NEW CALEDONIA. 329 



might generally be seen one or more native houses, amid 

 the broad belt of wood that skirts the base of the mountains. 

 There were a few cocoa-nut trees at these places, but no 

 groves of them. I saw but a very few canoes, and those 

 were small and drawn up on the sandy beach. The soil 

 seemed very red, except at the white patches and the 

 ravines. The upper parts of the mountains were generally 

 covered with grass or fern. One could see from the strata 

 of the rocks that this part of the island had been upheaved ; 

 as we went on, the tall pines became more and more rare. 

 We soon came in sight of the lighthouse at Amedee on the 

 Island of Amed, and saw a pilot who was coming off to us. 

 The lighthouse is painted white and red in some parts, and 

 seems very high ; it is made of cast iron ; the different 

 sections are joined together with masonry. We stopped to 

 take in a pilot, a Frenchman, who spoke a little English. 

 We soon came in sight of the semaphore on a hill at the 

 back of the town, a square tower Avhich signals the arrival 

 of vessels long before they can be seen at Port-de-France ; 

 it was not long before we saw the masts of a man-of-war, and 

 then the hull, which, as the pilot informed us, was H.M.S. 

 ' Falcon,' Captain Parkin, arrived five days previously. We 

 noticed a few houses of settlers, as we came along, most of 

 them pj'etty near the sea, and not very fiir from the port, of 

 a small wooden bungalow style. We could now see the 

 town of Poit-de-France. At last, after passing a rocky 

 point with a cliff, we came to the mouth of the port, across 

 which there is an island of some size, more than half a mile 



