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of green; the groves of graceful palm-trees; the dazzling
■white foam of the breakers on the coral reefs, contrasted by the
deep blue of the sea, combined to form a most enchanting view.
At a distance in the west, Eimeo (Moorea) showed a picturesque
outline, and added to the beauty of a scene which
surpassed our ideas, even heightened as they had been by the
descriptions of former voyagers.
Passing Point Venus, and avoiding the Dolphin Shoal, we
worked up to an anchorage in Matavai Bay. No pilot appeared,
but had we waited in the offing, a very good one'* would have
offered his services. With a fresh hreeze, we gained the anchorage
so quickly that few natives had time to hasten on board,
as is their usual custom : only one long canoe came alongside
while we sailed in : it was made of half a tree, hollowed out,
with a narrow rough plank laced to each side, and an outrigger,
consisting of two crooked branches, secured to the canoe
and to a long piece of light wood which floated in the water
parallel to it. This out-rigger extended eight or ten feet from
the ticklish conveyance, and enabled four men to sit at their
ease in the narrow trunk of a tree that had never exceeded a
foot in diameter.
The personal appearance of these men was to me most remarkable
: tall and athletic, with very well-formed heads and a good
expression of countenance, they at once made a favourable
impression, which their quiet good-humour and tractable disposition
afterwards heightened very much. To my eye they
differed from the aborigines of southern South America in the
form of their heads; in the width or height of the cheek-bones ;
in their eye-brows; in their colour; and most essentially in
the expression of their countenances. High foreheads ; defined
and prominent eyebrows; with a rich, bronze colour, give an
Asiatic expression to the upper part of their faces; but the
flat noses (carefully flattened in infancy), and thick lips, are
like those of the South Americans.
By the time the vessel was secured, a number of canoes had
• CaUed James Mitchell, though an aboriginal Otaheitan.
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