the principle on which Mahomet preferred his old wife to
his young one--because "he believed in me." Devoted to him as Caliban in
the _Tempest_ to his friend Trinculo--

"I showed him the best springs, I plucked him berries.
And I with my long nails did dig him pig-nuts."

His curiosity on this occasion was largely excited by my description of
the Doocot Cave; and, setting out one morning to explore its wonders,
armed with John Feddes's hammer, in the benefits of which my friend was
permitted liberally to share, we failed, for that day at least, in
finding our way back.

It was on a pleasant spring morning that, with my little curious friend
beside me, I stood on the beach opposite the eastern promontory, that,
with its stern granitic wall, bars access for ten days out of every
fourteen to the wonders of the Doocot; and saw it stretching provokingly
out into the green water. It was hard to be disappointed, and the caves
so near. The tide was a low neap, and if we wanted a passage dry-shod,
it behoved us to wait for at least a week; but neither of us understood
the philosophy of neap-tides at the period. I was quite sure I had got
round at low water with my uncles not a great many days before, and we
both inferred, that if we but succeeded in getting round now, it would
be quite a pleasure to wait among the caves inside until such time as
the fall of the tide should lay bare a passage for our return. A narrow
and broken shelf runs along the promontory, on which, by the assistance
of the naked toe and the toe-nail, it is just possible to creep. We
succeeded in scrambling up to it; and then, crawling outwards on all
fours--the precipice, as we proceeded, beetling more and more formidable
from above, and the water becoming greener and deeper below--we reached
the outer point of the promontory; and then doubling the cape on a still
narrowing margin--the water, by a reverse process, becoming shallower
and less green as we advanced inwards--we found the ledge terminating
just where, after clearing the sea, it overhung the gravelly beach at an
elevation of nearly ten feet. Adown we both dropped, proud of our
success; up splashed the rattling gravel as we fell; and for at least
the whole coming week--though we were unaware of the extent of our good
luck at the time--the marvels of the Doocot Cave might be regarded as
solely and exclusively our own. For one short seven days--to borrow
emphasis from the phraseology