NAVIGATOR ISLANDS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume III, Issue 145, 11 February 1876, Page 12

NAVIGATOR ISLANDS.

Fob mere beauty of scenery the Navigator Islands are probably eqtial if not superior to any in the Pacific. The scenery of the Sandwich Islands, although grand, is somewhat cheerless; the Friendly Islands are superlatively fertile, but too tame and low lying to be thoroughly picturesque ; the Feejees are in many places sterile and forbidding; while Ceylon, perhaps the most fertile island in the world, is so only in the interior. Alone of all the ocean groups the Navigators do not disappoint when first seen, nor belie when better known the expectations they have raised. The best view of the group generally is obtained only from the sea, and thus alone can the full beauty and grandeur of the scenery be realised. Seen from the deck of a vessel a few miles off the land there are not many tropical islands that present a more beautiful or picturesque appearance than Upolu. Though not so hio-h as Savaii by 1000 feet, it nevertheless shows a bold and majestic front. Perhaps, indeed, the weather-beaten rocks that form the mountain summits are if anything too stem and gloomy for a purely tropical landscape. They are, however, not often visible, but are generally shrouded by fleecy masses of vapour, or wrapped in mist or storm-clouds. Immediately below this stony region vegetation commences. At first the trees are small and stunted, and the undergrowth thin. But with every foot of descent the vegetation changes rapidly in character, until within an incredibly short space of time the forest becomes thoroughly and completely tropical. Trees of a hundred different species now struggle with each other* for sunlight and air. The soil is a rich loam, composed of decaying vegetable forms. Overhead the trees meet, forming a leafy canopy through A\hich the vertical rays of the sun strive in vain to pierce. Beneath this the traveller walks in dim, uncertain twilight. Around him all is hot, moist, and decaying. The air is sickly and oppressive, the grass rank and matted, while from trunk*, and bough hang long snake-like creepers and supple vines, that x trail along the ground, and at every step trip up the unwary. On the trunks and branches of the trees are clusters of rare ferns and orchids that would be the glory of an American hot-house • but here they stand in need of no protecting roof. They grow luxuriantly on the moss-covered bark and dead wood, and reck little of sunlight or fresh breezes. Among these forest-trees are many on which the natives depend for life. There is the ivi (whose bitter nuts are eaten in times of scarcity) ; the orange, the luin, and the bread-fruit. Then there is the stately cotton-tree, the sombre dilo and the cocoa-nut palm with its leafy crown, at once the glory and* wealth of the South-sea Islands. The ground in many places is covered with flowers as if with a carpet, while in others it is grown over with a dense and impenetrable mass of shrubs and flowering plants. Here is the home of the wild indigo and yam, the nutmeg and arrowroot, the hibiscus and the oleander, the sweet potato, the banana, and, lastly, of that shrub from which the natives extract the strange drink they call kava. — 'Overland Monthly,'