216 A MISSION TO VITI. 



at its foot, near the town of Nasau, ascertained by 

 Colonel Smythe to be 144 Fahrenheit, may possibly 

 stand in some connection with its former activity. The 

 outward look of the summit is very much like the cone 

 of Vesuvius, as it was when I ascended it in 1861 ; but 

 we did not discover any large crater, simply an insigni- 

 ficant swamp. 



Having left on one of the trees a well-corked bottle 

 containing the record of our visit, that of the first 

 white men who ever ascended the mountain, we com- 

 menced the descent, which presented in some parts se- 

 rious difficulties, but, thanks to our rope, we overcame 

 them all ; only one of the lads had a rather serious 

 tumble, by which he sprained his ankle. Before we 

 were more than halfway down it was completely dark, 

 when the natives lit bundles of reeds and the stems of 

 a weed (Erigeron albidum, A. Gray), both of which 

 make excellent torches. On arriving at the first grove 

 of cocoa-nut palms a general halt was made, and heaps 

 of nuts were brought down from the trees and emp- 

 tied of their contents with astonishing rapidity. It was 

 past nine o'clock, just twelve hours after we started, 

 when we reached Taulalia, where the whole village was 

 assembled at and about the house of the Wesleyan 

 teacher, a Fijian by birth, and our native companions 

 had to give a most circumstantial account of our day's 

 proceedings. 



We slept at the house of the teacher, which we found 

 clean and comfortable. Early next morning all who had 

 accompanied us had to sit in a row, and a nice long row 

 it was, and every one received a butcher's knife, which 



