1835.] MODE OF PRODUCING FIRE. 409 
rock. One of the Tahitians, a fine active man, placed the trunk 
of a tree against this, climbed up it, and then by the aid of 
crevices reached the summit. He fixed the ropes to a projecting 
point, and lowered them for our dog and luggage, and then 
we clambered up ourselves. Beneath the ledge on which 
the dead tree was placed, the precipice must have been five 
or six hundred feet deep; and if the abyss had not been partly 
concealed by the overhanging ferns and lilies, my head would 
have turned giddy, and nothing should have induced me to have 
attempted it. We continued to ascend, sometimes along ledges, 
and sometimes along knife-edged ridges, having on each hand 
profound ravines. In the Cordillera I haye seen mountains on 
a far grander scale, but for abruptness, nothing at all comparable 
with this. In the evening we reached a flat little spot on the 
banks of the same stream, which we had continued to follow, 
and which descends in a chain of waterfalls: here we bivouacked 
for the night. On each side of the ravine there were great beds 
of the mountain-banana, covered with ripe fruit. Many of these 
plants were from twenty to twenty-five feet high, and from three 
to four in circumference. By the aid of strips of bark for rope, 
the stems of bamboos for rafters, and the large leaf of the banana 
for a thatch, the Tahitians in a few minutes built us an excellent 
house; and with withered leaves made a soft bed. 
They then proceeded to make a fire, and cook our evening 
meal. A light was procured, by rubbing a blunt-pointed stick 
in a groove made in another, as if with intention of deepening 
it, until by the friction the dust became ignited. A peculiarly 
white and very light wood (the Hibiscus tiliaceus) is alone used 
for this purpose: it is the same which serves for poles to carry 
any burden, and for the floating outriggers to their canoes. The 
fire was produced in a few seconds: but to a person who does 
not understand the art, it requires, as I found, the greatest exer- 
tion ; but at last, to my great pride, I succeeded in igniting the 
dust. The Gaucho in the Pampas uses a different method: 
taking an elastic stick about eighteen inches long, he presses one 
end on his breast, and the other pointed end into ahole in a piece 
of wood, and then rapidly turns the curved part, like a car- 
penter’s centre-bit. The Tahitians having made a small fire of 
sticks, placed a score of stones, of about the size of cricket-balls, 
