ith our adventurers, nine in number, without meeting with the slightest
obstacle. Once at sea, of course nothing but that caused by the elements
was to be anticipated. Cape Horn was doubled in due time, are Doctor
Heaton, with all under his care, was landed at Panama, just five months,
to a day, after leaving New York. Here passages were taken in the same
brig that Bob had returned in, which was again bound out, on a
pearl-fishing voyage. Previously to quitting Panama, however, a recruit
was engaged in the person of a young American shipwright, of the name of
Bigelow, who had run from his ship a twelvemonth before, to marry a
Spanish girl, and who had become heartily tired of his life in Panama.
He and his wife and child joined the party, engaging to serve the
Heatons, for a stipulated sum, for the term of two years.

The voyage from Panama to, the pearl islands was a long one, but far
from unpleasant. Sixty days after leaving port the adventurers were
safely landed, with all their effects. These included two cows, with a
young bull, two yearling colts, several goats obtained in South America,
and various implements of husbandry that it had not entered into the
views of Friend Abraham White to send to even the people of Fejee. With
the natives of the pearl island, Bob, already known to them and a
favourite, had no difficulty in negotiating. He had brought them
suitable and ample presents, and soon effected an arrangement, by which
they agreed to transport him and all his stores, the animals included,
to Betto's Islands, a distance of fully three hundred miles. The horses
and cows were taken on a species of catamaran, or large raft, that is
much used in those mild seas, and which sail reasonably well a little
off the wind, and not very badly on. At Betto's Islands a new bargain
was struck, and the whole party proceeded to Rancocus Island, Bob making
his land-fall without any difficulty, from having observed the course
steered in coming from it.

At Betto's group, however, Bob found the Neshamony, covered with mats,
and tabooed, precisely as he had left her to a rope-yarn. Not a human
hand had touched anything belonging to the boat, or a human foot
approached it, during the whole time of his absence. Ooroony, or Betto,
was rewarded for his fidelity by the present of a musket and some
ammunition, articles that were really of the last importance to his
dignity and power. They were as good as a standing army to him, actually