70 EXPEDITION TO JAPAN. 



he determined to go on. In another half hour we had crossed the dividing ridge, and began to 

 descend the other side. Through an opening in the foliage, I caught a glimpse of the sea, and 

 climbed a tree to obtain a lookout. I found that we were on the brow of a very steep ridge, 

 about fifteen hundred feet in height, looking down upon a small bay opening to the southeast. 

 Beyond the southern promontory of the bay the sea was again visible, with the group of Bailly's 

 Islands in the distance, a little west of south. The mountains descended in precipices to the 

 water, so that access was impossible, except near the head of the bay, where two abrupt ravines, 

 or rather chasms, showed a speck of sandy beach at their meeting. 



The Otaheitan professed to know the way, and set off, creeping slowly down the steep, we 

 following, until a sudden light broke through the leaves, and we found ourselves on the brink 

 of a precipice the height of which we could not estimate, though I afterwards saw that it must 

 have been near two hundred feet. From its base, the mountain sloped away so steeply to the 

 brink of other precipices below, that we seemed to swing in the air, suspended over the great 

 depth which intervened between us and the sea. The guide, it was evident, had taken us too 

 far to the right, and it was necessary partly to retrace our steps, in order to avoid the precipice. 

 We clung to the strong grass which grew on the brink, and thus crept' along for about two 

 hundred yards, over a place where the least impetus would have sent us headlong hundreds of 

 feet below. On this part of the mountain I found a shrub with a dark, glossy leaf, which 

 diffused a powerful balsamic odor. In Klaproth's translation of the Japanese account of the 

 Bonin Islands, it is said that a species of sandal- wood is found there, and it is possible that this 

 shrub may have been mistaken for it. It appeared to me and to Dr. Fahs, who also found it, 

 to be a variety of the laurus. 



Finally attaining a point where the precipice ceased, we commenced going downward at an 

 angle of about sixty degrees. The soil was so slippery, and the vines and horny leaves of the 

 palms hung so low, that the best way of descending was to lie flat on one's back, and slide 

 down until brought up by a thicket too dense to get through. With an infinite deal of labor 

 we at last reached the ravine, or chasm, where the worst of our toils commenced. The ravine 

 fell, by a succession of rocky steps, from ten to forty and fifty feet in perpendicular height, 

 down which we clambered with hands and feet, often trusting the soundness of our bones, if not 

 our very lives, to the frail branch of a tree, or to the firmness of a root dangling from the 

 brink. As from the top of a tower, we looked clown on the beach, lying at our very feet, and 

 seemingly to be reached by a single leap, though still far below. Down, down we went into 

 the depths of the chasm, in constant fear of reaching a wall which we could not pass, until, at 

 the junction of another ravine, we came upon the hewn stump of a tree, and heard the roar of 

 the surf at a few yards' distance. When I looked back, and saw from below the steep down 

 which we had descended, I could scarcely believe it possible. 



The guides called the place " Southeast Bay." They stated that it was frequently visited by 

 whalers for wood and water, which accounts for the stump of a tree smoothly cut off with a 

 heavy axe, and the presence of a patch of tomatoes, which we found growing in a wild state 

 along the bank of the stream. The fruit was about the size of a cherry, and very fresh and 

 palatable. The bay was not more than a quarter of a mile in depth, and enclosed, except at 

 the spot we reached, by perpendicular rocks. As it was noon by this time, and we had reached 

 the limit of our journey, I halted for two hours, to allow all hands time to bathe, rest, and take 

 dinner. The guides said that there was no other way of returning except the ravine by which 

 we came. We all shrunk from the idea, but there was no alternative. We climbed the preci- 



