TAHITI. 



163 



SOUTH PACIFIC. 



One day I went out with some merchants to hunt in the 

 immediate vicinity of the city. Our sport was very poor, 

 but I had an opportunity of seeing the ruins of one of the 

 ancient Indian villages, with its mound, like a natural hill, 

 in the centre. The remains of houses, enclosures, irrigating 

 streams, and burial-mounds, scattered over this plain, cannot 

 fail to give one a high idea of the condition and number of 

 the ancient population. When their earthenware, woollen 

 clothes, utensils of elegant forms (cut out of the hardest 

 rocks), tools of copper, ornaments of precious stones, palaces, 

 and water -works are considered, it is impossible not to re- 

 spect the considerable advance made by them in the arts of 

 civilization. 



TAHITI. 



A CORAL reef encircles the entire line of coast of Tahiti. 

 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 lowland, 

 which comes down to the beach of 

 coral -sand, is covered with the most 

 beautiful productions of the intertrop- 

 ical regions. In the midst of bana- 

 nas, orange, cocoa-nut, and bread-fruit- 

 trees, spots are cleared where yams, 

 sweet potatoes, the sugar-cane and pine- 

 apple are cultivated. Even the brush- 



-, . . FRUIT OF THE BREAD-FRUIT- 



wood is an imported fruit-tree, namely, TREE. 



