A hasty meal was prepared, and after it we essayed a nap; but, alas! a
plague, little anticipated, prevented. Unknown in Tahiti, the
mosquitoes here fairly eddied round us. But more of them anon.

We were up betimes, and strolled out to view the country. We were in
the valley of Martair; shut in, on both sides, by lofty hills. Here
and there were steep cliffs, gay with flowering shrubs, or hung with
pendulous vines, swinging blossoms in the air. Of considerable width
at the sea, the vale contracts as it runs inland; terminating, at the
distance of several miles, in a range of the most grotesque
elevations, which seem embattled with turrets and towers, grown over
with verdure, and waving with trees. The valley itself is a
wilderness of woodland; with links of streams flashing through, and
narrow pathways fairly tunnelled through masses of foliage.

All alone, in this wild place, was the abode of the planters; the only
one back from the beach--their sole neighbours, the few fishermen and
their families, dwelling in a small grove of cocoa-nut trees whose
roots were washed by the sea.

The cleared tract which they occupied comprised some thirty acres,
level as a prairie, part of which was under cultivation; the whole
being fenced in by a stout palisade of trunks and boughs of trees
staked firmly in the ground. This was necessary as a defence against
the wild cattle and hogs overrunning the island.

Thus far, Tombez potatoes were the principal crop raised; a ready sale
for them being obtained among the shipping touching at Papeetee.
There was a small patch of the taro, or Indian turnip, also; another