t a few years would
convert the whole Reef into a smiling, verdant plain. It was true, the
soil could not soon obtain any useful depth, except in limited spots;
but, in that climate, where warmth and moisture united to push
vegetation to the utmost, it was an easy thing to obtain a bottom for
grasses of almost all kinds.

Nor did Mark's provident care limit itself to this one instance of
forethought. Socrates was sent in the dinghy to the prairie, over which
the hogs had now been rooting for fully two months, mixing together mud
and sea-weed, somewhat loosely it is true, but very extensively; and
there he scattered Timothy-seed in tolerable profusion. Socrates was a
long-headed, as well as a long-footed fellow, and he brought back from
this expedition a report that was of material importance to the future
husbandry of the colonists. According to his statement, this large
deposit of mud and sea-weed lay on a peninsula, that might be barricaded
against the inroads of hogs, cattle, &c., by a fence of some two or
three rods in length. This was a very favourable circumstance, where
wood was to be imported for many years to come, if not for ever; though
the black had brought the seeds of certain timbers, from the Peak, and
put them into the ground in a hundred places on the Reef, where the
depth of deposit, and other circumstances, seemed favourable to their
growth. As for the Prairie, could it be made to grow grasses, it would
be a treasure to the colony, inasmuch as its extent reached fully to a
thousand acres. The examination of Socrates was flattering in other
respects. The mud was already dry, and the deposit of salt did riot seem
to be very great; little water having been left there after the
eruption, or lifting of the earth's crust. The rains had done much, and
certain coarse, natural grasses, were beginning to show themselves in
various parts of the field. As the hogs would not be likely to root over
the same spot twice, it was not proposed to exclude them, but they were
permitted to range over the field at pleasure, in the hope that they
would add to its fertility by mixing the materials for soil. In such a
climate, every change of a vegetable character was extremely rapid, and
now that no one thought of abandoning the settlement, it was very
desirable to obtain the different benefits of civilization as soon as
possible.

All the blacks remained at the Reef, where Mark himself passed a good
deal of his time. In th