l vegetation, and that this or that
is quickened, as particular influences are brought to bear by means of
climate and other agents.

After resting himself for an hour in that delicious grove, Mark began to
roam around the plain, to get an idea of its beauties and extent. The
former were inexhaustible, offering every variety of landscape, from the
bold and magnificent to the soft and bewitching. There were birds
innumerable, of the most brilliant plumage, and some that Mark imagined
must be good to eat. In particular did he observe an immense number of
a very small sort that were constantly pecking at a wild fig, of which
there was a grove of considerable extent. The fig itself, he did not
find as palatable as he had hoped, though it was refreshing, and served
to vary the diet; but the bird struck him to be of the same kind as the
celebrated reed-bird, of the Philadelphia market, which we suppose to be
much the same as the _becca fichi_ of Italy. Being provided with
mustard-seed shot, Mark loaded his piece properly, and killed at least
twenty of these little creatures at one discharge. After cleaning them,
he struck a light by means of the pan and some powder, and kindled a
fire. Here was wood, too, in any quantity, an article of which he had
feared in time he might be in want, and which he had already begun to
husband, though used only in his simple cookery. Spitting half-a-dozen
of the birds, they were soon roasted. At the same time he roasted a
bunch of plantain, and, being provided with pepper and salt in his pack,
as well as with some pilot-bread, and a pint-bottle of rum, we are
almost ashamed to relate how our young explorer dined. Nothing was
wanting to such a meal but the sweets of social converse. Mark fancied,
as he sat enjoying that solitary repast, so delicious of itself, and
which was just enough sweetened with toil to render it every way
acceptable, that he could gladly give up all the rest of the world, for
the enjoyment of a paradise like that before him, with Bridget for his
Eve.

The elevation of the mountain rendered the air far more grateful and
cool than he was accustomed to find it, at mid-summer, down on the Reef,
and the young man was in a sort of gentle intoxication while breathing
it. Then it was that he most longed for a companion, though little did
he imagine how near he was to some of his species, at that very moment;
and how soon that, the dearest wish of his heart, was to be met by an
a