254 FORMATION AND ASPECT LETTER XXIX. A DAY IN THE GLEN OF TAIOA. Formation and Aspect of the West Sentinel. -Characteristic Scenery of the Bay and Glen.-Dwelling of Taua-hania.—A Tabu House and Scene in the Glen.-Wooden Idols.- Case of Death.Funeral Ceremonies and Festival.-Food for the Dead.-Proof of Art.-Evidences of Decay in the Symbols of Idolatry.-Scenes on the Beach. Bay of Taiohae, at Nukuhiva, CAPTAIN Finch was so highly delighted with his visit to the Valley of Taioa yesterday, that he urged me to make the same trip in company with some of my fellow-officers. We accordingly mustered a party in a short time, this morning, for the purpose. It not being thought prudent for one boat to go so far from the ship alone, two were ordered to be manned; in one of which were Lieutenants Stribling, Dornin, and Magruder, Purser Buchanan, and myself, with Morrison the interpreter, and Tauahania of the lord spiritual Taioas; and in the other Doctor Wessels, our assistant surgeon, and Midshipmen Hawkins, Maury, Wurts, and Taylor. The morning was fair and beautiful, and with the French horn and Kent bugle from the band to enliven our picnic, we left the ship in fine spirits, with flags and pennants floating gaily in the land breeze wafting us out of the harbour. OF THE WEST SENTINEL. 255 Knowing the passage, between the rock called the "West Sentinel" and the main land to be wide enough for a boat, at the advice of the interpreter and the Taua, we took in sail, and went through it with our oars, for the double purpose of gratifying our curiosity and of shortening the distance. It was at low tide, however, and we found it dangerous, a tremendous current rushed westward, hurrying us onward with great velocity, while high breakers foamed upon beds of rocks within an oar's length on either side, and whirling eddies, both on the right and on the left, threatened to draw the boat irresistibly into their roaring vortices. Had it not been for the prompt directions of the old sorcerer, or whatever he may be called, in the pilotage, the risk we should have run would have been fearful indeed. There was no one in the cutter following us, to direct her right management through; and the moment we ourselves were in safety, signals were made for her to go round the rock, which fortunately were understood, before she had approached too near the danger to allow of changing her course. The western side of this Sentinel presents a most singular aspect. It is entirely bare and inaccessible, exhibiting on its face the most indubitable evidence of having once been in a state of fusion. The external configuration from the bottom to the top, a height of some hundred feet, is, without any special intervention of fancy, that of a succession of Gothic arches of lava, which assumed their present forms as it trickled and cooled, when a fluid, from some molten reservoir above. 256 CHARACTERISTIC SCENERY A few small trees of ironwood (casuarina), here called koa, crown the summit and stud the southern side; but everywhere else it is naked, and the chosen resort of unnumbered white gulls, seen soaring above or fluttering about the crevices in which they securely build their nests. A native, in despite of the heavy surf and sharp rocks presenting their points at every turn, had swum across the channel to the island, and with a small calibash in his hand, was searching the caves and ledges at its base, for cockle and other shell fish. These were the observations of a moment, as we lay on our oars waiting the arrival of the second boat. She was soon in sight; and, making sail again, we bore away, before the trade wind setting freshly along the coast, for our destination four or five miles westward. In less than an hour we suddenly opened the little valley. The intervening coast is high; and consisting, with scarce an exception, of bare and perfectly inaccessible cliffs, prepares one to be most forcibly struck with the richness and magnificence which burst on the eye, the moment of shooting past a rocky promontory sheltering the glen from the storms and violence of the sea. Immediately before us were two small basins, forming an inner and an outer harbour, neither more than half a mile in diameter. The nearest, as you approach, is encircled by small unoccupied hills of grass, studded with a coppice here and there, and affords a fine anchorage for shipping; while the second, just beyond, gives a ready access to the inhabited parts, by a circular sand beach, skirted with OF THE BAY AND GLEN. 257 heavy groves of the cocoa-nut and bread-fruit, the pandanus, tufted palmetto, and flowering hybiscus. On the left side of the glen a stupendous range of cliffs rises more than two thousand feet perpendicularly from the beach, in such wild and singular formation as to seem more like a highly wrought fancy sketch for a romance of the stage, than a scene in nature. The whole, from the first peak in the foreground to that in the most distant perspective, appears but a succession of richly wrought, mosscovered obelisks, arranged thickly against and upon one another, with such novel effect, that I can compare them only to so many gigantic stalactites, inverted after their formation, and planted as they stand, for the lasting admiration of all who may behold them. Directly opposite, on the right, across the thickly embowered glen, at the distance of half a mile only, imagery of a totally different character was presented: gently swelling hills of grass smiled beneath the morning sun with all the brightness and verdure of a lawn in June, as they rose one above another to the height of five or six hundred feet, and then terminated abruptly in a basaltic cliff, resting like a crown on the point in which they converged, the whole constituting a beautiful foreground to the rich growth and wild outline in the distance, where the gorge winds itself out of sight in the interior. I have gazed on much beautiful and much noble scenery in various parts of the world, and in a great variety of aspects; but must unhesitatingly proclaim triumph to the glen of Taioa over every thing of the kind I ever beheld. It is one of the scenes which words cannot portray, and to which the most vivid touches of a master's pencil can alone do justice, presenting, at a single glance, contrasts of the sublime and beautiful so conspicuous and so imposing, as irresistibly to elevate and charm the mind ever alive to their impressions. The unheard of notes of the bugle and the horn, echoing among the western cliffs as we gradually approached the shore, quickly brought groupe after groupe of the wondering inhabitants to the beach. This would not have been the case, however, had they not learned, from the visit made them yesterday, to regard us as friends. Otherwise they would have fled to their coverts, or mustered for a defence; for when the captain and his party entered the bay, and their boats first came in full sight of the shore, the old Taua and other islanders in company lay down for a moment in the bottom of the boats; and the moment the cutters, filled with foreigners only, were descried by the natives inland, they began a precipitate flight, catching the children in their arms and on their backs, and giving every evidence of the greatest terror. As soon as the success of the trick was thus manifest, the old patriarch rose up with a laugh, and beckoned to them with his fan till he was recognised, and the people returned as rapidly as they had fled, joining heartily themselves in the sport which their ready alarm had excited. On landing, we were conducted by our host to one of his houses in a grove adjoining the beach; and a first act, on his part, was to present me with a neat |