1835. ] PRODUCTIONS OF THE SOIL. 408 
for ever remain classical to the voyager in the South Sea, was 
in view. Ata distance the appearance was not attractive. The 
luxuriant vegetation of the lower part could not yet be seen, and 
as the clouds rolled past, the wildest and most precipitous peaks 
showed themselves towards the centre of the island. As soon as 
we anchored in Matavai Bay, we were surrounded by canoes. 
This was our Sunday, but the Monday of Tahiti: if the case had 
been reversed, we should not have received a single visit; for 
the injunction not to launch a canoe on the sabbath is rigidly 
obeyed. After dinner we landed to enjoy all the delights pro- 
duced by the first impressions of a new country, and that country 
the charming Tahiti. A crowd of men, women, and children, 
was collected on the memorable Point Venus, ready to receive 
us with laughing, merry faces. They marshalled us towards the 
house of Mr. Wilson, the missionary of the district, who met us 
on the road, and gave us a very friendly reception. After sitting 
a short time in his house, we separated to walk about, but re- 
turned there in the evening. 
The land capable of cultivation, is scarcely in any part more 
than a fringe of low alluvial soil, accumulated round the base of the 
mountains, and protected from the waves of the sea by a coral reef, 
which encircles the entire line of coast. Within the reef there isan 
expanse of smooth water, like that of a lake, where the canoes of 
the natives can ply with safety and where shipsanchor. Thelow 
land which comes down to the beach of coral-sand, is covered by. 
the most beautiful productions of the intertropical regions. In the 
midst of bananas, orange, cocoa-nut, and bread-fruit trees, ‘spots 
are cleared where yams, sweet potatoes, the sugar-cane, and pine- 
apples, are cultivated. Even the brushwood is an imported fruit- 
tree, namely, the guava, which from its abundance has become 
as noxious as a weed. In Brazil I have often admired the varied 
beauty of the bananas, palms, and orange-trees contrasted toge- 
ther; and here we ulso have the bread-fruit, conspicuous from 
its large, glossy, and deeply digitated leaf. It is admirable to 
behold groves of a tree, sending forth its branches with the vigour 
of an English oak, loaded with large and most nutritious fruit. 
However seldom the usefulness of an object can account for the 
pleasure of beholding it, in the case of these beautiful woods, the 
knowledge of their high productiveness no- doubt enters largely 
