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 tiliareus) is alone used for this purpose: it is the same
which serves for poles to carry any burden, and for the floating
out-riggers to their canoes. The fire was produced in a few seconds:
but to a person who does not understand the art, it requires, as I
found, the greatest exertion; but at last, to my great pride, I
succeeded in igniting the dust. The Gaucho in the Pampas uses a
different method: taking an elastic stick about eighteen inches long,
he presses one end on his breast, and the other pointed end into a hole
in a piece of wood, and then rapidly turns the curved part, like a
carpenter's centre-bit. The Tahitians having made a small fire of
sticks, placed a score of stones, of about the size of cricket-balls,
on the burning wood. In about ten minutes the sticks were consumed,
and the stones hot. They had previously folded up in small parcels of
385