TONGATABOO. 33 
saw enough, however, to satisfy ourselves that Tongataboo is not the 
cultivated garden it has been represented to be. The Ficus tree figured 
in the voyage of the Astrolabe, whose trunk is there stated to be one 
hundred feet in circumference, was visited. We were surprised to 
find it had no proper trunk, but only a mass of intertwined roots, 
through which it is possible to see in many directions, rising to a height 
of eighty or ninety feet, when it throws around its great and wide- 
spreading branches. ‘Two other species of Ficus were found, one 
with labiate branches and horizontal spreading arms, the other with a 
trunk about nine feet in diameter. 
The climate cannot be considered salubrious ; very heavy dews fall 
at night, and no constitution can endure frequent exposure at this time ; 
the transitions from heat to cold are sudden and great, and the nights 
are often so chilly as to make blankets necessary. 
Hurricanes are frequent in this group, scarcely a season passing 
without some occurrence of the kind: the months of February and 
March are those in which they occur; but they have also taken place 
in November and December. The missionaries as yet have made no 
series of observations, nor kept any kind of meteorological diary; but 
in answer to my inquiries I obtained the information, that the storms 
begin at the northwest, thence veer to the eastward, and end in south- 
east. The wind continues to increase until it becomes a hurricane: 
houses are levelled, and trees torn up by the roots; vessels are driven 
on shore; canoes lost or driven hundreds of miles away to other 
islands. In these storms the wind is frequently observed to change 
almost immediately from one point to its opposite; and in the same 
group of islands, trees have fallen, during the same gale, some to the 
south and others to the north. They are local in their effects, and fall 
chiefly upon Hapai and Vavao; if the fury of the storm be felt at 
Vavao, Tonga generally escapes, and vice-versa; but Hapai is more 
or less the sufferer in both cases, situated as it is between the two 
places. A very severe hurricane was felt at Lefooka, Hapai, in 1834. 
These hurricanes vary in duration from eighteen to thirty-six hours ; 
after a destructive one, a famine generally ensues, in which numbers 
of the natives die: it destroys all their crops. The natives give the 
name to those which are most severe, “ Afa higa faji,” or the hurricane 
that throws down the banana-trees. 
Earthquakes are frequently felt here, though there is no knowledge 
of any destructive effects from them. 
The diseases of this climate are influenza, colds, coughs, and con- 
sumption; glandular swellings, some eruptive complaints, fevers, and 
some slight irregular intermittents are experienced; but to judge from 
VOL. III. 5 
