264 TYE AND SUALIB. 



Anganga Island is high, and very much broken ; it is not inhabited, 

 and offers nothing but turtles in the season. 



I now had communication with Lieutenant-Commandant Ringgold, 

 and before going on with the details of the expedition upon which I 

 had set out, will recount those of the operations of the Porpoise, since 

 I left her at Somu-somu, five weeks previously. 



Lieutenant-Commandant Ringgold procured as pilot, in place of 

 Tubou Totai, a young Feejee man of Tonga parents, named Aliko, 

 quite intelligent, whom he afterwards found remarkably useful. He 

 was well acquainted with the outlying reefs and islands, having fre- 

 quently visited them. He was extremely good-looking, and his skin 

 as light as that of the Tongese. On the 14th they left Somu-somu, 

 to continue the surveys, proceeding round the south end of Vuna. 

 Owing to variable and light winds, they made but little progress 

 for the first few days. They then passed Vaturera, Nugatobe, and 

 Ythata. The former is a high, square-topped, rugged island, with an 

 extensive reef, quite desolate, and lying northwest of Chichia. 



The Nugatobe Islets are three in number, and small ; the two 

 westernmost are enclosed in the same reef. 



Ythata is a high island, with a bell-shaped peak, lying north of 

 Vaturera ; it is surrounded by an extensive reef. There are two low 

 islets lying east of it, connected by a reef, in which is a small canoe- 

 passage at high water. Ythata has extensive cocoa-nut groves along 

 its shores : it is one of the islands that form the southern boundary 

 of the Nanuku Passage. It has about twenty inhabitants. 



Lieutenant-Commandant Ringgold landed on the islets, and found 

 them composed of white sand and coral. Some pandanus trees were 

 seen. The centre isle is composed of black lava and stones. The 

 reef extends from fifty to one hundred feet, with a break to the 

 north. Here magnetic observations and chronometer sights were 

 obtained. 



Kanathia, with its many verdant and fertile hills, is a remarkably 

 pretty island. Its central peak is sharp and lofty, somewhat resem- 

 bling a lookout-house, formed of basaltic columns. It is surrounded 

 by a reef with boat-entrances, and has on the north a break. The 

 reef extends four and a half miles on the northeast side, and to within 

 two miles of that of Vanua-valavo. Kanathia is three miles long 

 from north to south, by two and a half miles from east to west; it 

 lies five miles west of Vanua-valavo. The passage between them 

 is clear, and the reefs of both islands are visible at the same time. A 



