods in the 

 upper zone ai'e very pretty, tree-ferns replacing 

 the cocoa-nuts on the coast. It must not, however, 

 be supposed that these woods at all equal in splen- 

 dour the forests of Brazil. The vast number of 

 productions which charactei'ize a continent cannot 

 be expected to occur in an island. 



From the highest point which I attained there 

 was a good view of the distant island of Eimeo, 

 dependant on the same sovereign with Tahiti. On 

 the lofty and broken pinnacles, white massive clouds 

 were piled up, which formed an island in the blue 

 sky, as Eimeo itself did in the blue ocean. The 

 island, with the exception of one small gateway, is 

 completely encircled by a reef. At this distance, 

 a narrow but well-defined brilliantly white line 

 was alone visible, where the waves first encoun- 

 tered the wall of coral. The mountains rose abrupt- 

 ly out of the glassy expanse of the lagoon included 

 within this narrow white line, outside which the 

 heaving watex's of the ocean were dark coloured. 

 The view was striking : it may aptly be compared 

 to a framed engi-aving, where the frame represents 

 the breakers, the marginal paper the smooth lagoon, 

 and the drawing the island itself. When in the 

 evening I descended from the mountain, a man, 

 whom I had pleased with a trifling gift, met me, 

 bringing with him hot roasted bananas, a pine- 

 apple, and cocoa-nuts. After walking under a 

 burning sun, I do not know anything more deli- 

 cious than the milk of a young cocoa-nut. Pine- 

 apples are here so abundant that the people eat 

 them in the same wasteful manner as we might 



