432 



CHARLES DARWIN 



not imagine. We then cautiously walked along one of the 

 ledges till we came to one of the three streams. This ledge 

 formed a flat spot, above which a beautiful cascade, some 

 hundred feet in height, poured down its waters, and beneath, 

 another high cascade fell into the main stream in the val- 

 ley below. From this cool and shady recess we made a 

 circuit to avoid the overhanging waterfall. As before, we 

 followed little projecting ledges, the danger being partly 

 concealed by the thickness of the vegetation. In passing 

 from one of the ledges to another, there was a vertical wall 

 of 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 have 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 tilia- 



