three or four thriving young trees of
that class, which bore fruit a little better flavoured than most around
them, and cut away all their neighbours, letting in the sun and air
freely. He also trimmed their branches, and dug around the roots, which
he refreshed with guano; the use of which had been imparted by Mark to
his fellow-colonists, though Bigelow knew all about it from-having lived
in Peru, and Bob had early let the governor himself into the secret.

The governor and his lady, as the community now began to term Mr. and
Mrs. Mark Woolston, were on the point of embarking in the Neshamony, to
visit Vulcan's Peak, after a residence on the Reef of more than a month,
when the orders for sailing were countermanded, in consequence of
certain signs in the atmosphere, which indicated something like another
hurricane. The tempest came, and in good earnest, but without any of the
disastrous consequences which had attended that of the previous year. It
blew fearfully, and the water was driven into all the sounds, creeks,
channels and bays of the group, bringing many of the islands, isthmuses,
peninsulas, and plains of rock, what the seamen call 'awash,' though no
material portion was actually overflowed. At the Reef itself, the water
rose a fathom, but it did not reach the surface of the island by several
feet, and all passed off without any other consequences than giving the
new colonists a taste of the climate.

Mark, on this occasion, for the first time, noted a change that was
gradually taking place on the surface of the Reef, without the crater.
Most of its cavities were collecting deposits, that were derived from
various sources. Sea-weed, offals, refuse stuff of all kinds, the
remains of the deluge of fish that occurred the past year, and all the
indescribable atoms that ever contribute to form soil in the
neighbourhood of man. There were many spots on the Reef, of acres in
extent, that formed shallow basins, in which the surface might be two or
three inches lower than the surrounding rocks, and, in these spots in
particular, the accumulations of an incipient earthy matter were plainly
visible. As these cavities collected and retained the moisture, usually
from rain to rain, Mark had some of Friend Abraham White's grass-seed
sown over them, in order to aid nature in working out her own benevolent
designs. In less than a month, patches of green began to appear on the
dusky rocks, and there was good reason to hope tha