i835.] AT TAHITI. 397 



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 produced 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 memor- 

 able 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 

 returned 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 themountains, 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 1 have often admired the varied beauties 

 of the bananas, palms, and orange-trees contrasted to- 

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

 trom 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 into the feeling of admiration. The little winding 

 paths, cool from the surrouiuliiu;- shade, led to the scallcred 



