The intermediate zone does not, like the upper one, reach
into a damp and cloudy atmosphere, and therefore remains sterile.
The woods in the upper zone are very pretty, tree-ferns replacing
the cocoa-nuts on the coast. It must not, however, be supposed that
these woods at all equal in splendour the forests of Brazil. The
vast number of productions, which characterise a continent, cannot
be expected to occur in an island.
(PLATE 85. EIMEO AND BARRIER-REEF.)
From the highest point which I attained there was a good view of
the distant island of Eimeo, dependent on the same sovereign with
Tahiti. On the lofty and broken pinnacles white massive clouds were
piled up, which formed an island in the blue sky, as Eimeo itself
did in the blue ocean. The island, with the exception of one small
gateway, is completely encircled by a reef. At this distance, a
narrow but well-defined brilliantly white line was alone visible,
where the waves first encountered the wall of coral. The mountains
rose abruptly out of the glassy expanse of the lagoon, included
within this narrow white line, outside which the heaving waters of
the ocean were dark-coloured. The view was striking: it may aptly
be compared to a framed engraving, where the frame represents the
breakers, the marginal paper the smooth lagoon, and the drawing the
island itself.
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