CHAPTER III 



Description of Tahiti — A volcanic rock and coral reef — Beauty of the Scen- 

 ery — Papeete the center of the South Seas — Appearance of the Ta- 

 hitians. 



TAHITI was a molten rock, fused in a subter- 

 ranean furnace, and cast in some frightful throe 

 of the cooling sphere, high up above the surface 

 of the sea, the seething mass forming into mountains 

 and valleys, the valleys hemmed in except at their 

 mouths by lofty barriers that stretch from thundering 

 central ridges to the slanting shelf of alluvial soil which 

 extends to the sand of the beach. It is a mass of vol- 

 canic matter to which the air, the rain, and the passage 

 of a million years have given an all-covering verdure 

 except upon the loftiest peaks, have cut into strangely 

 shaped cliffs, sloping hills, spacious vales, and shadowy 

 glens and dingles, and have poured down the rich detri- 

 tus and humus to cover the coral beaches and afford sus- 

 tenance for man and beast. About the island countless 

 trillions of tiny animals have reared the shimmering reef 

 which bears the brunt of the breaking seas, and spares 

 their impact upon the precious land. These minute be- 

 ings in the unfathomable scheme of the Will had worked 

 and perished for unguessed ages to leave behind this 

 monument of their existence, their charnel-house. Man 

 had often told himself that a god had inspired them thus 

 to build havens for his vessels and abodes of marine life 



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