pared
of concrete ashes, scoriae &c., but which might have borne the weight of
a loaded wagon. This crust once broken, which it was not very difficult
to do by means of pick and crows, the materials beneath were found loose
enough for the purposes of agriculture, almost without using the spade.
Now, space being abundant, Mark drew lines, in fanciful and winding
paths, leaving the crust for his walks, and only breaking into the loose
materials beneath, wherever he wished to form a bed. This variety served
to amuse him and Betts, and they worked with so much the greater zeal,
as their labours produced objects that were agreeable to the eye, and
which amused them now, while they promised to benefit them hereafter. As
each bed, whether oval, winding or straight, was dug, the loam and
sea-weed was mixed up in it, in great abundance, after which it was
sown, or planted.

Mark was fully aware that many of Friend Abraham White's seeds, if they
grew and brought their fruits to maturity, would necessarily change
their properties in that climate; some for the worse, and others for the
better. From the Irish potato, the cabbage, and most of the more
northern vegetables, he did not expect much, under any circumstances;
but, he thought he would try all, and having several regularly assorted
boxes of garden-seeds, just as they had been purchased out of the shops
of Philadelphia, his garden scarce wanted any plant that was then known
to the kitchens of America.

Our mariners were quite a fortnight preparing, manuring, and sowing
their _parterre_, which, when complete, occupied fully half an acre in
the very centre of the crater, Mark intending it for the nucleus of
future similar works, that might convert the whole hundred acres into a
garden. By the time the work was done, the rains were less frequent,
though it still came in showers, and those that were still more
favourable to vegetation. In that fortnight the plants on the mount had
made great advances, showing the exuberance and growth of a tropical
climate. It sometimes, nay, it often happens, that when the sun is the
most genial for vegetation, moisture is wanting to aid its power, and,
in some respects, to counteract its influence. These long and periodical
droughts, however, are not so much owing to heat as to other and local
causes, Mark now began to hope, as the spring advanced, that his little
territory was to be exempt, in a great measure, from the curse of
droughts, the