According to the Admiralty chart this is the highest mountain in Vanua Levu, its elevation being 3,437 feet. It has twin peaks which lie either N.W. and S.E. or W.N.W. and E.S.E. with each other. The northerly or westerly peak is pointed and tooth-like. Hence probably arises its name of Mbatini (mbati-tooth). The southerly or easterly peak is known as Soro-levu. It has a broadly conical outline with a truncated summit. The mountain is named Koro-mbasanga in the Admiralty chart, a name that really belongs to a peak lying about 3 miles nearly due north (N. 5° W.). The natives are very clear in this matter; but it must be remarked in this connection that Koro-mbasanga, which signifies “a forked eminence,” would be a very suitable appellation for the double-peaked summit of Mbatini.[80] By the natives of the surrounding district the whole mountain is known as Mbatini; but by the natives of the eastern shores of Natewa Bay, it is usually known as Soro-levu, since the western peak is often more or less hidden from view or is less conspicuous. The profile of this mountain and of the neighbouring region is shown in the accompanying profile-sketches and also in one of those illustrating the Koro-mbasanga range on page 167.
As viewed from the top of Mariko to the southward, Mbatini presents itself as a long mountain-ridge, trending W.N.W. and E.S.E., which is connected on the north with Koro-tambu, the highest peak of the Koro-mbasanga Range, by a saddle probably not over 1,500 feet above the sea, and on the south with the mountain-ridge of Mariko by a _col_ which appears not to be under 1,000 feet in elevation.
[Illustration: Mount Mbatini from the top of Koro-mbasanga. The distant peak on the right is one of the summits of the Mariko ridge.]
[Illustration: View from Muanaira on the south coast of Natewa Bay.]
My ascent of this mountain was made from the north by the way of the Lovo valley. In ascending the Lovo valley one reaches, at an elevation of about 1,000 feet, the foot of the north slope of Mbatini. The slope is somewhat steep up to 2,000 feet, the rocks exposed on the surface being closely similar in the groundmass to those displayed in the upper part of the Lovo valley. They are compact-looking blackish augite-andesites (sp. gr. 2·7), the very small felspar-lathes of the groundmass, which are in flow arrangement, averaging only ·05 mm. in length. Like the rocks below, they are a little altered; and here the interstitial glass is also scanty. But they differ in the absence of rhombic pyroxene and are therefore referred to the augite-andesites (genus 13).