60 A NATURALIST IN THE PACIFIC ch. iv 



shell-bed there is much level land raised a few feet above the sea, 

 on which the native town and different villages now stand. The 

 amount of emergence here indicated since the time when this bank 

 of shells was forming under the sea does not probably exceed a 

 couple of fathoms. 



LEKUMBI POINT. — This singular long and low promontory is 

 between three and three-and-a-half miles in length and rather less 

 than a mile in average width. It is monopolised by mangroves, 

 except at the extremity where the swampy ground passes into the 

 dry sandy soil occupied by the characteristic vegetation of coral 

 beaches. This terminal portion, which is about a third of a mile in 

 length and raised a couple of feet above high-water mark, was 

 originally a reef-islet. The outer third of the cape, however, is cut 

 off from the remainder by a narrow winding passage in the man- 

 groves, which being 25 or 30 feet wide can be traversed by boats 

 at and near high-water, and is often used to shorten the journey 

 down the coast. The flowing tide rushes in at both entrances, and 

 when the tide is ebbing it finds its way out at both exits, the 

 passage presenting the readiest way of the filling and emptying 

 of the interior swamps with the flow and ebb of the tide. 



Before explaining the origin of this low tongue-shaped promon- 

 tory of Lekumbi, it should be observed that it lies on a long 

 projecting patch of coral reef which is continuous with the neigh- 

 bouring shore-reefs. Depths of seven and eight fathoms are found 

 off the sides and of 11 and 12 fathoms off the end of the reef-patch. 

 This reef in its turn must have been built up on a submarine bank 

 protruding from the coast. Such a bank may have originally been 

 produced by the deposits brought down by the Ndama River which 

 finds an exit through the mangroves near the base of the cape. 

 With the exception, however, of the Lekutu River, none of the 

 other Vanua Levu rivers have given rise to such tongues of land at 

 their mouths. I am more inclined to hold that the submarine 

 shoal, which underlies the present low cape of Lekumbi, indicates 

 an old lava-flow from the great crateral valley of Seatura, opposite 

 the mouth of which it lies. Traces of such flows are still to be found 

 in that locality. 



