38 THE CRUISE OF TEE ' CUEAQOA: 



ficent. Some features are well described in the following 

 passage, which I extract from my lamented friend and 

 companion Lieutenant Meade's journal. ' Nothing,' he says, 

 ' could be more su|)erb. At sea the contrast between the 

 brilliant cobalt blue within the reefs which skirt the shores, 

 and the dark olive-green of the deeper waters, separated by 

 lines of foaming breakers on the coral walls ; on land the 

 black lava rocks along the shore, with intervals of white 

 sand dazzling in the sunlight and fringed with cocoanuts, 

 palms, and bananas, bending to the sea breeze, and inter- 

 spei'sed with the thick-thatched domes of the native houses ; 

 the whole surmounted by the towering crater sides smothered 

 with the densest foliage to the very crest, save in one 

 direction, Avhere a single lofty cliff rears its grey walls 

 against the sky, as grimly and as bare as when, thousands 

 of years ago, the volcano was in the plenitude of its power.' 

 To complete this picture 1 ani tempted to add tlie 

 following description of this remarkable locality from Mr. 

 Hood.^ ' To those Avho have never beheld tropical scenery, 

 it is difficult to give any description which will enable them 

 to realise the singular beauty of these islands. Here high 

 rugged mountains, clothed with dense green forests, sink 

 sheer down to the water, a grey precipice now and then 

 relieving the eye. Against the blue sky the outline is 

 broken by a graceful palm or some high pinnacle, or by the 

 waving bamboo or banana. Silvery sands stretch along in 

 front of the narrow plain, shaded by thick groves of cocoa- 

 ' ' Cruise of the Fawn,' p. 40. 



