CHAPTER III.

ISLANDS

Behold the threaden sails,

Borne with the invisible and creeping wind,
Draw the huge bottoms through the furrow'd sea,
Breasting the lofty surge.

(Henry V. Act III.)

W

AUSTRAL ISLES.

EST by north from Pitcairn, and almost due

south from the Paumotus, lie the Austral Isles.

The group, fifteen or twenty in number, are between latitudes 22 deg. and 28 deg. south, and 143 deg. to 153 deg. west longitude. The islands are small, and of but little commercial value at present. Rumbia, Tubuaia, Vantaia, Rumbaia, Bapai, Nelson and Oparo are the largest and best known of the group.

GAMBIER GROUP.

Another island cluster, the Gambier, due south from the Paumotus, are rapidly growing in commercial importance. The products, similar to those of the Austral Isles, are altogether of the tropical kind; the soil rich and

productive, well suited for the cultivation of coffee, cotton, sugar and spices. It is not my purpose to describe island groups located like the Austral and Gambier, in more than a general way. Lying, as they do, on the outside of the present valuable portion of the island world, their value is in the future.

SOCIETY ISLANDS.

"that

Prof. Dana in speaking of this group says they consist of ten islands, ranging in a line 250 miles long trending N. 62 deg. W. Commencing from the north west they are as follows: Tubuai, Maurua, Borabora, Tahaa, Raitea, Hauhine, Tapuaemanu, Eimeo, Tetuaroa, Tahiti. To this number Osnaburgh or Metia, may properly be added, as it lies in the same range, about one hundred miles to the westward of Tahiti. With the exception of Tubuai and Tetuaroa, they are all basaltic or high islands. The ⚫ area of the whole does not exceed twenty-five miles. square, or 600 miles, and of these about one-half, or three hundred square miles, belong to the single island of Tahiti.

"These basaltic islands are characterized by high mountains, deep precipitous gorges, and that rich livery of green with which the mild airs of a perpetual summer clothe the tropical islands of the Pacific. Coral reefs in some instances border their shores, forming a circle around, dotted with verdant islets.

"The broken character of the surface is most striking on Eimeo, yet all the islands afford scenes of grandeur unsurpassed in the Pacific. In the distant view, Eimeo seems to be a mass of mountain towers, crags and peaks, rising abruptly to great elevations,