TAHITI. • 27 



The detachment for the lake pursued its route, and before dark 

 reached the solitary residence of a native family, called Waiipi, where 

 they were hospitably received, and lodged in a building used as a 

 family chapel. This dwelling is situated in a romantic gorge at the 

 point of a mountain, and its existence appears to have been unknown 

 to the white residents of the coast. 



The next day this detachment proceeded up the bed of the torrent, 

 which was even more swollen than before. They were now sur- 

 rounded with the wild banana or fahie (Musa rubra), having its 

 upright spikes loaded with its beautiful fruit. Besides these, there 

 were many tree-ferns from forty to fifty feet high. Most of the trees 

 were covered with parasitic plants, which grow with great luxuriance. 

 Leaving the bed of the torrent, they soon reached the dividing ridge, 

 which from observations with the sympiesometer, is twenty-seven 

 hundred feet above the sea. The summit of this ridge was only a few 

 paces in width, and was covered with groves of fahies, clinging, and 

 as it were bound by numerous vines, to the rock. In these respects, 

 the surrounding peaks closely resemble it. 



The view from the point of the ridge which they had reached, is 

 magnificent. The lake lay almost beneath them, at a depth of about 

 one thousand feet, surrounded on all sides by perpendicular cliffs, and 

 appearing as if inaccessible, while numerous streams rushed in silvery 

 foam down the rocks ; and the lake itself seemed diminished in size 

 by the vastness of the precipices which enclose it. 



In spite of the steepness of the cliffs, the descent to the lake was 

 accomplished without accident, by scrambling down the bed of a 

 small stream, although they were compelled to stop from time to time, 

 resting upon their staves, or clinging to the shrubs and roots, while 

 the stones they had set in motion rushed onwards, accumulating others 

 in their course, until the united mass equalled an avalanche. 



When they reached the edge of the lake, their guides constructed a 

 hut, in which they passed the night. The next day Lieutenant Em- 

 mons made a survey of the lake, and sounded its depth from a raft. 

 It was found to be half a mile in length, a third of a mile in breadth, 

 and in shape nearly oval. The depth in the middle was ninety-six 

 feet, whence it gradually decreases to the edge. It had rained the 

 whole of the preceding night, and the lake was observed to rise about 

 five feet in twenty hours. As far as could be discovered, it has no 

 outlet ; but the natives assert that if a bread-fruit be thrown into the 

 water, it will make its appearance at a spring, which gushes from 

 the hill-side, about two miles north of Ooaigarra, and near the 

 sea. The height of the surface of the lake, measured by the sym- 



