rry the box wrapped in oil-skin. For if
anything happen to _them,_ Heaven help us."

He crossed the prostrate palm-tree, and dived into the wood. It was a
large beautiful wood, and, except at the western edge, the trees were all
of the palm-tree genus, but contained several species, including the
cocoanut tree. The turf ran under these trees for about forty yards and
then died gradually away under the same thick shade which destroyed all
other vegetation in this wood, and made it so easy to see and travel.

He gathered a few cocoanuts that had burst out of their ripe pods and
fallen to the ground; and ran on till he reached a belt of trees and
shrubs, that bounded the palm forest. Here his progress was no longer
easy. But he found trees covered with a small fruit resembling quinces in
every particular of look, taste and smell, and that made him persevere,
since it was most important to learn the useful products of the island.
Presently he burst through some brushwood into a swampy bottom surrounded
by low trees, and instantly a dozen large birds of the osprey kind rose
flapping into the air like windmills rising. He was quite startled by the
whirring and flapping, and not a little amazed at the appearance of the
place. Here was a very charnel-house; so thick lay the shells, skeletons
and loose bones of fish. Here too he found three terrapin killed but not
eaten, and also some fish, more or less pecked. "Aha! my worthy
executioners, much obliged," said he. "You have saved me that job." And
into the bag went the terrapin, and two plump fish, but slightly
mutilated. Before he had gone many yards, back came the sailing wings,
and the birds settled again before his eyes. The rest of the low wood was
but thin, and he soon emerged upon the open country; but it was most
unpromising; and fitter for geese than men. A vast sedgy swamp with water
in the middle, thin fringes of great fern-trees, and here and there a
disconsolate tree like a weeping-willow, and at the end of this lake and
swamp, which all together formed a triangle, was a barren hill without a
blade of vegetation on it, and a sort of jagged summit Hazel did not at
all like the look of. Volcanic!

Somewhat dismayed at finding so large a slice of the island worthless, he
returned through the wood, guiding himself due west by his
pocket-compass, and so got down to the shore, where he found scallops and
cray-fish in incredible abundance. Literally, he had only to go int