AFRO-INDIAN REGIONS. 



225 



a boat, had an interview with several natives, and procured from them 

 various articles, including some of the vegetable productions : 



(Calpidia?; compare No. 1 Clermont-Tonnerre coral-island). A cluster of tall trees at 

 the Southeast end of the island, some of them sixty feet high, and remarkable for their 

 few and upright, or upward-tending branches.* 



Cassyta; bis (No. 1 Clermont-Tonnerre coral-island). A bundle of the twining stems 

 "worn by one of the natives," was among the articles brought off by Lieut. Alden. 



(Procris?, No. 1). Twisted cords, made of some kind of fibrous bark, were procured from 

 the natives. The dense clump of trees with dark-green foliage at the Northwest end 

 of the island (seemed also distinct from anything on Clermont-Tonnerre). 



3. Henuaki, or Honden coral-island. Our course was now changed, 

 and the Viucennes sailed Northward until the 19th, when we arrived 

 in sight of Honden coral-island; situated in about "S. lat. 14° 56' and 

 W. Long. 138° 48' ;" and from the immense numbers of sea-birds and 

 the absence of cocoa-palms, clearly uninhabited by man. The island 

 proved much smaller than the two already visited, and from the ship 

 seemed almost entirely occupied by a dense grove of Pandanus ; in 

 reality, concealing a central lagoon. Landing with others, Capt. Van- 

 derford proceeded " full half a mile inland" to the lagoon ; which he 

 found "nearly a mile in diameter, and almost circular in shape, with 

 an irregular canal leading outwards, so that a high tide would flow 

 over and communicate." 



I landed for a few moments only, and on a different part of the 

 island ; and found the grove almost forest-like, composed of the Pan- 

 danus growing in all its native grace, with here and there a Calpidia 

 tree fifty feet high. The SccBvola abounding in the more open places, 

 and constituting the beds of low green bushes that extend from the 

 grove outwards, and are conspicuous in the distance. Neither the 

 Suriana nor the Gassy ta were met with : while, so far as I was able 



*Cocos nucifera; bis (Clermont-Tonnerre coral-island, and No. 1 Tropical America). 

 Some scattered cocoa-palms growing at the Northwest end of the island ; taller than on 

 Clermont-Tonnerre. 



(Colocasia macrorhiza?; No. 1). The " large leaf worn by one of the natives around the 

 neck and over the breast," belonged perhaps to C. macrorhiza; which was afterwards 

 found cultivated on coral-islands). 



Pandanus; bis (No. 1 Clermont-Tonnerre coral-island). Frequent throughout, as ex- 

 amined with the glass from the ship's deck, and seemed to be the prevailing plant. 



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