POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
203 
sea, and distant mountains shewn in sublime outline and 
richest hues; and the whole often blended in the harmony 
of nature, produces sensations of admiration and delight. 
The inland scenery is of a different character, but not 
less impressive. The landscapes are occasionally exten¬ 
sive, but more frequently circumscribed. There is, how¬ 
ever, a startling boldness in the towering piles of basalt, 
often heaped in romantic confusion near the source or 
margin of some cool and crystal stream, that flows in 
silence at their base, or dashes over the rocky fragments 
that arrest its progress i and there is the wildness of 
romance about the deep and lonely glens, around which 
the mountains rise like the steep sides of a natural 
amphitheatre, till the clouds seem supported by them— 
this arrests the attention of the beholder, and for a time 
suspends his faculties in mute astonishment. There is 
also so much that is new in the character and growth of 
trees and flowers, irregular, spontaneous, and luxuriant 
in the vegetation, which is sustained by a prolific soil, 
and matured by the genial heat of a tropic clime, that it 
is adapted to produce an indescribable effect. Often, 
when, either alone, or attended by one or two com¬ 
panions, I have journeyed through some of the inland 
parts of the islands, such has been the effect of the 
scenery through which I have passed, and the unbroken 
stillness which has pervaded the whole, that imagination, 
unrestrained, might easily have induced the delusion, that 
we were walking on enchanted ground, or passing over 
fairy lands. It has at such seasons appeared as if we had 
been carried back to the primitive ages of the world, 
and beheld the face of the earth, as it was perhaps often 
exhibited, when the Creator's works were spread over it 
in all their endless variety, and all the vigour of ex- 
