They form all the harbours of this group, including the twenty-four round about the shores of Tahiti.

Curiously enough, the openings in the reefs, by which alone vessels enter to their anchorage, are invariably opposite the mouths of running streams: an advantage fully appreciated by the mariner who touches for the purpose of watering his ship.
It is said that the fresh water of the land, mixing with the salts held in solution by the sea, so acts upon the latter as to resist the formation of the coral; and hence the breaks.

Here and there, these openings are sentinelled, as it were, by little fairy islets, green as emerald, and waving with palms.

Strangely and beautifully diversifying the long line of breakers, no objects can strike the fancy more vividly.

Pomaree II., with a taste in watering-places truly Tahitian, selected one of them as a royal retreat.