hat disease!" exclaimed Bob. "I
had it once, in an old v'y'ge round the Horn, and have no wish to try it
ag'in, But there must be fish in plenty among these rocks, Mr. Mark, and
we have a good stock of bread. By dropping the beef and pork, for a few
days at a time, might we not get shut of the danger?"

"Fish will help us, and turtle would be a great resource, could we meet
with any of _that_. But, man requires mixed food, meats and vegetables,
to keep him healthy; and nothing is so good for the scurvy as the last.
The worst of our situation is a want of soil, to grow any vegetables in.
I did not see so much as a rush, or the coarsest sea-plant, when we were
on the island yesterday. If we had soil, there is seed in plenty on
board, and this climate would bring forward vegetation at a rapid rate."

"Ay, ay, sir, and I'll tell you what I've got in the way of seeds,
myself. You may remember the delicious musk and watermelons we fell in
with last v'y'ge, in the east. Well, sir, I saved some of the seed,
thinking to give it to my brother, who is a Jarsey farmer, you know,
sir; and, sailor-like, I forgot it altogether, when in port. If a fellow
could get but a bit of earth to put them melon-seeds in, we might be
eating our fruit like gentlemen, two months hence, or three months, at
the latest."

"That is a good thought, Betts, and we will turn it over in our minds.
If such a thing is to be done at all, the sooner it is done the better,
that the melons maybe getting ahead while we are busy with the other
matters. This is just the season to put seed into the ground, and I
think we might make soil enough to sustain a few hills of melons. If I
remember right, too, there are some of the sweet potatoes left."

Bob assented, and during the rest of the meal they did nothing but
pursue this plan of endeavouring to obtain half-a-dozen or a dozen hills
of melons. As Mark felt all the importance of doing everything that lay
in his power to ward off the scurvy, and knew that time was not to be
lost, he determined that the very first thing he would now attend to,
would be to get all the seed into as much ground as he could contrive to
make. Accordingly, as soon as the breakfast was ended, Mark went to
collect his seeds Bob set the breakfast things aside, after properly
cleaning them.

There were four shoats on board, which had been kept in the launch,
until that boat was put into the water, the night the Rancocus ran upon
the rocks. S