traveller, who was bent upon accomplishing a voyage round the world, took her passage for China in the Dutch barque Lootpurt, Captain Van Wyk Jurianse.
They sailed from Valparaiso on the 18th of March, and on the 26th of April came in sight of that gem of the South Seas, Tahiti, the Otaheite of Captain Cook, and the largest and most beautiful of the Society group. From the days of Bougainville, its discoverer, down to those of “the Earl and the Doctor,” who recently published a narrative of their visit, it has been the theme of admiration for the charms of its scenery. It lifts its lofty summit out of a wealth of luxuriant vegetation, which descends to the very margin of a sea as blue as the sky above it. Cool green valleys penetrate into its mountain-recesses, and their slopes are loaded with groves of bread-fruit and cocoa-nut trees. The inhabitants, physically speaking, are not unworthy of their island-Eden; they are a tall, robust, and well-knit race, and would be comely but for their custom of flattening the nose as soon as the child is born. They have fine dark eyes, and thick jet-black hair. The colour of their skin is a copper-brown. Both sexes are tattooed, generally from the hips half down the
legs, and frequently over the hands, feet, and other parts of the body; the devices being often very fanciful in design, and always artistically executed.
The women of Tahiti have always been notorious for their immodesty, and the island, notwithstanding the labours of zealous missionaries, continues to be the Polynesian Paphos. The French protectorate from which it suffers has not raised the moral standard of the population.
Madame Pfeiffer undertook an excursion to the Lake Vaihiria, assuming for the nonce a semi-masculine attire, which any less strong-minded and adventurous woman would probably have refused. She wore, she tells us, strong men’s shoes, trousers, and a blouse, which was fastened high up about the hips. Thus equipped, she started off with her guide, crossing about two-and-thirty brooks before they entered the ravines leading into the interior of the island.
She noticed that as they advanced the fruit-trees disappeared, and instead, the slopes were covered with plantains, taros, and marantas; the last attaining a height of twelve feet, and growing so luxuriantly that it is with some difficulty the traveller makes his way through the tangle. The taro, which
is carefully cultivated, averages two or three feet high, and has fine large leaves and tubers like those of the potato, but not so good when roasted. There is much gracefulness in the appearance of the plantain, or banana, which varies from twelve to fifteen feet in height, and has leaves like those of the palm, but a brittle reed-like stem, about eight inches in diameter. It attains its full growth in the first year, bears fruit in the second, and then dies. Thus its life is as brief as it is useful.
Through one bright mountain-stream, which swept along the ravine over a stony bed, breaking up into eddies and tiny whirlpools, and in some places attaining a depth of three feet, Madame Pfeiffer and her guide waded or half-swam two-and-sixty times. The resolute spirit of the woman, however, never failed her; and though the path at every step became more difficult and dangerous, she persisted in pressing forward. She clambered over rocks and stones; she forced her way through inter-tangled bushes; and though severely wounded in her hands and feet, never hesitated for a moment. In two places the ravine narrowed so considerably that the entire space was filled by the brawling torrent. It was here that the islanders, during
their struggle against French occupation, threw up stone walls five feet in height, as a barrier against the enemy.
In eight hours the bold traveller and her guide had walked, waded, and clambered fully eighteen miles, and had attained an elevation of eighteen hundred feet. The lake itself was not visible until they stood upon its shores, as it lies bosomed in a deep hollow, among lofty and precipitous mountains which descend with startling abruptness to the very brink of its dark, deep waters. To cross the lake it is necessary to put one’s trust in one’s swimming powers, or in a curiously frail kind of boat, which the natives prepare with equal rapidity and skill. Madame Pfeiffer, however, was nothing if not adventurous. Whatever there was to be dared, she immediately dared. At her request, the guide made the usual essay at boat-building. He tore off some plantain branches, bound them together with long tough grass, laid a few leaves upon them, launched them in the water, and requested Madame Pfeiffer to embark. She confesses to having felt a little hesitation, but without saying a word, she stepped on board. Then her guide took to the water like a duck, and pushed her forward. The passage