ISTHMUS OF YARABALE. 141 
four miles long, stretching from east to west, and being 
contracted about the centre into the narrow isthmus of 
Yarabali, literally ‘‘ Haul-across,” so named from the fact 
of canoes and boats being dragged across it, in order to 
save the trouble and escape the danger of a long pas- 
sage around the east and west point. Colonel Smythe 
and myself, in company with Mr. Royce, crossed it on 
the 16th of August, and found the northern portion of 
the isthmus a fine avenue of cocoa-nut palms, the south- 
ern more or less a mangrove swamp. A similar short 
cut for canoes is effected at Naceva Bay in Vanua Levu. 
On both sides of Yarabali there is a bay; the northern, 
Na Malata, is shallow and open; the southern, Ga loa, 
has deep water, good anchorage, and three passages 
through the reef outside, which acts as a natural break- 
water. We found its shores full of pumice-stone, drifted 
here from the Tongan volcanoes. The different explor- 
ing expeditions having quite overlooked this fine bay, 
Mr. Pritchard made a rough survey in 1858, it being not 
improbable that if the much discussed communication 
between Sydney and Western America—the shortest 
route to England—should be established wid Fiji, steam- 
ers would prefer calling at this southernmost bay, with 
plenty of sea-room outside, to running the risk of en- 
tering the labyrinth of rocks, shoals, and reefs, which 
render the navigation of the central parts of the group, 
in the absence of a complete chart, a rather difficult 
task. 
Ga loa, or Black Duck Bay, derives its name from the 
largest of three islands situated in it. Ga loa island is 
two hundred feet high, about a mile long, and half a 
