The whole island presents a luxuriant appearance, being covered with cocoa-palms and other trees, and on the high ground several large fenced enclosures of cultivated ground--where among other plants we could distinguish the banana and sugar-cane--attested the fertility of the soil.

The western, and at present the leeward side of the island, as viewed from our anchorage exhibits the appearance of a broken ridge on its southern half with several eminences topped by immense detached blocks of rock, partially concealed by the trees--to this, in the centre, succeeds a break occupied by a very low irregular cliff behind a bay with a sandy beach--afterwards the land rises suddenly to form a hill, 665 feet in height, with a steep face to the north-west, and a gradual slope backwards--and beyond this another hill, not so high (386 feet) but somewhat similar in form, shut out our further view in that direction.

The mainland of New Guinea filled the background with a broken outline of ridges of wooded hills along the coast in front of a more distant and nearly continuous range of high mountains covered with trees up to their very summits.
NATIVES AND CATAMARANS.
Next morning we were visited by a party of natives from the neighbouring island, consisting of six men in a canoe, and one on a catamaran or raft.
They were perfectly unarmed and came boldly alongside with a quantity of yams and coconuts for barter; when their stock was exhausted, they returned for more, and, accompanied by others, repeated the visit several times during the day.

Although there was no obvious difference between these natives and those of the southern portion of the Louisiade, yet the catamaran was quite new to us, and the canoe differed considerably from any which we had seen before.
CATAMARANS AND CANOES.
The first catamaran was only nine feet long--it consisted of three thick planks lashed together, forming a sort of raft, which one man sitting a little behind the middle, with his legs doubled under him, managed very dexterously with his paddle.

We afterwards saw others of a larger size, some of them capable of carrying a dozen people with their effects.