e South Seas, Tahiti, the Otaheite
of Captain Cook, and the largest and most beautiful of the Society group.
From the days of Bougainville, its discoverer, down to those of "the Earl
and the Doctor," who recently published a narrative of their visit, it
has been the theme of admiration for the charms of its scenery. It lifts
its lofty summit out of a wealth of luxuriant vegetation, which descends
to the very margin of a sea as blue as the sky above it. Cool green
valleys penetrate into its mountain-recesses, and their slopes are loaded
with groves of bread-fruit and cocoa-nut trees. The inhabitants,
physically speaking, are not unworthy of their island-Eden; they are a
tall, robust, and well-knit race, and would be comely but for their
custom of flattening the nose as soon as the child is born. They have
fine dark eyes, and thick jet-black hair. The colour of their skin is a
copper-brown. Both sexes are tattooed, generally from the hips half down
the legs, and frequently over the hands, feet, and other parts of the
body; the devices being often very fanciful in design, and always
artistically executed.

The women of Tahiti have always been notorious for their immodesty, and
the island, notwithstanding the labours of zealous missionaries,
continues to be the Polynesian Paphos. The French protectorate from
which it suffers has not raised the moral standard of the population.

Madame Pfeiffer undertook an excursion to the Lake Vaihiria, assuming for
the nonce a semi-masculine attire, which any less strong-minded and
adventurous woman would probably have refused. She wore, she tells us,
strong men's shoes, trousers, and a blouse, which was fastened high up
about the hips. Thus equipped, she started off with her guide, crossing
about two-and-thirty brooks before they entered the ravines leading into
the interior of the island.

She noticed that as they advanced the fruit-trees disappeared, and
instead, the slopes were covered with plantains, taros, and marantas; the
last attaining a height of twelve feet, and growing so luxuriantly that
it is with some difficulty the traveller makes his way through the
tangle. The taro, which is carefully cultivated, averages two or three
feet high, and has fine large leaves and tubers like those of the potato,
but not so good when roasted. There is much gracefulness in the
appearance of the plantain, or banana, which varies from twelve to
fifteen feet in height, and has leaves