432 
TAHITI 
CHAP. 
been less than two hundred. It was the opinion of every one 
that it would have been difficult to have picked out an equal 
number from any other nation, who would have given so little 
trouble. Everybody brought something for sale : shells were 
the main article of trade. The Tahitians now fully under¬ 
stand the value of money, and prefer it to old clothes or other 
articles. The various coins, however, of English and Spanish 
denomination puzzle them, and they never seemed to think the 
small silver quite secure until changed into dollars. Some of 
the chiefs have accumulated considerable sums of money. One 
chief, not long since, offered 800 dollars (about £160 sterling) 
for a small vessel; and frequently they purchase whale-boats 
and horses at the rate of from 50 to 100 dollars. 
After breakfast I went on shore, and ascended the nearest 
slope to a height of between two and three thousand feet. 
The outer mountains are smooth and conical, but steep ; and 
the old volcanic rocks, of which they are formed, have been 
cut through by many profound ravines, diverging from the 
central broken parts of the island to the coast. Having 
crossed the narrow low girt of inhabited and fertile land, I 
followed a smooth steep ridge between two of the deep 
ravines. The vegetation was singular, consisting almost 
exclusively of small dwarf ferns, mingled, higher up, with 
coarse grass ; it was not very dissimilar from that on some of 
the Welsh hills, and this so close above the orchard of tropical 
plants on the coast was very surprising. At the highest point 
which I reached trees again appeared. Of the three zones 
of comparative luxuriance, the lower one owes its moisture, 
and therefore fertility, to its flatness ; for, being scarcely raised 
above the level of the sea, the water from the higher land 
drains away slowly. The intermediate zone does not, like the 
upper one, reach into a damp and cloudy atmosphere, and 
therefore remains sterile. The woods in the upper zone are 
very pretty, tree-ferns replacing the cocoa-nuts on the coast. 
It must not, however, be supposed that these woods at all 
equal in splendour the forests of Brazil. The vast number of 
productions, which characterise a continent, cannot be expected 
to occur in an island. 
From the highest point which I attained there was a good 
view of the distant island of Eimeo, dependent on the same 
