But by degrees these thoughts left me, and I began to be much
taken up again with the interesting peculiarities of the country which
we were passing through.
The second night we passed in a manner somewhat similar to the first,
at about two-thirds of the way round the island, as we calculated, and
we hoped to sleep on the night following at our bower. I will not here
note so particularly all that we said and saw during the course of this
second day, as we did not make any further discoveries of great
importance. The shore along which we travelled, and the various parts
of the woods through which we passed, were similar to those which have
been already treated of. There were one or two observations that we
made, however, and these were as follows:--
We saw that, while many of the large fruit-bearing trees grew only in
the valleys, and some of them only near the banks of the streams, where
the soil was peculiarly rich, the cocoa-nut palm grew in every place
whatsoever; not only on the hillsides, but also on the seashore, and
even, as has been already stated, on the coral reef itself, where the
soil, if we may use the name, was nothing better than loose sand
mingled with broken shells and coral rock. So near to the sea, too, did
this useful tree grow, that in many places its roots were washed by the
spray from the breakers. Yet we found the trees growing thus on the
sands to be quite as luxuriant as those growing in the valleys, and the
fruit as good and refreshing also.
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