We went ashore on an island covered with palm trees, to make a
fire and boil our kettle for tea. I wandered a short way inland,
and was astounded at the prospect. The land lay below the upper
level of the daily tides, so that there was no underwood, and the
ground was bare. The trees were almost all of one species of
Palm, the gigantic fan-leaved Mauritia flexuosa; only on the
borders was there a small number of a second kind, the equally
remarkable Ubussu palm, Manicaria saccifera. The Ubussu has
erect, uncut leaves, twenty-five feet long, and six feet wide,
all arranged round the top of a four-foot high stem, so as to
form a figure like that of a colossal shuttlecock. The fan-leaved
palms, which clothed nearly the entire islet, had huge
cylindrical smooth stems, three feet in diameter, and about a
hundred feet high. The crowns were formed of enormous clusters of
fan-shaped leaves, the stalks alone of which measured seven to
ten feet in length. Nothing in the vegetable world could be more
imposing than this grove of palms. There was no underwood to
obstruct the view of the long perspective of towering columns.
The crowns, which were densely packed together at an immense
height overhead, shut out the rays of the sun; and the gloomy
solitude beneath, through which the sound of our voices seemed to
reverberate, could be compared to nothing so well as a solemn
temple. The fruits of the two palms were scattered over the
ground; those of the Ubussu adhere together by twos and threes,
and have a rough, brown-coloured shell; the fruit of the
Mauritia, on the contrary, is of a bright red hue, and the skin
is impressed with deep-crossing lines, which give it a
resemblance to a quilted cricket-ball.

About midnight, the tide being favourable and the breeze strong,