Page:The Boy Travellers in Australasia.djvu/86

62 who have never been outside the limits of the mountain walls that enclose their homes, and others whose journeys have been wholly confined to short excursions on the water a few miles from shore. The ordinary mode of communication is by water, and in many cases it is the only one possible.

"The gentleman invited us to go to one of the valleys where he has a plantation; we made the excursion in a large sail-boat manned by six or eight natives, but built after an English model and commanded by an English sailor. Starting early one morning, we made the run in about four hours, spent an afternoon and night in the valley, and returned the next day. All these valleys in the Marquesas have a wealth of tropical trees and smaller plants which is not surpassed anywhere else in the world. The cocoa and several other varieties of the palm-tree abound here, and they have the bread-fruit, the banana and taro plants, the sugar-cane, and, as before mentioned, the cotton-plant.

"Close by the landing-place we came to a village of a dozen or twenty huts built of the yellow bamboo and thatched with palmetto-leaves, which the sun had bleached to a whiteness that reminded us of a newly shingled roof in temperate zones. Our guide called our attention to the platform of stones on which each house stood, and said it was a protection against dampness. The rain falls frequently and very heavily, and it is the abundant moisture that makes the vegetation so luxuriant. On the mountain ridges, in whatever direction you look, there are streams tumbling down, and the steep cliffs are whitened by numerous cascades. The moisture nourishes a great variety of creeping plants, and in many places they completely cover the precipitous cliffs and give them the appearance of green water-falls.

"The natives in one respect resemble the Irish peasantry, their chief wealth being in pigs. These animals were introduced by the Spaniards, who were for a long time venerated as gods in consequence of this inestimable gift to these simple-minded people. Before the visit of the Spaniards the islands had absolutely no four-footed animals; hence it is easy to see how Mendaña and his companions were regarded as more than human.

"Now they have some horses and horned cattle, but not many; they have dogs and cats, and unfortunately they have rats, which were brought here in foreign ships, and have multiplied so fast that they have become a great pest. There are only a few varieties of birds on the islands; most of them have beautiful plumage, but none can be properly called song-birds.