394 TAHITI. [CHAP. XVTII. 



serving for food in various ways, lay in heaps decaying on the 

 ground. In front of us there was an extensive brake of wild sugar- 

 cane ; and the stream was shaded by the dark green knotted stem 

 of the Ava, so famous in former days for its powerful intoxicating 

 effects. I chewed a piece, and found that it had an acrid and 

 unpleasant taste, which would have induced any one at once to 

 have pronounced it poisonous. Thanks to the missionaries, this 

 plant now thrives only in these deep ravines, innocuous to every 

 one. Close by I saw the wild arum, the roots of which, when well 

 baked, are good to eat, and the young leaves better than spinach. 

 There was the wild yam, and a liliaceous plant called Ti, which 

 grows in abundance, and has a soft brown root, in shape and size 

 like a huge log of wood : this served us for dessert, for it is as sweet 

 as treacle, and with a pleasant taste. There were, moreover, 

 several other wild fruits, and useful vegetables. The little stream, 

 besides its cool water, produced eels and cray-fish. I did indeed 

 admire this scene, when I compared it with an uncultivated one in 

 the temperate zones. I felt the force of the remark, that man, at 

 least savage man, with his reasoning powers only partly developed, 

 is the child of the tropics. 



As the evening drew to a close, I strolled beneath the gloomy 

 shade of the bananas up the course of the stream. My walk was 

 soon brought to a close, by coming to a waterfall between two 

 and three hundred feet high ; and again above this there was 

 another. I mention all these waterfalls in this one brook, to give 

 a general idea of the inclination of the land. In the little recess 

 where the water fell, it did not appear that a breath of wind had 

 ever blown. The thin edges of the great leaves of the banana, 

 damp with spray, were unbroken, instead of being, as is so generally 

 the case, split into a thousand shreds. From our position, almost 

 suspended on the mountain side, there were glimpses into the 

 depths of the neighbouring valleys; and the lofty points of the 

 central mountains, towering up within sixty degrees of the zenith, 

 hid half the evening sky. Thus seated, it was a sublime spectacle 

 to watch the shades of night gradually obscuring the last and 

 highest pinnacles. 



Before we laid ourselves down to sleep, the elder Tahitian fell on 

 his knees, and with closed eyes repeated a long prayer in his native 

 tongue. He prayed as a Christian should do, with fitting reverence, 

 and without the fear of ridicule or any ostentation of piety. At 



