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A BOTANICAL TOUR AMONG THE SOUTH SEA ISLANDS. 129<br />
Tana is also very thickly covered with vegetation. Wliile there we beheld<br />
many interesting scenes, the most impoi'tant of which, and one that will never<br />
be forgotten by me, was the volcano ; and it is perliaps the most sublime sight<br />
Polynesia can present. This wonderful object is situated between five and six<br />
miles from Port Resolution, where we were anchored. The volcano is very<br />
active, an explosion taking place every five or ten minutes, that can be heard<br />
many miles away. My visit was a very hui-ried one, for I had been out some<br />
eight or ten miles the same day in another direction in search of plants, and,<br />
after parting with my guides, I agreed with two other natives who were along-<br />
side the sliip to take me to the volcano. Accordingly, getting into their canoe,<br />
I was paddled to the shore. A narrow, and in many places rugged, path led<br />
the way through a succession of dense gloomy forests and gullies, and through<br />
several villages, in one of which, although it was getting late, I could not i-esist<br />
the temjjtation of making a sketch of a very fine species of Fig, which, from<br />
its small leaves, not more than an inch long, I have ventured to name Ficus<br />
micropliylla. I found its gii'th to be about forty-five feet around the trunk.<br />
Its width, from the extremes of the ojaposite branches, as near as I could judge,<br />
was at least 260 feet; its height 100 feet. Several huts stood beneath its<br />
shade. Like tlie Banyan-tree of India, it throws down hiuidreds of roots to<br />
the earth, which soon grow and become props to its far-extended lateral<br />
branches. Long before I reached the volcano I had a ghmpse of it from the<br />
tops of several hUls. The smell of sulphur was strong three miles off", and I<br />
could notice it upon my clothes. The vegetation, therefore, becomes less dense<br />
or luxuriant. Many trees, aided by the rich soil and moisture, appear to be<br />
struggling hard to live, but scores of others are minus their leaves. A mile<br />
further, and the hills are denuded of everything. At length an undulating,<br />
sandy, parched-up plain, radiating from the mountain, opens to view. Travel-<br />
ling along towards the right, and within about half a mile from the crater,<br />
smoking hot springs are seen to the left ; and rather better than a mile from<br />
here, after crossing a sandy ridge, large masses of sulphur and brimstone come<br />
into view in the valley beneath. Quite close to the foot of the volcano there<br />
is a small lake, covering an ai'ea of several lumdred yards. This volcano is said<br />
to be about 1300 feet above the level of the sea, but I should have thought<br />
that it was much higher. The ascent is steep and very toilsome, owing to the<br />
loose character of the pulverized lava, sand, and sulphurous matter, that gave<br />
way under foot. The only relief is an occasional piece of scoria, whicli gives<br />
one foot-hold as he anxiously toils upward. My guides kept up a constant<br />
chatter between themselves, and would occasionally make signs to me when an<br />
explosion took place to look out for- the heavy masses of red-hot lava, often<br />
several hundredweight, driven almost out of sight, but occasionally falling near<br />
to us. When we had reached the south-eastern side of a ridge which formed<br />
one edge of what was once the crater, some two or three hundred feet from tlie<br />
top, my guides, in spite of all inducements, declined to go further, and appeared<br />
teri-ified at the idea of my doing so. At first I thought that I had come to a<br />
dangerous side of the mountain, or that the natives regarded it with a sort of<br />
religious dread. I learned afterwards from a missionarv in one of the other
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