"There is a road around the head of the bay which was built by the French soon after their arrival, but has been neglected and is not in good repair. Our host took us on a ride along this road, from which the view is delightful. In front is the deep blue water of the bay, while behind us the mountains rose very precipitously, and seemed to shut us out altogether from the rest of the island. The bay is nearly in the shape of a horseshoe, ending in two high headlands, and to follow its shores requires a walk or ride of about nine miles. The entrance is less than half a mile wide, and is guarded by two small islands, each about five hundred feet high.
"Cowper says:
"'Mountains interpos'd
Make enemies of nations who had else,
Like kindred drops, been mingled into one.'
"There is nowhere in the world a better illustration of the truth of this assertion than in the Marquesas. In each island the mountains rise in ridges like the sections of a starfish; some of these ridges are quite impassable, and all of them very difficult to traverse. The result has been that there was formerly very little intercourse between the tribes occupying the different valleys, and until the French came here there was hardly a time when two or more tribes were not at war. Even at present they are not entirely at peace, and though the most of them have abandoned cannibalism, it is occasionally practised.
"Our host told us that in many of the valleys there are old men who have never been outside the limits of the mountain walls that enclose their homes, and others whose journeys have been wholly confined to short excursions on the water a few miles from shore. The ordinary mode of communication is by water, and in many cases it is the only one possible.
A EUROPEAN'S RESIDENCE IN THE MARQUESAS.
"The gentleman invited us to go to one of the valleys where he has a plantation; we made the excursion in a large sail-boat manned by six or eight natives, but built after an English model and commanded by an English sailor. Starting early one morning, we made the run in about four hours, spent an afternoon and night in the valley, and returned the next day. All these valleys in the Marquesas have a wealth of tropical trees and smaller plants which is not surpassed anywhere else in the world. The cocoa and several other varieties of the palm-tree abound here, and they have the bread-fruit, the banana and taro plants, the sugar-cane, and, as before mentioned, the cotton-plant.